The World Owes Him Everything
This is a story about a time when my dad was an entitled parent. It’s kinda long and detailed. If you’ve ever heard the song “Started From the Bottom” by Drake, you should know that my dad is a living testament to it.
He grew up very poor and in a bad neighborhood, but despite all the odds he was able to graduate high school, join the armed forces, get his Bachelor’s degree, retire as a Captain, and hold a number of high-paying management positions over the years.
Because of these experiences, he’s a firm believer in the principle of hard work, and he taught my sister and me to be respectful of others because we may end up walking through similar streets someday. But he goes overboard.
Paradoxically, my dad is also one of those annoying individuals who talks down to people that aren’t as accomplished as himself. He’s really good at belittling others on the sly. He also likes to believe that he is always the smartest person in the room and that nobody except himself offers anything of substance.
But sure enough, he gets on our case if we say something negative about someone else. Every single day, when he got home from work, he’d always tell stories of how he got to fire people or humiliate them.
At first, I thought the stories were funny and perfectly just. But over time, they started sounding more and more jerk-y, as if he was boasting about getting to mess with people’s lives. I honestly felt uncomfortable going out with him because he always gave people a hard time.
Didn’t have the exact items he wanted? He’ll talk to your manager. Things take longer than expected? You get an earful. Any mild inconvenience? Everyone is charged with a capital offense. He basically walked and talked as if the world owed him every single thing that he wanted.
One day, he pushed things too far. My family and I went out to eat at an IHOP on a Friday night. For the sake of the story, let’s pretend my name is “Slim.” I’m still in my work uniform when we go out. It had been a good day at work, which is kind of an important detail.
When we get in, the hostess says it would be about a 15 to 20 minute wait. My family is cool with it, and I’m cool with it. Not even ten minutes later, my dad tells the hostess that we’ve been waiting for 20 minutes and he demanded to know what was taking so long.
Seriously, Dad? You don’t see the 30 other families packed into the restaurant’s waiting area? Do you not hear the noise? I didn’t say anything, but my sister and I gave each other the knowing look. That “Dad’s about to start on that nonsense again” look.
The hostess, obviously having an already difficult night, maintains her customer service smile and tells him that it shouldn’t be much longer from now and will let us know immediately.
He stands against the wall. Five minutes later, a family pays for their meal and leaves, and we are directed to a table. My dad tells the server he doesn’t want to sit at that particular table, and asks for a booth on the other side.
The hostess hesitates for a moment before telling him that the server responsible for that section has a huge party, and that we may get a delay in service if we sit there.
My dad tells her to put us there anyway. I notice a young man flying back and forth to the kitchen and his tables in our row. I assumed this was our server. Sure enough, this man comes over, introduces himself, and takes our drink orders. Eight minutes later, we haven’t gotten our drinks.
My dad flags him down and asks why our drinks haven’t come. Slightly reasonable, I say. The server apologizes and gets our drinks. He returns, only to give us the wrong drinks. No big deal, honest mistake right? Nope, my dad is angry and sharply tells him to go re-do our drinks.
The server asks what they were supposed to be once more. I can see he’s a bit overwhelmed, and so I just politely tell him what I wanted. That’s when my dad began to lose it.
My dad tells him to write it down since he’s “too slow to remember.” Everyone looked at him in horror. Even the server was taken aback by this comment. This didn’t seem to faze my dad, though. He returns with the drinks and takes our orders. My dad again tells him to write it down.
My family is embarrassed and tries to lessen the hostility in any way possible. After the server leaves, my mom and sister berate my dad, telling him he’s embarrassing us. Of course, my dad doubles down telling us “the customer is always right.” Some time passes and our food hasn’t arrived.
I see the server is running back and forth to the massive party in the neighboring room. I think there were about 20 people in there, plus the three other families that he had to attend to in his section.
To make sure he wasn’t leaving the rest of us out, he asked a fellow server to see if we wanted refills and the like. The following interaction occurred. Fellow Server: “Hey, I’m Fellow Server. Just checking to make sure you’re all taken care of here. Can I get y’all any refills?”
Dad: “Where’s our original server? Why couldn’t he come do this himself? Me, in my head: Again, are you freaking blind?? Fellow Server: “He’s currently bringing out food and drink orders to another party. I will assist him for the time being.”
Dad: “That’s disrespectful! Why are they getting their food first? We’ve been waiting for ten minutes for our food. Where is it??” Fellow Server: “Uhhhmm, I can go find out real quick. Give me a moment, sir.” Dad: “Hurry up!” Fellow Server raises an eyebrow and leaves.
Me: “Dad, chill out. It’s clearly a busy night for them.” Dad: “Don’t back-sauce me, Slim. You don’t want to start with me.” A few minutes pass, and our original server comes back with our food and apologizes for the wait. Original Server: “Hey everyone, I apologize for that wait.
Taking care of a massive party, haha.” Dad: “That’s no excuse. We’ve been waiting!” Mom: *nudges Dad* “Hunny, stop.” Original Sever: “Terribly sorry about that sir, really.” Our original server starts handing out the food.
Dad: “Are you kidding me right now? My food is cold! We’ve been waiting ten minutes for our food to come. How long has our food been sitting out? It should be noted that my dad ordered something that really didn’t need to be served warm. Also, he only touched the plate.
Original Server: “I… I don’t think it’s been out too long, sir. We have a heating lamp that…” Dad: “Are you sweating?” Original Server: “Sir?” Dad: “You’re sweating everywhere!” Original Server: “I’ve been running back and forth. Not to mention the kitchen is hot.”
Dad: “I don’t want to hear excuses! You’re sweaty, and you’re getting it all over my food! Get me your manager, NOW!” Our jaws hit the floor. Our original server quietly goes for his manager.
My dad, all angry-faced, starts talking about the “terrible” service and our “lazy, disgusting, and unprofessional” server. Some people are looking over at us.
My mom and sister looked like they wanted the earth to swallow them up. Meanwhile, I’m just boiling on the inside. Our original server comes back with the store manager. Store Manager: “Hello everyone, is everything okay?” My dad proceeds to lay into the service and the server.
Dad: “I have a number of things to say. Tonight I have had the worst service ever.” Off to a great start! He continued: “My family and I have waited on drinks and they came out wrong. Our server gets another server to do HIS JOB for him because he’s too lazy to do it himself.
When we get our food, our food is cold. Apparently, we weren’t a priority for him. On top of that, he’s sweating in our food! That server has been a lazy, good-for-nothing, incompetent server the entire night and I’ve had it with him! I want our meals comped and this server needs to be fired!”
Store Manager: *wide-eyed* “Oh goodness… sorry about the trouble sir…” Our original server is standing next to the store manager throughout all of this, and he looks absolutely floored. He looked like he wanted to shed a tear.
Store Manager: “Here. I’ll take care of your meal, and here are some 30% off coupons.” But before he could continue with his offer, I decided that I had to do something. So, I cut him off.
Me (standing up): “You know what, before all that, I need to say something.” Me to Dad (paraphrasing): “I got to say, I’m impressed with how far you’re willing to go to be an absolute mega jerk at everyone’s expense.
This entire night, and every other time we go out in public, whether it’s to eat or buy groceries, you make it your life’s mission to make everyone extremely uncomfortable.”
That got everyone’s attention. I continued: “What is it that makes you feel like you can do this? Is it the money you make? What about all that hot garbage you talk about humility and being respectful to everyone because we might end up walking similar streets?
Oh, it only applies to US, while you contradict everything you say? You’re absolutely disgraceful! How dare you embarrass yourself and your family with your abhorrent behavior!”
Dad: “Are you cussing at me?” But I couldn’t stop there. Me: “Shut up, I’m talking now! We’ve heard your voice all darn night. Lord knows I earned the right to speak! You see this uniform? You know I work at a restaurant too. You even told me to be careful when it comes to pretentious people.
Yet here you are, behaving like one of them! This man has been running around doing his absolute best trying to make sure everyone is taken care of.
“He even recruited another server in order to make sure we were good and looked after. But if you’d take your head out your own behind, you’d understand that. But no. We didn’t even wait long for our food.
You’re acting like we’re the only people in the packed restaurant, and everyone’s watching you be a jerk about it! Yes, the man is sweating, but none of that sweat touched the food, as he brought it on a tray AWAY FROM HIS BODY!”
“We are sick and tired of you acting like a snobby arrogant idiot every time we go out somewhere. You’re not impressing anybody and no one wants to be seen with you!”
I then did something that I kinda regret after my anger subsided. Me (at the peak of my anger): “And your food… *pushes plate into his lap* …DIDN’T EVEN NEED TO BE WARMED UP, IT’S A FREAKING SALAD!”
At this moment, I snap out of it. I realize that the entire restaurant has gone quiet. The manager, the server, and everyone around us is looking at me, absolutely stunned. The big party was all eyes. My mom and sister looked like they turned to stone.
My dad’s expression is something that has now been forever etched into my mind. I was 6’2” tall at the time and was really non-confrontational and soft-spoken. So for me to get as loud and imposing as I had was an unfamiliar sight for my folks to see.
My dad, with the plate of salad dumped in his lap, looked like he wanted to beat my behind, poop bricks, and crawl under the table all at once. It was unforgettable. I wanted to drive my point home, so I dug into my wallet and pulled out $120 from the tips I had earned at work that night.
I handed half of it to the store manager and told him not to comp the meal and that it was on me. The other half, I gave to the original server and apologized for causing trouble. I looked at my family and told them I had lost my appetite and that I’ll be waiting in the car.
The restaurant was murmuring when I left, and I sat in the car trying to process what the heck I had just done. But what happened next was the most surprising part of all.
We didn’t talk about it afterward, but this event seemed to have clicked something in my dad’s head, as I never again heard him give people unwarranted trouble again. So yea, my dad was a flaming entitled jerk, but then I put him in his place and he changed his ways.
And everyone clapped (just kidding). To end this, I wanted to add a proverb of sorts from the Netherlands. “A customer is king as long as they behave in a royal fashion.” Story credit: Reddit / [deleted]