My first night on the dining floor, a crotchety octogenarian with eyebrows drawn down into a permanent scowl had to wait ten
extra minutes for his steak, and spent the time amusing himself by making me cry. He called me an idiot, asked if I could do anything right, and demanded that I get him a waitress who knew what she was doing. It cut my people-pleasing heart to the quick. I had never had a grown-up be so mean to me before (and yes, at sixteen, I still thought of them as “grown-ups.”) He was like the real life version of Old Mister Smithers from Scooby Doo. I stumbled back to the line and managed to tell my supervisor that my customer wanted a new server before I burst into tears and ran for the back room, where I sobbed and swore to myself that my first night of waitressing would be my last. Fortunately, one of the battle-hardened, apron-clad warriors of the Shoney’s front lines came and found me there. She assured me that it would get better (and so would I), and by the time the sobs had subsided to sniffles, I was ready to give it another try -- Katrina/Notes on a Napkin.

Full post here

DFO: I wished a waitress would start a blog, detailing the cluelessness of the eating public. I've heard horror stories from waitress friends re: the increasingly nasty attitude of cuss-tomers -- and how hard it is to keep cooks, managers and other servers happy. Regularly, cuss-tomers stiff hard-working waitresses b/c they're upset at something that's totally outside the waitress's control, like the temperature of the room. Or the quality of the food. You should tip well unless there's a legitimate reason not to do so.

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