There are many things we would love to do but don't, for obvious reasons

It was Wednesday morning and I was at my local coffee shop enjoying my usual Americano and chocolate muffin when I became very aware that there were two guys standing beside my table. This was not what I needed nor wanted. I wasn't really enjoying the whole coffee experience as it was, due in part, to the disappointingly stale muffin that the emo man child had served me. I would have returned it but he bore the look of an emo man child who no longer cared for the freshness of his own underwear let alone my muffin. And as the place was busy I was forced to sit at a large table beside the counter and not my favoured small table beside the window. Everything was all wrong and my sunny disposition was floundering .

oh the injustice
the humanity!

And then there were these two dudes, for they no doubt considered themselves to be dudes, loitering beside my large table. I did not want to share, Manuel is not the sharing sort. I was not in the mood to have my morning routine disturbed, any more than it currently was, by a brace of bronzed douches. Alas my attempts to avoid eye contact and the spreading out of the various flotsam and jetsam across the table, notepad, phone, niquitin/farting tablets etc did not put them off. So there I was in the wrong seat, eating a sorry excuse for a muffin, whilst doing the booth seat shuffle to make it clear to all and sundry that I was not with Douche A and his chum Douche B.

My chagrin was complete.

And what did I do about this whole sorry situation? Nothing, that's what. I did nothing. I just sat there trying to read Robin Cooper's, "The Timewaster Diaries" and block out the Tommy Hilfiger clad "delights" in front of me. But it was difficult what with their constant yapping, chortling, loud guffawing and over use of the word, "faaaan-tastic". But I just sat there and took it all. Even when Douche A knocked the table thus spilling my coffee a little as he tried to cross his massive tree sized legs, I just smiled. Leg crossing? In a booth? DOUCHE! But I just sat there politely smiling and accepting it all. My morning routine, one that I hold in high esteem and reverence, had been ruined. It will be many days before I get to right this wrong. But I just smiled and sucked it all up.

I put this ability to take injustice, and you cant call bad muffinry and bad company anything less than injustice, down to my training as a waiter. We are constantly at the receiving end of injustice. I mean there are tables you want to run after and ask them what there problem is. There are nights when I would pay someone just to get the opportunity to question the punters. I mean you whore yourself for them, you bend over backwards, you are charming and witty and they leave you nothing. You wanna confront them, you wonder what was it that you did wrong (even though you know it was them and not you).

But you don't do it. You cant do it, no matter how much you want to, you just cant confront the guest apres stiffing. I assumed no waiter would do it until I read this blog post on Serious Eats.com. I was flabbergasted to say the least. The waiter, feeling unhappy with her tip from a table, confronted the diners and even corrected the guest's maths. Seriously what? Not a fucking chance would you get way with that where I work and at a guess in many places. Not cool, not cool at all.

Getting stiffed by a guest is all part of the game. You win some, you lose some that's just the way it is. Don't get me wrong I get really freaking angry when I get stiffed by a table I know I did a good job on but you just have to let it go, or blog about them. Heh.

The guest from the story accepted that they had made a mistake and changed her tip amount. But for an extra $8 was it really necessary to embarrass the guest and leave yourself open to some major grief from the management. I'm all for waiters getting what we are due but not like that....

So what would you do if confronted by a waiter doing an Oliver Twist and asking for more? Personally I would just walk away shaking my head and never, ever, dine there again. And then blog about it, obviously.

Hat tip, Fork it Over.