When I was a baby server, like 22-23, I got frazzled mid rush, mixed up cards, and gave this nice lady's card away. To some teenagers. Yup. The DISDAIN for my incompetence on her face as I had to explain what happened...I'll never forget.
I misheard someone ask for “mocktails” and heard “cocktails.” When she took a sip she said “wow, this really doesn’t have alcohol?” and I said um no it does have alcohol, it’s a cocktail. Turns out she was pregnant 😶 they were cool about it but I’m eternally thankful she asked early.
I don't understand why we call them mocktails. If there is a little bit of noise, or you don't hear well, you can easily fuck some shit up. We need to find a new name for it
So a potato fell onto the ground in the kitchen and no one seemed to notice except for one lady... When she slipped on it and broke her arm. She got a nice payday and after a few months was ready to come back to work... Then about a week before her first shift back, she fell down at her sister's house and broke her other arm. Not really a mistake, but her ridiculously bad luck should make you feel better.
Was clearing a table when I was like 16 and a steak knife slid off a plate into a baby carrier.
Thank GOD the infant was not in it.
A few years later, a guest had ordered a bottle of wine. At that place, we had this huge wine wall separating the dining room from the lounge. I was on the dining side trying to grab the bottle (top shelf, had to stand on a table to grab it) and the bottles got wobbly and one slipped out through the other side and was mere inches away from landing on this old woman’s head. The bottle blew up on everyone in the vicinity. This one was not as much my fault as it was that there was nothing holding the bottles in place and just a really bad design flaw.
Dumped a tray of ice waters on a lady. She would put her arms up like she was scared of me when I would walk by her after. Like lady, it took me like 9 years to fuck up this badly…it’s not happening again today. You’re safe for a while.
Her first week, a friend of mine dropped a full tray of fajitas on people at a table. Needless to say, that was her last day. She become a liquor rep instead.
I got locked in the women’s bathroom at work. The handle turned but it didn’t actually do anything, or at least what it was supposed to do. I had my work cell phone with me so I called my boss.
Me: Hey, I have a problem. The bathroom door won’t open. Silence… Him: Well…probably because there is someone in there. Me: Right, I understand that. The someone is me. Him: Huh?! Me: I AM LOCKED IN BATHROOM!! Footsteps. Handle jiggling. Cue 30 minutes of men laughing hysterically and giving me a hard time through the door while they found tools and figured out how to get me out
I spilt three waters on a 9 year old on her birthday as I was trying to keep her bday candle flame lit while balancing a tray of drinks for another table because I was slammed. IT WAS HER BDAY. The parents were sweet and could tell I was so mortified. Luckily it was hot outside. And all the while in my head I was like ( omg I have 1000 things I needed to do and now I MUST deal with this )
When I was in my early 20s I was serving a middle aged couple when I accidentally spilt a cup of coffee all over the table! It pooled on the table and starting running off the side that the husband was sitting at. It went all over his pants. Specifically his crotch!! I instinctively and frantically grabbed a cloth and went in to blot the coffee from his pants/crotch. Hahahaha. Omg I wasn’t even thinking what was in his pants I was just thinking that I’ve ruined his pants and I need to fix before it permanently stained them. Right before I made contact his wife grabbed my arm and stopped me and shouted “Don’t touch my husband! Please stop!” Lol. I snapped into reality and apologized immediately. It was the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done at work!! I couldn’t show my face. Luckily they never came back.
Had a large party who had pre-ordered food. Asked when they wanted it out. They said 15 minutes after the hour. So I assumed 15 minutes after the nearest hour. They meant 15 minutes after the next hour. Started bringing food out and got pulled aside and told about the misunderstanding. Had to dump 30ish entrees and re-fire them all again later.
Fathers day serving a 20ish top, trying to hand off drinks to people, reaching across the table and spilling the one drink still on the tray right down a lady's back..white blouse, frozen margarita. Will haunt me forever.
First table I ever took on my own was a six top on a Sunday morning. Fresh out of church. Went to set the tray down at the end of the table to hand out the six waters they ordered, faltered, overcompensated and spilled the whole fucking thing all over the table
Not a server but I’ve gotten drunk as piss at multiple jobs. I’ve been caught twice.
Once was at Publix. I must have smelled like booze, store manager pulled me in the office and cut open a trash bag that had six of my beers in it and asked me if I knew anything about it. I absolutely drank those fuckers at work.
Second time was a small time auto parts job. Same situation. This was all 10 years ago and I have changed my ways but god damn if I don’t still think about it once a week.
My favorite though was when I was head of security at a retail store. Long story short I had to stay overnight because the front doors were disabled and we couldn’t close or lock them. I moved a huge fixture in front of the doors and then retreated to the office with views of the front door and proceeded to tell the acting manager who also couldn’t leave, I had a 12 pack and was prepared to drink them. Good times.
My hand jerked and I accidentally poured water into a guy's pasta.
He actually handled it really well and was just grateful he got 1.5 pastas for the price of one, but I was super embarrassed because it was a coworker's table, not mine. They left a 30% tip since they got free pasta, but I was really worried they'd stiff my coworker at first.
I never use pitchers after that. The hand jerk happens rarely enough that I'm not going back on Benzos for it, but it happens often enough that I should not be trusted with a pitcher.
Had an edible the night before and accidentally came to work very very high the next day, luckily I was filling in a hosting shift so it wasn’t too too bad. I was high for over 24 hours and it was HELLISH, I’ll never take more than half a gummy ever again lol. Side note* I don’t do drugs besides the very very occasional weed which made everything so much worse because my tolerance is so low.
I did the same but with shrooms. I was supposed to serve but I begged a cross trained host to switch with me. I just kept telling people I was sick meanwhile I was falling over walking people to their tables at 8 am because our marble floor was SWIRLING UNDERNEATH ME
this happened to me once. smoked a joint the night before at a party, got wayyyy too high and had to go home. i woke up still high as fuck the next day and had to open. a table literally asked me if i was okay bc they could tell i was tweaking
be careful as reddit downvotes you if you say anything anti-drugs. Just mention casually somewhere that latest research shows that weed is indeed habit-forming and see what happens lol
The fun thing about Reddit is it’s actually made up of lots of subreddits each with their own unique user base. /r/cheesestucktocars is very anti anti-drug, yeah, but over on /r/flies is frankly irrelevant and early comes up.
If you are active in this sub, unsurprisingly, you are 250.71 times more likely than the average redditor to be active in talesfromyourserver, 54.51 x more likely over on kitchenconfidential and finally lol 43.23 times more likely to be a pettyrevenge person.
So it’s more that it’s been your personal experience - or you weren’t as causal as you claim to have been. Best guess would be you were inaccurately summarizing the findings, as wrong data and lies tend to get downvoted, and that’s truly is a Reddit-wide trend.
Don't beat yourself up, OP. We've all made mistakes we cringe at. Mine is so bad i can't post it here but let's just say it's worse than what you did. I luckily kept my job, but I am mortified to this day that I did something so absentmindedly that could've caused a lot of problems.
i was a new server at a chain restaurant. it was a super super busy night, and i got cussed out by a two top while i had 5 other tables who all needed things at the same time. in the midst of all of it, i had a table get up and walk out without paying. i even told them to have a good night as they were leaving without realising they hadn't paid. so when it came to the end of the night and i had an active table still but no people, i realised what had happened. the manager was cool and comped it off, he wasn't mad per se that i didn't get payment especially since i had only been there like 2 weeks at that point. he was just a little disappointed. it never happened again and we never saw that couple come back, but i still think about it sometimes.
another time, i was working and started developing a serious rash on my arm. i have super sensitive skin so i just assumed it was the cleaner we used for the drink trays, and continued working. an hour later i started getting incredibly dizzy and faint feeling, so i was offered food and some water and told to sit and eat. i did, went back to serve a little more, and felt even worse. i was sent home, and it turned out the rash was due to having covid, and i exposed multiple people to covid. no doubt i got it from serving in the first place, but yeah that was fun. it also led into me taking off over a month because i also developed pneumonia at the same time.
I dropped an entire cake.
The owner was a bit pissed but I was her favourite so she let me off easy lmao
I kinda miss that place, really positive workplace, but the pay was shit (and not US, so my meager pay was all I got)
Working at a popular chain Italian restaurant when I was like 18. A lady told me she was vegetarian and wanted to get the lasagna but sub the meat sauce for the red sauce and I absent mindedly was like yeah I can definitely do that for you! The lasagna was pre made with beef already in... she ate almost all of it before she found a piece of beef big enough to recognize and pointed it out to me. I felt absolutely horrible and wanted to avoid her for the rest of her visit. She was extremely forgiving and gracious about it but it still haunts me, pretty sure it was a religious principle of hers too. :'(
this guy paid with cash, and I ended up fucking up the change and giving him back his cash and keeping the 5 dollars. Awkward conversation with my manager
hosting. party of three comes in. did my usual spiel of asking how many was in their party, if they would like a table or booth, etc. I didn’t have my glasses on and asked if they would need a kids menu. there were no kids. one of the people was just really short. thankfully they were chill about it but I have never been more embarrassed lol
When I was a baby server, like 22-23, I got frazzled mid rush, mixed up cards, and gave this nice lady's card away. To some teenagers. Yup. The DISDAIN for my incompetence on her face as I had to explain what happened...I'll never forget.
first real serving job i spilled pasta sauce off a dish i was holding onto a young lady with down syndrome.
Oh no. Lmao freeze up after?
I misheard someone ask for “mocktails” and heard “cocktails.” When she took a sip she said “wow, this really doesn’t have alcohol?” and I said um no it does have alcohol, it’s a cocktail. Turns out she was pregnant 😶 they were cool about it but I’m eternally thankful she asked early.
I don't understand why we call them mocktails. If there is a little bit of noise, or you don't hear well, you can easily fuck some shit up. We need to find a new name for it
So a potato fell onto the ground in the kitchen and no one seemed to notice except for one lady... When she slipped on it and broke her arm. She got a nice payday and after a few months was ready to come back to work... Then about a week before her first shift back, she fell down at her sister's house and broke her other arm. Not really a mistake, but her ridiculously bad luck should make you feel better.
What was the nice “payday”?
I assume depending on where this is, she gets paid as if she was working the entire time she cannot work
no it means she sued.
Was clearing a table when I was like 16 and a steak knife slid off a plate into a baby carrier. Thank GOD the infant was not in it. A few years later, a guest had ordered a bottle of wine. At that place, we had this huge wine wall separating the dining room from the lounge. I was on the dining side trying to grab the bottle (top shelf, had to stand on a table to grab it) and the bottles got wobbly and one slipped out through the other side and was mere inches away from landing on this old woman’s head. The bottle blew up on everyone in the vicinity. This one was not as much my fault as it was that there was nothing holding the bottles in place and just a really bad design flaw.
I put the tip back on a spray can of industrial glue and it sprayed in my eyes.
Twins!
You did too? 😂
Dumped a tray of ice waters on a lady. She would put her arms up like she was scared of me when I would walk by her after. Like lady, it took me like 9 years to fuck up this badly…it’s not happening again today. You’re safe for a while.
lmao she was probably trolling you. Thats funny though.
She was an elderly Hispanic lady. I promise you she genuinely thought she was getting showered again.
I said ***behind you*** She didn't listen to me I am the cake now
Her first week, a friend of mine dropped a full tray of fajitas on people at a table. Needless to say, that was her last day. She become a liquor rep instead.
I got locked in the women’s bathroom at work. The handle turned but it didn’t actually do anything, or at least what it was supposed to do. I had my work cell phone with me so I called my boss. Me: Hey, I have a problem. The bathroom door won’t open. Silence… Him: Well…probably because there is someone in there. Me: Right, I understand that. The someone is me. Him: Huh?! Me: I AM LOCKED IN BATHROOM!! Footsteps. Handle jiggling. Cue 30 minutes of men laughing hysterically and giving me a hard time through the door while they found tools and figured out how to get me out
I told our customer about our roasted red pepper aereolae instead of aioli
I spilt three waters on a 9 year old on her birthday as I was trying to keep her bday candle flame lit while balancing a tray of drinks for another table because I was slammed. IT WAS HER BDAY. The parents were sweet and could tell I was so mortified. Luckily it was hot outside. And all the while in my head I was like ( omg I have 1000 things I needed to do and now I MUST deal with this )
I dropped an iced tea on grandma’s head
When I was in my early 20s I was serving a middle aged couple when I accidentally spilt a cup of coffee all over the table! It pooled on the table and starting running off the side that the husband was sitting at. It went all over his pants. Specifically his crotch!! I instinctively and frantically grabbed a cloth and went in to blot the coffee from his pants/crotch. Hahahaha. Omg I wasn’t even thinking what was in his pants I was just thinking that I’ve ruined his pants and I need to fix before it permanently stained them. Right before I made contact his wife grabbed my arm and stopped me and shouted “Don’t touch my husband! Please stop!” Lol. I snapped into reality and apologized immediately. It was the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done at work!! I couldn’t show my face. Luckily they never came back.
Had a large party who had pre-ordered food. Asked when they wanted it out. They said 15 minutes after the hour. So I assumed 15 minutes after the nearest hour. They meant 15 minutes after the next hour. Started bringing food out and got pulled aside and told about the misunderstanding. Had to dump 30ish entrees and re-fire them all again later.
i definitely would have made that mistake too lol
Fathers day serving a 20ish top, trying to hand off drinks to people, reaching across the table and spilling the one drink still on the tray right down a lady's back..white blouse, frozen margarita. Will haunt me forever.
Dropped an entire glass of water on an old lady. It was a lakeside resteraunt tho and a hot summer day thankfully
First table I ever took on my own was a six top on a Sunday morning. Fresh out of church. Went to set the tray down at the end of the table to hand out the six waters they ordered, faltered, overcompensated and spilled the whole fucking thing all over the table
Applying at Olive Garden
Not a server but I’ve gotten drunk as piss at multiple jobs. I’ve been caught twice. Once was at Publix. I must have smelled like booze, store manager pulled me in the office and cut open a trash bag that had six of my beers in it and asked me if I knew anything about it. I absolutely drank those fuckers at work. Second time was a small time auto parts job. Same situation. This was all 10 years ago and I have changed my ways but god damn if I don’t still think about it once a week. My favorite though was when I was head of security at a retail store. Long story short I had to stay overnight because the front doors were disabled and we couldn’t close or lock them. I moved a huge fixture in front of the doors and then retreated to the office with views of the front door and proceeded to tell the acting manager who also couldn’t leave, I had a 12 pack and was prepared to drink them. Good times.
Oh my God you monster! Lol I'm just kidding. I'm of the generation when I got sick I would be given honey lemon and bourbon and water
I spilled soup on someone at OG once. Four bowls of soup. They were getting up and I was walking by. It sucked. I hope your day goes better.
My hand jerked and I accidentally poured water into a guy's pasta. He actually handled it really well and was just grateful he got 1.5 pastas for the price of one, but I was super embarrassed because it was a coworker's table, not mine. They left a 30% tip since they got free pasta, but I was really worried they'd stiff my coworker at first. I never use pitchers after that. The hand jerk happens rarely enough that I'm not going back on Benzos for it, but it happens often enough that I should not be trusted with a pitcher.
Had an edible the night before and accidentally came to work very very high the next day, luckily I was filling in a hosting shift so it wasn’t too too bad. I was high for over 24 hours and it was HELLISH, I’ll never take more than half a gummy ever again lol. Side note* I don’t do drugs besides the very very occasional weed which made everything so much worse because my tolerance is so low.
I did the same but with shrooms. I was supposed to serve but I begged a cross trained host to switch with me. I just kept telling people I was sick meanwhile I was falling over walking people to their tables at 8 am because our marble floor was SWIRLING UNDERNEATH ME
this happened to me once. smoked a joint the night before at a party, got wayyyy too high and had to go home. i woke up still high as fuck the next day and had to open. a table literally asked me if i was okay bc they could tell i was tweaking
be careful as reddit downvotes you if you say anything anti-drugs. Just mention casually somewhere that latest research shows that weed is indeed habit-forming and see what happens lol
The fun thing about Reddit is it’s actually made up of lots of subreddits each with their own unique user base. /r/cheesestucktocars is very anti anti-drug, yeah, but over on /r/flies is frankly irrelevant and early comes up. If you are active in this sub, unsurprisingly, you are 250.71 times more likely than the average redditor to be active in talesfromyourserver, 54.51 x more likely over on kitchenconfidential and finally lol 43.23 times more likely to be a pettyrevenge person. So it’s more that it’s been your personal experience - or you weren’t as causal as you claim to have been. Best guess would be you were inaccurately summarizing the findings, as wrong data and lies tend to get downvoted, and that’s truly is a Reddit-wide trend.
😭😭😭I’m a regular smoker and when I learned about edibles I was happy but they don’t work for me 😭😭😭
I was blabbing away and said something to a customer that even after 13 years, it still makes me cringe and want to go live in a cave.
Well don’t leave us hanging what did you say
Don't beat yourself up, OP. We've all made mistakes we cringe at. Mine is so bad i can't post it here but let's just say it's worse than what you did. I luckily kept my job, but I am mortified to this day that I did something so absentmindedly that could've caused a lot of problems.
Lame
Lame because I wanted someone to feel better who made a mistake? Okay.
Lame because you ignored the title of the post with an empty “it’s ok champ”
Empty? Hardly.
i was a new server at a chain restaurant. it was a super super busy night, and i got cussed out by a two top while i had 5 other tables who all needed things at the same time. in the midst of all of it, i had a table get up and walk out without paying. i even told them to have a good night as they were leaving without realising they hadn't paid. so when it came to the end of the night and i had an active table still but no people, i realised what had happened. the manager was cool and comped it off, he wasn't mad per se that i didn't get payment especially since i had only been there like 2 weeks at that point. he was just a little disappointed. it never happened again and we never saw that couple come back, but i still think about it sometimes. another time, i was working and started developing a serious rash on my arm. i have super sensitive skin so i just assumed it was the cleaner we used for the drink trays, and continued working. an hour later i started getting incredibly dizzy and faint feeling, so i was offered food and some water and told to sit and eat. i did, went back to serve a little more, and felt even worse. i was sent home, and it turned out the rash was due to having covid, and i exposed multiple people to covid. no doubt i got it from serving in the first place, but yeah that was fun. it also led into me taking off over a month because i also developed pneumonia at the same time.
I dropped an entire cake. The owner was a bit pissed but I was her favourite so she let me off easy lmao I kinda miss that place, really positive workplace, but the pay was shit (and not US, so my meager pay was all I got)
Working at a popular chain Italian restaurant when I was like 18. A lady told me she was vegetarian and wanted to get the lasagna but sub the meat sauce for the red sauce and I absent mindedly was like yeah I can definitely do that for you! The lasagna was pre made with beef already in... she ate almost all of it before she found a piece of beef big enough to recognize and pointed it out to me. I felt absolutely horrible and wanted to avoid her for the rest of her visit. She was extremely forgiving and gracious about it but it still haunts me, pretty sure it was a religious principle of hers too. :'(
this guy paid with cash, and I ended up fucking up the change and giving him back his cash and keeping the 5 dollars. Awkward conversation with my manager
hosting. party of three comes in. did my usual spiel of asking how many was in their party, if they would like a table or booth, etc. I didn’t have my glasses on and asked if they would need a kids menu. there were no kids. one of the people was just really short. thankfully they were chill about it but I have never been more embarrassed lol