5 Ways To Make Your Server Hate You

When you go out to eat in a restaurant and you’re greeted warmly by the sweet hostess and ushered to your prime booth right next to a window, you can practically feel the affection emanating from the the staff. The smile on your server’s face is shining so bright you gotta wear shades and the when the food runner places your taco platter with a heartfelt “enjoy,” the sincerity is palpable. But you wanna know something? It only takes you doing a few things that will make the restaurant staff hate you so much that flames…flames…flames on the side of their face…breathing…heaving breath. Well you get the picture. If you want the restaurant staff to hate you, here’s what you need to do.

Ignore the “Please Wait To Be Seated Sign”

The sign isn’t there for purely decorative reasons, it has a purpose. It lets the hostess or manager control the amount of people being seated so that the kitchen and the servers can keep up. Just because you see an empty table across the dining room doesn’t mean it has your name on it, so don’t waltz over to it and plop your body into it. There might not be a server available to take the table and, in COVID times, it might still be infected with the disease, bacteria, and germs from the previous customer. Give the staff a moment to sanitize it or at least clear the glasses and balled up napkins from it. Seating yourself when you’ve neglected the sign telling to not do that is a surefire way to make everyone hate you.

Don’t pay attention to your server 

When your waitress approaches your table and cheerfully asks how you’re doing, the correct answer is NOT “Diet Coke,” “We’re not ready,” or “What are your specials?” Answering that question with anything other than the obligatory “We’re fine, thank you” or some other recognition of the actual question is nothing but downright rude AF and that waitress is going to put one hash mark down in her imaginary “Why I Hate This Customer” list.

Complain about things that no one can control

If you choose to sit on the patio on a gorgeous spring day, you have to accept things like wind, sunshine, the occasional fly, or the possibility of rain. No one who works at the restaurant has a direct line to Mother Nature to change these things. God is not in the manager’s office ready to smite the bumblebee that’s flying too close to your lemonade. Feel free to gripe about your undercooked burger, moan about the wobbly table, and grumble about the sticky menu because those things can be taken care of. But if you complain about the weather or the fact that you couldn’t find a parking space, prepare to be detested.

Show up late for your reservation or change the number of your party

Restaurants go to great pains to make sure your table is ready in time for your reservation. It’s not an exact science since they can only estimate how long the previous occupants of your table will be there, but they do their best. If your reservation is for four people at 7:00 and you show up at 7:30 with six people, you have made it even less of an exact science and created chaos that will affect every person trying to accommodate you. You’ve also made those same people absolutely loath you.

Leave a bad tip

You might think you can throw down a few coins and some wrinkly dollar bills and slink out of the restaurant with no harm or foul, but you’d be wrong. Servers have the memory of an elephant and if you leave them a bad tip or treat them poorly, your face will be etched in their memory for all of eternity. That scorned waiter or waitress will spend their days at the restaurant scanning the mugs of every customer who walks through the door to see if you’re willing to come back. And if you do go back, that server will recognize you. They won’t necessarily refuse to serve you and they won’t absolutely treat you poorly, but they will hate you so much that flames…flames…flames on the side of their face…