Submitted By Margret in Chicago, Illinois.
I just have a quick rant about customers signing their credit card receipts, then stealing my ink pen afterward. Pens are like gold to servers. We need our pens to write orders and to put on the table, as a convenience to you, for you to sign your receipt (and hopefully to fill out the “gratuity” portion with a nice amount of money for me).
Have you ever had a waitress show up to your table, to take your order, then ask for a minute to find a pen? That most likely happened because the last table she had ran off with her pen and she’s just now realizing it.
I must go to the dollar store like twice a month and buy packs of cheap click pens just because of this. I’ll start a shift with around 5 click pens in my apron and finish the shift with one or none. There’s only a handful of things worse than having to run around the restaurant begging my coworkers to let me borrow a pen.
Even if you walk out with my pen, on accident, don’t be ashamed to come back in and bring it back to me. It’s no big deal and I’ll be so thankful you did.
Stop Stealing My Pens,
I went out to a club the other night and i LOVED!!! what they had done. they taped the pen with some rope to the book. therefore when you get your book back you get your pen back =D
I’d imagine that screams “I challenge you to take this pen” to some people.
Here lately, I’ve been having to try a new trick, and it seems to work.
I hand them their book w/credit card receipts and ask, “Would you like to BORROW my pen to sign?” Or, “If you need a pen, I can LEND you mine.”
It seems to help them understand my pen is NOT THEIR pen and not pocket it after signing.
I’ve kept the same two gel ink black pens for nearly two weeks. (Watch, tomorrow someone will steal them both–:)
haha! It’s so true! The click pens that fit perfectly on your apron are impossible to come by! I always kept a couple crappy pens in my apron, so that I never had to give ppl my “good” pens….inevitably all of my pens would still end up missing…and more often than not on another servers apron…lol…god I don’t miss serving….
boo hoo hoo. buy more pens
At this point I’ll just start deleting your comments. Hate isn’t going to help progress this site nor it’s topics.
My apron is filled with probably like 12 pens and it’s funny because we had a ridiculous rule set by the owners a few months ago. They said that each server cannot have more than 4 pens on his/her apron at a time, the reason? The owners believe that it makes us look extremely tacky and makes us look like we are working at a “ma and pa restaurant” are you freaking kidding me? So when we have a 20-top and a ton of people (if not all) are using credit cards we’re just supposed to run around and try and find pens?
did you bring up the scenario about having a 20 top, separate checks, and only 4 pens (3 really, because you still need one to take other orders)
Oh yes many times! They don’t really care what we have to say…it is quite sad really. :/
I ALWAYS grab a spare pen from the cashier counter for customers to sign their cc slips! My lucky pen stays in my pocket!
i love pens and i never take my nice fluid writing pens to work. I make sure i buy cheap pens so if they take them it won’t work very long. bitches
One time, I was tending bar/waiting tables at this cafe in the mall. Kind of a step down from Ruby Tuesday’s or something.
Anyways, I get this three top of cheapskates who make me run for an hour while milking the place for everything they could. They wanted to share a burger. I had to supply three….THREE….baskets of bread and butter. At least 7 reflills on their drinks. It was a low-level nightmare.
Finally, I give them their check, and they hit me with a coupon for $10 off if the bill was $4 or more…and, they barely made it–or so I thought.
I put everything through, and then the woman paying the bill points out that she had been inadvertantly charged an extra 99 cents. She bitches like I just knocked up her daughter or something, so we take it off. Now, this puts the bill under $40, so technically her coupon is null and void…but we give it to her anyway. She thanks me and informs me that I’m the best waiter she’s ever had, and that the service was superb. Tells my boss the same thing.
And, you know what this blow-job artist does for an encore? Not only does she hit me with a ten-percent tip, but she steals my fucking pen as well!
I hope she gets herpes….
An office depot on the way to my work was going out of business and I lucked into some really nice pens for cheap. Pen to paper the ink flowed no problem. I normally wouldn’t go out of my way to get a pen back if a customer takes it, but one night I happened to only have one of these pens and I literally had to chase someone out to their car to get it back. They probably thought I was crazy.
What helps with keeping an adequate amount of pens is keeping your apron with you when you leave. Coworkers with sticky fingers were detrimental to my ability to write tickets.
Click pens disappear very quickly. I use the pens with a top (they’re like 10 for a dollar) and keep the top with me and give the pen to the customer. No one wants to steal a pen with no top!