It’s Saturday – and thank you Jesus! This week has been crazy – I feel like I’ve been angry at every turn. My job requires me to be patient with the people I interact with (yours probably does too). The deal with anyone who deals with customers or coworkers is that you’re allowed to be mad if you’re the customer, but no one else can be angry or irrational. And that sucks. It is just an awful situation. As a professional, you have to sit there and take abuse, try to explain things calmly, and keep a level head. You have to be empathetic toward’s the customer’s plight, even if it’s their own fault for making some stupid mistake.
What I can’t stand then, is at the end of my week, when I’m at a Huddle House at 11:30 at night trying to get food with friends, a waitress who is not only incompetent, but is unapologetic about it. Several of my friends between two tables had switched seats, but my friend Ruff and I remained in our places, and we’re the only ones who didn’t get our food until the very, very last.
That’s because our incompetent waitress sent our food to a completely different table. Then when the people didn’t recognize the food, she left it on their table and said “Well, this has to be somebody’s food,” and after I and Ruff said several times “That’s our food,” she said “No, you’re table 9, this says table 10.” Eventually, everyone in our group of friends had gotten their food and eaten, and she came back around and looked at me and Ruff three times and said “What did you guys have?” and we told her, but didn’t get our food for at least 20 more minutes.
When it arrived, she brought me my meal but had given me hashbrowns instead of the grits and toast I had asked for. I didn’t complain, even though it had all been overcooked and rushed out, because if I sent it back I wouldn’t get my food still for another 20 minutes while she had it cooked and lost again.
I went to pay for my food, she asked what I had, and I said “Two egg breakfast with sausage, grits and toast,” and I swear to you, she said “Did you have fries with that?” I of course answered “No,” and looked at her with disdain. Then she accused me saying “You had hashbrowns!” and I told her I didn’t order hashbrowns, but she had brought them to me anyway and I wasn’t about to ask her to fix it, for reasons stated above. She started to add to the $4.49 total and I said “Here, this is what I’m going to do, because I’m pretty frustrated with you. I’m going to give you $5, you’re going to keep the change, but you’re not getting a tip, because this is unacceptable,” and I walked away. One of the other customers (I think it was the one who got my food the first time) clapped loudly. While I was talking to my friends back at the table, she came up behind me and slammed my change down on the table and said “Sorry about the confusion. Here’s your change!” and stormed off.
It all worked out alright though – we left and drove back to my place. I fell asleep in the living room on the couch watching TV with Kylara. We had caught up on Heroes and then Firefly was on, and that’s about all I remember before passing out. I’ve been exhausted all this week and I really needed to sleep. Today I woke up around noon, made some sausage biscuits, and just relaxed in front of the TV. I wish the weekend were longer, but I will enjoy it while it’s here.