To tell you that YABU

[ificouldwritealettertome]

I would like to start by saying that this is to the people (you know who you are) that do this- and not the rest of civilised society. When you enter a pub/restaurant/hotel and forget your manners to all staff you encounter- YABU.
When your order starts with "Get me a..." YABU.
When you flag me down/click at me/summon me with a Queens-Wave hand gesture - YABU.
When you can see that I am the only waitress in the restaurant and you give me repeated disapproving looks because you haven't had your dessert yet - YABU. I am not the chef.

For anyone who hasn't worked in hospitality - some facts for you to take into consideration: Your waiter/waitress will have a maximum of two legs. These will be moving at optimum speed.
We can not carry food/drinks/the cheque/a high chair at the same time.
If I asked you to answer 46 emails simultaneously you would reach critical mass and quite possibly hyperventilate. Why do you think I can do this with orders?
And FINALLY- YOUR KIDS ARE NOT MY KIDS. The peas they have stamped into the carpet - the menus they have shredded on the table and the pens they have stubbed all over the napkins are NOT MY JOB.

I am paid minimum wage - £7.83 an hour to seat you, take your order, bring your food, clear your plates and give you great and attentive customer service. I am not your Nanny. I don't get paid enough for that shit.
I know that all humans are capable of saying "please" and "thank you" as they do to each other at the table... where does this go when I arrive?

People who earn less, are not worth less. You are perfectly capable of being nice to your partner/children/parents. Well I am someone's partner, someone's child and I am someone's parent.
No need to tell me to 'retrain' - for the most part I love my job and shouldn't have to consider another field because customers can't treat me like an equal.

Footnote: Your shitty TripAdvisor reports and complaints emails - make sure they are 100% necessary and accurate. People lose their jobs over these. To the two mums who emailed a horrible review about me to my boss: we have CCTV We know your son smashed that glass on purpose. My manager has seen me arrive at the table with a dustpan and brush 37 seconds after you called me. NOT "10 minutes". Luckily, I have done this job a long time and my manager didn't believe your about my "couldn't be bothered attitude". I also have hundreds of 5* feedback reviews to back this up. BUT I could have been new. We could have had no CCTV. I could be out of a job now, all because you wanted a free lunch.

Please everyone: the staff who serve you are people with bills to pay and families to provide for. Oh, and they're also human. Please do us a favour and be human back

Oh OP you are spot on. I worked in hospitality from 2009 to 2012 and it really opened my eyes. The total lack of ‘please, thank you’. Even people who were happy to have their offspring bark orders at me. The way some people consider low wage to be the equivalent of low worth was quite shocking.

"almost to the point of no exception, upper middle class people who would, outside of a shop, pride themselves in having the best of manners." So true

And while I know tips aren't "to be expected" I found they were the erm - least generous tightwads too.

Loving the idea of a reduced power cattle prod for lechy customers - bet they'd soon stop that crap!

On a cruise we shared a table with 3 other couple's. One couple was a middle age welshman with his gf.
All the waiters are Philipino and so lovely.
We stood the and his ignorance towards these waiters for 3 night's and after that we refused to share a table with him. He wouldn't say please or thank you..wouldnt even look at the waiters and was a real bolshy twat. We explained to the matre de the reasons why we couldn't done in there a gas in and assured him it was nothing to do with the waiters but all to do with effort ignorant

Sorry.. Dine in there again.. I meant to say

YANBU

Some customers are just awful

I am glad you like your job and don't want to be told to retrain , we need people , real people like you who do their best and enjoy ( mostly ) what they do .

The whole population needs to realise it needs all sorts of folk working in all sorts of jobs to keep the country ticking along - makes me angry when essential services like dustmen, cleaners , shop and service staff are belittled.

My DP is a manager in an establishment open to the public and on one of the busiest days of the year when the place was heaving with visitors he had a complaint from a member of the public who wanted him to sack a member of staff on the spot because they were not working fast enough ( the staff member was working their socks off ) and the said visitor was made to queue with all the rest of the folk waiting which he obviously didn't like - his subsequent review on trip advisor was 1* and very rude but balanced against the thousands of 5 star reviews just made him look like the idiot he clearly was - I think most people who read trip advisor read between the lines.

Everyone should have a turn at working in a bar, waiting table , serving in a shop or factory work etc then they might just be a little more appreciative of what's being done for them

We explained to the matre de the reasons why we couldn't done in there a gas in and assured him it was nothing to do with the waiters but all to do with effort ignorant

I'm glad the matre understood 😉

Even if you're NOT doing a degree, maybe this job fits around your childcare needs, or you're just doing what you need to do to make ends meet. Had a friend who was told, "Bet you wish you'd worked harder at school now, don't you?" and it STILL makes me hopping mad years later. Who the HELL do you think you are??

My sis had the "I can get you fired" guy one night. She replied with "and I can put rat poison in your meal". Yep, she got fired, but still says it was worth it to see the shock on his face.

People who earn less, are not worth less.

This. This X1000000.

I hated waitressing. The snide comments, people speaking to you as if you're stupid, the false complaints, the sexual propositions. I'd sooner shovel shit than serve the public food again.

Kids with lovely manners are a delight to encounter and a credit to the parents

So agree with this!

There's a zebra crossing on my way to work, and 2 or 3 times I've stopped for the same lad to cross. He must be only about 7 or 8, and he always gives a nice wave of thanks.

I often wish I knew who his parents are, so that I can tell them what a great job they've done of teaching their child manners, and how it always cheers me up when I see him.

Well said! I can’t fathom how people are so nasty to waitstaff, retail workers, etc, also to other patrons. So many of them see themselves as victims and demand extra attention and freebies.

I’ve not worked the food industry; I have worked retail, women’s intimate apparel for a short time, and years in high end cosmetics.

The nastiest customers were usually from two groups: ones that always shopped the monthly sales with voucher, and the upper middle class. Amazing how people would talk and what they’d try. Everything from demanding free items for ones ruined by their fault (lipstick in hot car), to using up products and claiming allergies and demanding a refund, to taking make overs with no intention to buy, just happened to be a weekend night, to physically threatening me (and when I was 8 months pregnant).

Another thing that amazes me is the obvious lack of manners in children. I often hear from waitstaff and retail workers, compliments of how well mannered my children are. I appreciate the compliment and it’s my boys doing what they are supposed to do, be respectful and treat others as they want to be treated. What amazes me is the tone in which they’re complimented, the tone that tells me their polite behavior is not the norm.

I am a waitress and I hear you!
The nice customers do outweigh the bad ones but the bad ones can ruin your day.
And as to people thinking that my job is a crap job and that it makes me beneath them, I do it because it fits around the hours that my husband works so we don't need childcare and, on a good shift, I can earn more money that I could earn in any other part time job.
It is bloody hard work and some people can be vile but the really lovely customers make the job worth it!

Wow! I hope I never step foot in your pub/restaurant OP!! I'm a bit scared of you!

Well said OP there are some very entitled totally selfish grabby arrogant losers out there and I hope they read your post and learn!
Pity you can't print it out and paste it up on the walls of your restaurant,make that all catering establishments😊
You're a and deservefor a rubbish incident.

I'm absolutely on your side, it costs nothing to be kind and we go out of our way to be kind to shop assistants, waitresses etc. Can I say one thing about TripAdvisor though? not every bad review is bogus, and not every owner reply is genuine. I once, just the once, left a bad review on TA, not aimed at the staff but at the standard of food etc. It was accurate, but I did not say anything bad about the staff. The owner replied with a pack of lies (claiming he had refunded our entire meal, he had not refunded a penny). Though I reported it to TA they did nothing, and his reply stands, making me look unfair, though I spoke the truth, and other people have since left similar reviews to mine. However, I take your point entirely, and as I said, support you 100%.

My nan always said you should treat x type of people better than you would treat the Queen she hated the royal family though because they do x for you, what's the Queen ever done for you? (Regularly used and could be anything from a waitress to a binman or lollipop lady)

She's got a point though, I hate people who go through their day to day life with fuck all manners, but are total brown nosers to anyone (very few people) they see as above them. You can tell a lot about a person by how they treat other people, especially when they think you aren't watching

Slightly related but hopefully give you a laugh anyway -
Sitting in a coffee shop and a dad is doing the whole loud performance parenting to his 4/5yr old son, looking round to make sure everyone was listening
Dad "Yes that's right, you say thankyou even though it's just a waitress don't you, and why do we do that?"
Everyone else (thinking) twat! Notice you didn't say thankyou to her, obviously doesn't get his manners from you
Boy matter of factly "so they don't spit in your drink"

Dad suddenly decided they were finished and hurried him out of the door, performance parenting really backfired on him
Even better, someone stood up and said "thankyou" loudly, then someone else, it was like Spartacus I think everyone in there ended up doing it but I'm not sure, everyone left in a really good mood anyway

Happymummy1991 absolutely every word of your post!

CompletelyExhausted if you set foot in our restaurant you would be greeted by me, seated by me and I would politely ask you if I could get you anything to drink while you look at the menu. I would be pleasant, polite and attentive throughout the duration of your visit.

All I ask is that I get the same. It's a real shame that you think that makes me scary.

Tellme - love it

Op - I don't get "scary" from you I get frustrated, fed up of being taken for granted...

when you flag me down/click at me.... Ooops. I admit I have been guilty of this before. I am disabled so for me it is easier to stay seated at the table and just flag the waiter down rather than go to the bar, counter etc and ask for what I need. In future I will just wait until the waiting staff come over.

@vampirethriller because they are paying for the luxury of behaving badly and making a mess. At least in their eyes.

YANBU! I used to be bar staff at a football stadium. If fans clicked at me, shouted ‘Oi!’ at me or waved their money I deliberately ignored them and served someone else first

Moontree it's not the signalling that wait staff have a issue it's the rude signalling (like your a servant) so as long as your not being rude don't worry

Ex kfc worker here, some people were just fucking disgusting excuses for human beings! Rude, and messy and horrible!

On the other side of the coin though, we used to get a group of homeless drug/alcohol addicts come in quite regularly. Some of the servers didn't want to serve them because they looked intimidating and they smelled or could be loud (a bit drunk) etc but I was always fine with them, my motto was a customer is just that no matter who they are and the "leader" always kept them mostly in line. Well can I tell you out of the probable thousands of customers I served the boss of this gang was one of only a small handful of people who ever tried to tip me and he always turned to his group and said say thankyou to the young lass. He always appreciated that I took his tray to him due to him being in a wheelchair (lost his legs due to drugs) they were rough but they were 99% of the time very respectful.

Ginky that's always the way isn't it!?