The day I made a waitress cry*

January 29, 2007

There’s a crappy little bar called Our House near my apartment that has a pretty sweet dinner deal—two-for-one burgers and appetizers every evening. So if you go with an even number of people, and everyone gets burgers, dinner’s half price. They offer lots of different burgers, all for reasonable prices (even before the discount), and if you want to substitute a chicken breast or a veggie burger you can do so at no extra charge. And, shockingly, their burgers are pretty good.

As a student without a whole lot of equity, cheap eating is a priority for me, so I’ve been a frequent two-for-one burgerer. It’s a great deal and two blocks away—sure beats cooking. My favorite burger to order is the grilled cheeseburger, which is exactly what you would expect—a burger patty in the middle of a grilled cheese sandwich. It’s a real insider order, too, since it’s not listed with the rest of the burgers (I guess because it’s not on a regular bun)—it’s under the “Sandwiches” heading instead. Anyway, it’s freaking delicious, and you don’t have to waste any valuable chewing time on vegetables.

Okay, so on to the story. (Incidentally, this story is pretty boring for a while, but I encourage you to stick with it. Two-thirds through I turn into a real dickhead.)

My friend and I walked into Our House and a girl who looked to be in the appropriate age bracket for Baby Einstein videos welcomed us and asked how many were in our party. Apparently she was our waitress—it wasn’t, in fact, Bring Your Middle-School-Aged Daughter to Work Day.

Anyway, my friend and I sat down and the waitress came over and handed us menus, then she walked away, without getting our drink orders. She came back a minute later and asked if we wanted drinks. We ordered whatever we decided we wanted, and off she went again. Based on the weird behavior and some awkwardness in the ordering process—not to mention the fact that she could have passed for a bat mitzvah—my friend and I speculated that it might be the waitress’s first day. We were old hands, though, having eaten there many times, so when she came back with our drinks we were ready with our order. I asked for my usual, the extremely tasty grilled cheeseburger.

The food came, and it was greasy and delicious as always. So far, everything had gone pretty smoothly. The waitress still seemed sort of nervous and awkward, but—and let me emphasize this—at this pointI hadn’t made anyone cry.

But then the check came. I noticed that the bill was approximately double what it ought to have been. Of course, I figure it out pretty quickly—the waitress hadn’t given us the discount. So when she came back for the check I explained that, because it was happy hour, burgers were two-for-one. Her face fell.

“The grilled cheeseburger doesn’t count for the two-for-one—only the burgers listed in the ‘Burger’ section are half-price.”

Of course I told her that there must be some mistake, since I had ordered it before.

The waitress said that it was her first day working there (just as I suspected!), but she thought that the grilled cheeseburger wasn’t part of the two-for-one promotion. But she wasn’t sure, so she went off to check with the manager. She seemed shaken, but I guess this kind of stupid conversation is not what you want on your first day.

A minute later, she returned. She said she had checked with the manager. He had, apparently, confirmed that the grilled cheeseburger was not part of the two-for-one promotion.

I explained my perspective to her in a little more detail: I was a regular customer, and I’d ordered the grilled cheeseburger many times, and had in fact gotten the discount—had, just to be crystal clear, asked my waitresses to confirm that it was eligible for the discount before I ordered. Now it’s important that you understand my tone throughout this back-and-forth. I had been civil, friendly, and dispassionate. I wasn’t yelling or arguing, just trying to get some clarity. Unfortunately, things were about to get a little more complicated.

I was happy to pay full price if that was the policy, I stressed—I just wanted to know why I had gotten the discount every time I’d been there before.

Okay, time out. There’s something else you have to know about me for the rest of this story to make sense. In person, I’m very difficult to read. The line between sarcasm and sincerity, in terms of my tone of voice and my expression, is Nicole Ritchie thin. People who have known me well since the last millennium can’t always tell that I’m joking. So you need to understand this—what I did next was not serious. I was making light of the situation by affecting a caricature of customer immaturity. I swear.

Having just explained my confusion—why did I get half off before yet get charged full price now?—I slammed my fist down on the wooden table. The glasses and dishes clattered. “Your policy is inconsistent!” I said. Well, maybe I kind of exclaimed it. I’m almost positive I didn’t yell it. But the important thing is, I was just kidding.

In a cloud of dust, she fled the table. Before I knew it, her manager was leaning across the table.

“Listen, pal. The grilled cheeseburger isn’t part of the two-for-one, and it never has been.”

First of all, I think we can all agree that “pal” doesn’t get unironically used nearly enough. Anyway, I was game for another round of this, so I explained again that I was happy to pay full price. I just thought, since I’d been told as much several times prior, that I’d get half off this time, too. He told me, awesomely, that if I’d ever gotten half off, my waitress had had to cover the difference out of her paycheck.

Now aside from the fact that you might expect that this would have gotten the point across to the staff, precluding them from telling me it was half off, it also struck me as the wrong attitude to take with a paying customer. What the hell, eat the $2.50 loss and give me the stupid discount. It’s not like the sandwich costs the bar any more than the regular burgers—in fact it’s cheaper, since they don’t have to pay for rancid month-old lettuce or tomatoes. Don’t try to guilt-trip me with images of my former waitresses bankrupted by my cruel burger-eating. Just build a little goodwill and tell me that I get the discount this time, but from now on it’s full price. But that’s not the direction in which the manager opted to go. Instead, he decided to pick a fight and imply that I was a niggard. I felt it was a curious choice.^**

At any rate, the guy was quivering with rage, so I acquiesced and told him that I’d pay full price. And of course I left a generous tip, because why should the nice waitress get screwed when it’s her boss who’s the antagonistic moron?

Incidentally, although I told the story like it happened yesterday, this actually all went down last June. I haven’t been back since. And I will NEVER go back. You hear that, Our House manager? You lost a loyal customer for eternity. And if the waitress somehow finds this post, I apologize. I didn’t mean to yell at you, and I would take it back if I could. But by now I’m sure you’ve had occasion to agree with me—your boss is a dumb asshole.

^* I’m not sure that she cried but it did look like she was about to.
^** On the other hand, I had just, from his perspective, screamed at his waitress. I can see how he might not have been predisposed toward the “customer is always right” attitude at that moment. But I assure you, as an impartial person who just happens to have been tangentially involved, it was entirely his fault—I am a blameless victim here!

Posted in Economics and Advertising, Life, WTF