It’s safe to assume that individuals who’ve worked as servers themselves are the waiting staff’s favorite customers. That’s because they’ve experienced firsthand just how aggravating some people can be, so they wouldn’t want to be such people to their fellow waiters.
A server herself, Gina, going on TikTok under the moniker ‘whatsthatmeen’, has recently described such customers after having to deal with a few right before the end of her shift. In addition to coming minutes before closing and being quite rude, they also didn’t splurge on tips, all of which made the woman quite annoyed.
Scroll down to find the video that went viral and Bored Panda’s interviews with Gina herself, as well as with a Senior Lecturer of Management at Parker College of Business at Georgia Southern University and expert in the hospitality industry, Dr. Stanley Suboleski, who were kind enough to answer a few of our questions.
After having to deal with some aggravating customers, Gina took to TikTok to share how she feels about such people
“Tonight I had a table come in minutes before close and they tipped me $2 on a $184 check and they paid in five $20’s and 86 $1 ones. They sat there on their phones. It was a mom, a dad, and a kid. And they each sat there on a separate phone call having a full conversation with whoever the hell they were talking to.”
“Me and my trainee kept going up to them, right up to the table saying like, ‘Hey guys, you guys ready? All right, you guys’… And they are just ignoring us, ignoring us as if we are not standing in front of them, as if we have not opened our mouths and spoken words to them multiple times. Just blatant disrespect.
And then when they finally do decide to order, it takes a solid 10 minutes for them to do so. And only two of them ordered.”
“One of them wasn’t going to have anything else. 10 minutes, I was standing there like, is this real life? Like, they’re like, ‘Wait, what’s this, what’s this, wait, what’s that, what sides y’all got? What’s this? Wait, I’ll have this. No, I’m gonna have that. No, I’m gonna have this. Wait, wait,’ and then just staring at the menu in silence for like three minutes, talking… ‘Wait, what you getting?’ Like, what are you doing? Do you not care at all? Obviously not. I even let you order shots after last call.”
“The bartender was basically done. And I’m like, ‘Hey, can they get two more shots? She’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s fine’. Like, I gave you stuff to… I gave you bread to go, I gave you drinks to go. You did not get bad service. Because me and my trainee did not let you know that we were annoyed. “
“We had the whole smile on and the this and the that and bubbly and making jokes. And they got great service. They didn’t get end of the night s*** service because I don’t give that. I’ve been working in restaurants for 20 years, and I understand this s*** happens as part of the job. I get it.
But it will never not infuriate me when it happens. Reason being is treating your server that way or anyone else, for that matter, is just a blatant disrespect for your fellow human. Like, hey, give me your face. Slap. And that might sound corny, but that’s literally what it is.
As you walked out the restaurant, did it feel good to you? Were you like, yeah, good for you, yeah. Like, did you feel okay doing that?”
“But, you know, people like that don’t think about things like that. They just don’t. Because they have no conscience. They have no self-awareness. They don’t have any kindness in their soul.
Like, who raised you? That’s what I want to know. Who raised you? God, man. Like, oh, whoever you are, just know that you suck. You absolutely suck. And I hope your kid doesn’t grow up to be like you, even though they probably will.”
Her ‘Server Rant’ video has been viewed close to 250k times on TikTok
@whatsthatmeen What’s the worst tip you ever got? I love paying $3 to take care of crappy humans! 😁😁 #hospitalityindustry #serverlife #servertok ♬ original sound – Gina 🍉
Rude behavior is what upset Gina the most
Image credits: cottonbro studio/Pexels (not the actual photo)
Discussing the situation with Bored Panda, Gina said that the main thing that made her upset was how disrespectful the customers were. “Ignoring someone while they are standing right in front of you and speaking to you, and having no consideration for their time is just plain rude. I would never do that to someone,” she said.
In her opinion, the way someone treats their server says a lot about their character. “That’s why so many people say they will judge their date based on the way they treated wait staff. Honestly, the way people treat anyone in general says a lot about their character.”
The TikToker shared that she believes that people who have not worked in the restaurant industry have no clue what the job is actually like, as it is much more physically, mentally and emotionally taxing than many of them realize. “I’ve worked in restaurants for 20 years and I can’t even tell you how many people will quit mid-training because they didn’t realize how hard it is.
“Another thing a lot of folks don’t realize is servers are paid below minimum wage. In some states it is as low as $2.13 an hour,” she pointed out. “A server’s paycheck usually ranges from $0 to maybe $50 on a good week. On top of that, servers have to tip-out a percentage of the table’s bill to the restaurant. So, if the server is left with no tip, the server is in the negative and is literally paying to take care of that table.”
According to an expert in the hospitality industry, Dr. Stanley Suboleski, there are conflicting opinions on the origin and development of tips in the western world. In a recent interview with Bored Panda, he noted that the US is the largest region in the world that has a tipping system meant to support and abet the employer’s wages paid to the server. “So much so that we have specific tax processes to follow for tipped employees (not just in the restaurant sector, but certainly most prevalent),” he said.
She believes that a good tip is not a given, it’s something you have to work for
Image credits: cottonbro studio/Pexels (not the actual photo)
“I take a lot of pride in my job,” Gina told Bored Panda. “I understand that I chose to take a tipped position and I understand that I have to work for my tip. I do not believe that I simply deserve a 20% tip because I showed up. I understand that I have to deliver a certain level of service and give a great experience to deserve that tip, and I make sure to do just that.
“I want to be very clear that this table did not receive bad service. I don’t care if you’re there late, early, sad, mad, funny, old, young – I see each table as an opportunity to make my money and am going to do everything I can to make sure my guests have a great time,” the server added.
“And for anyone who says they don’t tip because they think the system is unfair and wrong and the employer should just pay us more – stay home. Because if you really felt it was so wrong, you wouldn’t dine at a full-service restaurant and not tip your server because all you are doing in that situation is supporting the system you think is so wrong while simultaneously hurting the server. By giving the restaurant your money, you are condoning the thing you say you are so against.”
“All in all, just be kind to your server,” she said, adding that with the customers she described in the viral video, the tip was just the icing on top. “It was the lack of respect that really got me.”
When we discussed the things customers do that upset servers the most, she emphasized that such behavior is arguably what the waiting staff hates the most. “There are a lot of things guests do that are annoying—as with any job—but I can tell you the number one thing that infuriates servers is nasty, rude, disrespectful behavior.
“We always appreciate kind people at our table and I promise you we are in the back talking about how nice we think you are. ‘Oh my goodness table 213 is soooo nice! Ahh, it’s so refreshing… What great people!’ is not uncommon to hear during the shift,” Gina added.
“Is the customer always right” remains a million-dollar question
Image credits: Igor Starkov/Pexels (not the actual photo)
Another thing the TikToker believed wasn’t really courteous was customers coming in right before closing. “Picture yourself walking into a restaurant minutes before they close, telling the server you dine there all the time (which would imply you know the menu), taking 15 minutes to stare at the menu, having a ten-minute non-important phone call, ignoring the server multiple times while they are speaking to you—mind you, they were not on their phones at this time—then saying you’re ready to order when you’re actually not and taking a literal ten minutes to order your food, at which point the restaurant has been closed for quite some time and you are the only guests in the building, and then leaving them a one percent tip. It couldn’t be me,” Gina said.
While situations like this are far from servers’ favored scenario, Dr. Suboleski pointed out that closing time is when the last customer leaves. “If your doors are open and your lights are on, and it happens within posted operating hours, then the customer should be served,” he said, adding that the money they spend would likely cover the costs of staying open later than forecasted.
“More importantly, it turns a potential negative customer experience into a positive one by serving the customer, as opposed to denying them,” the expert said. “Remember word of mouth – you want to avoid public negative feedback.”
Such a view might make you wonder, should the staff always agree with the customer so they avoid negative feedback? Is the customer really always right? Suboleski pointed out that that’s a thing restaurant managers discuss quite often, and that in his opinion: no, they are not.
“Many hospitality guests are entirely unaware of the procedures or systems in place at an establishment that allows it to produce semi-customized products concurrently for a diverse base of customers. That ignorance can lead to perceptions of poor service quality when such a guest decides that they are not getting what they want, how they want it,” he explained.
“A bigger topic that I believe has emerged, mainly due to our immediate social media world, is that service staff have severely dropped their tolerance for customers that are demanding or offensive,” Suboleski added. “They themselves take the position that the customer is in the wrong. They have also lost or abandoned the skill to negotiate with unhappy customers.”
According to him, old-school managers believe the customer is right as long as the expense in serving them does not outweigh the return in revenue. “There are, of course, arguments about the quality and impact of negative word of mouth, which is statistically supported in studies to outweigh the power of positive word of mouth by about 5 to 1. I think the managerial panic seen by today’s industry leaders in response to viral and potentially negative postings about operations plays a part. Servers seem to have taken a position that providing service does not equate to being servile, and feel empowered to decide whether a customer’s behavior is acceptable to them.”
People in the comments seemed to have found some other common pain points
Gina was seemingly not the only one having to deal with such customers
Some TikTokers criticized the woman’s attitude
