A good attitude in the workplace is essential for keeping your staff motivated and engaged at work. Treating everyone with respect and understanding is vital to be a successful team. But what if the manager is not ready to listen to a server who believed the new policy by this new manager was not a great idea. Read the story and let us know how you would handle the situation.
Source: Reddit
I used to be a server at a major restaurant chain that you see in every mall in the US, and my particular location just happened to be in one of the wealthier parts of the country. Because of that, a large percentage of the clientele wanted their dishes a certain way. There were some oddball regulars (like the one lady who wanted a Caesar salad with no dressing but 3 whole lemons to squeeze on the lettuce) but 99% of the time they’d ask for rigatoni instead of penne in a dish, or red onion instead of yellow on a burger, or something of that nature. The thing about this chain, though, is that technically you’re supposed to charge them for substitutions like that. So, for instance, if a guest wanted a different kind of dressing on a salad, it might be a 10 cent charge. Or if they wanted Swiss instead of cheddar on their burger, it would be like a 15 cent charge.
As a server you were supposed to know all the upcharges, but because there were like 26 pages to the menu it was daunting enough to just memorize what we even had. But obviously no one ever charged for these things because what’s an extra 15 cents on a $200 tab, especially when you’re in the weeds and you’re pretty sure the host stand wants you to have a mental breakdown. Not only that, but because rich people tend to be the stingiest mfers you’ll ever meet, we would never charge them because they would instantly complain if you did. And the restaurant’s policy was essentially “the customer is always right” no matter how wrong they were. We even had regular grifters that would order the “wrong thing” and then complain and get an entire free meal EVERY FREAKING TIME.
So one normal day I’m serving a table and someone asks for goat cheese on their salad instead of feta, which is supposed to be one of those 10 cent changes. I obviously don’t add the upcharge, just like I hadn’t for any of the other countless times in over 3 years, and like 15 minutes later the new manager (I’ll just call him Brad) comes along and pretty much chews me out over it. Keep in mind, this is Brad’s 2nd day on the job and he came from the other side of the country to replace our beloved former manager who left to manage her own restaurant. Dude hadn’t even introduced himself to me and he comes out of nowhere to yell at me for not doing the upcharge. I explained to him why I didn’t, and how it was pretty much a directive from the GM not to do upcharges because of the 99% chance that a complaint and free meal would follow. But Brad just blah blah blahs some more and tells me I need to add the upcharges or I’d get written up.
So when the next table (a party of seven that had a $500ish bill) changes literally every dish, I added the upcharges (which totaled like, $1 at most). When I dropped the check they freaked out over all the upcharges (even though I informed them of the charges when they ordered, the itemized receipt made it look so much more severe) and they demanded to speak to the manager.
Instead of getting any of the other managers I had worked with for years, I grabbed Brad and made him deal with them. He ended up having to comp all $500ish because he insisted I charge an extra dollar for all the substitutions. But did he learn his lesson? Nope! So I did it over and over again to the detriment of my bank account (most people still tipped me though, so that was nice) and I got to watch tables routinely chew him out over the charges. This continued for a month or so until he finally relented, and not too long after I was suspiciously fired for “creating a hostile work environment”….while on vacation.
TL;DR: New manager made me upcharge people negligible amounts and ended up losing the restaurant thousands of dollars because of it
EDIT: Separated into more paragraphs so it’s easier to read
Update: Just wanted to say thanks for the awards and for the legal stuff. Y’all would be amazed by the amount of illegal crap the restaurant industry gets away with (but that’s for a different subreddit)
