People Coming And Going (Dine and Dash)

This is a story, submitted by JP, about the time her guests played round robin to get check for 12 people brought down to only 4. This kind of shows you how managers can screw over servers. Oh, and apparently the United States isn’t the only place where shady people work over the restaurant industry.

I used to work at a steak house type restaurant in South Africa and this one day I was pulling a double shift. At around 10 a.m. Four people came in and ordered coffees.

 They had an assortment of starters and then one of them left. I didn’t know whether he was coming back or not, but I didn’t much care because the others were still seated and it didn’t seem strange to me. So anyways, about an hour after they were first seated, a new guy comes along and sits down. No problem, because 3 of the original guys were still there. But then another gets up and leaves the restaurant. It started to be a bit weird, but hey, there were still two of the original dudes left, so what can I do? Anyways, after a while they get another two friends and move to a bigger table. A while later, the inevitable happens and the last two of the origanal party left. This made me very uneasy and I told my manager that this seems very odd, but the genius that he is, told me that I shouldn’t worry about it

To make a long story short, the same pattern repeated itself twice more and then finally, about four hours after the first guys came in, they ask for the bill. I ring it up and it comes to a fairly average bill for 12 people (don’t know how much an “average” bill is in the USA, but here it’s about $20 a head if they have a couple of drinks after their meal). Then the guy who asked for the bill tells me that they didn’t order all of those items and that I should only charge them for the stuff they had. I was a little annoyed because my manager could have avoided this (admittedly weird) situation. So I decide right then and there that I will not be the one to have this argument and apologised to the patrons and went to my manager and explained the thing to him and then sent him over to the table. I am not sure what they talked about, but in the end, they were only charged for waht the last four guys had and I decided not to ask too many questions because the owner of the restaurant is a grade-A asshole and I had all my bases covered.

To this day, about 5 years later, I still don’t quite understand what went on that day.

Luckily I finished my degree and am now a computer programmer. I must say, for all the stress my curent job has and all the dificult and downright ridiculous requests I get from clients, it’s nothing compared to what a waiter endures on a regular basis, and on a fraction of the salary. I am glad for the experience and my career as a waiter paid all of my degree, but I’ll never do it again.

I’ll submit some more accounts as I remember them.