Mother’s Day Fiasco
I worked at a small, family-owned pizza place in the suburbs that was fairly popular. For some reason, Mother’s Day was a BIG day for this place, and as a thank you to the moms, we were supposed to give every mother, grandmother, or special woman a rose with their dinner.
One Mother’s Day, I opened the restaurant with only one other server, two cooks, and no highchairs or tablecloths because a sister restaurant had borrowed them.
I hadn’t had a food break, so by the end of my seven-hour shift, I was pretty beat. I had a table of two adults, who seemed totally pleasant and lovely…until I brought them their check. The woman looked at me and asked why so many people had roses.
I explained the whole Mother’s Day thing, and she got a look of total rage on her face. Her response was totally unexpected: “How rude of you to assume we don’t have kids!” It had honestly slipped my mind to ask.
She continued, “I can’t believe you would be so horrible! I want to talk to your manager.” At that point, she started yelling loudly, and people were staring. I apologized to her and got my manager.
He tried to appease her, but she started yelling how she wanted their meal comped. My boss wouldn’t comp anyone’s meal short of it coming out on fire or something extreme, so he politely refused.
He offered to comp their drinks, but that’s it since I had apologized and didn’t mean to be so thoughtless. I brought her a rose and apologized again, but she just wouldn’t let go of her hatred. She proceeded to throw it back at me and declared she didn’t want it.
She said that they were leaving and never coming back. She stormed out, leaving her husband behind to pay the bill. He paid it and left me no tip, pointedly telling me that I had completely ruined Mother’s Day for his wife.
He said he hoped I was happy being a worthless person and that he would call the owner and tell him just what a horrible waitress I was. I spent the rest of my shift crying in the back hallway between serving tables, convinced I was going to be fired.