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The Volde-Mart pharmacy I work in had their Christmas party last night at a fairly popular Italian chain that starts with G. While all in all we had a great time and I love the people I work with, there was some suck involved. When we got there, we were alerted that the tables were 'almost ready for the party of 28 from Walgreens'. Wait, what? No no, it's Voldemart. But the person who made the reservation used her name as well, so it wasn't a problem. We were supposed to have the back room with two large groups of tables together all to ourselves since there were so many of us, but only one half of the room was clear because a party of senior citizens showed up over an hour late for their reservation and were still there. (Sorry, I think if you're THAT late, you should loose the reservation).
Fortunately, some of our group were running late so by the time they arrived and things on one side of the room were getting really squashy (it's a good thing we all get along, heh), they finally cleared out. If we'd all shown up on time there just wouldn't have been enough room for everybody. Then our waiter shows up, looking clearly annoyed at the whole thing, and starts haphazardly taking drink orders and it seems as if we're the most irritating people in the world to him. One of our group was only over on her lunch hour so she ordered her food and had eaten, paid, and left while the rest of us were still just sipping drinks and appetizers. This comes into play later.
Waiter would leave for long amounts of time, with half of the people who ordered drinks or apps sitting there with nothing, although he at least did explain that there was only one bartender and she was a bit overwhelmed. No problem. The rest of our group shows up and is seated once the other half of the room is cleaned and he slouches down to one end of the room to start getting food orders. I see one of my colleagues make a catbutt face while she's trying to order and waiter is talking to her. She'd never eaten there before and asked him what came with a certain entrée. His reply:
"I don't know, what's it say?. I dunno what stuff comes with, I just punch buttons in on the computer, you need to read the menu."
Some people ordered salads and asked what dressings there were to choose from, and he snapped "Only two, house or ranch is all we have. I always bring one bowl of each with each salad" It turns out they had more than four dressings to pick from. I don't think any of us got to order without him 'correcting' us one way or the other. As in "You have to specify which because everything is so different!" instead of a simple "___ or ___?" Shortly after everyone had finally gotten started, the manager came in to see how we were all doing and the person who'd been told bluntly to read the menu herself relayed the story to him. He looked horrified, said he'd get us a new server and hurried from the room. Two very friendly, if not hyper waitresses came bouncing in to refill drinks and had to spend five minutes getting dressing orders because the first waiter hadn't specified which flavors. They kept coming back, and coming back, and coming back, asking how things were, refilling the drinks, and bringing bread, to the point where it started to feel like overkill and I was getting a little embarrassed. Our food starts arriving and one of the waiters holds up a platter and wants to know who ordered the bruchetta and also who ordered calamari. There ended up being an extra calamari because first waiter had put the order in twice and the manager just told him to give it to whoever wanted it. No one claimed the bruchetta, either. Two minutes later several staff come in, loaded down with plates and plates of the stuff and gave that to us, too. Later they showed up with a serving of Greek custard for each of us as well. All the while apologizing profusely.
Remember my coworker that had to eat and run because she was on lunch? Now comes the fun part. Hyper waitress comes back in, holding a loooooong receipt and asking if anyone by the name of Coworker On Lunch was there. Because when she replaced first waiter, they transferred his orders over to her, but somehow everyone's order ended up on poor COL's Visa. Yes, all 30 odd something of us. Waitress then had to make another round down the room, taking all of our orders again so they could get it sorted out so COL didn't end up buying us all dinner unawares. I'm not even sure how this happened since she paid before we had even ordered our food, but I know it's not good. And yes, the first waiter did ask and was aware that most of us would be a separate check except for the couples and families. We waited about 30 minutes before that got sorted out and we could all go up front and pay individually, but these poor people never did stop apologizing and I hate to think how stressed they must have been. One of the younger waiters came in at one point and said "Hey we're really sorry about all this and we hope it won't stop you from coming back. But we did send that douchebag home!" While that wasn't necessarily appropriate for him to do, something tells me that our first waiter already had somewhat of a reputation there. And I went to the restaurant when it first opened, and he was there and I remember my Mom not caring for his service too much.
Turns out that he saw COL on her way out and said something to her about the fact that he'd been sent home for the night because of us and said "Last time this happened I got sent home for a week to think about what I'd done." She mentioned this to the manager, who was even more mortified by it than he already was. I'm not sure the guy's still gonna have a job now, and I kind o feel bad, but management also mentioned that we were hardly the first people to say something and that they'd gotten quite a few complaints on him recently. I guess that would explain why they went into overkill with the customer worship on us.
It was a very weird experience
Fortunately, some of our group were running late so by the time they arrived and things on one side of the room were getting really squashy (it's a good thing we all get along, heh), they finally cleared out. If we'd all shown up on time there just wouldn't have been enough room for everybody. Then our waiter shows up, looking clearly annoyed at the whole thing, and starts haphazardly taking drink orders and it seems as if we're the most irritating people in the world to him. One of our group was only over on her lunch hour so she ordered her food and had eaten, paid, and left while the rest of us were still just sipping drinks and appetizers. This comes into play later.
Waiter would leave for long amounts of time, with half of the people who ordered drinks or apps sitting there with nothing, although he at least did explain that there was only one bartender and she was a bit overwhelmed. No problem. The rest of our group shows up and is seated once the other half of the room is cleaned and he slouches down to one end of the room to start getting food orders. I see one of my colleagues make a catbutt face while she's trying to order and waiter is talking to her. She'd never eaten there before and asked him what came with a certain entrée. His reply:
"I don't know, what's it say?. I dunno what stuff comes with, I just punch buttons in on the computer, you need to read the menu."
Some people ordered salads and asked what dressings there were to choose from, and he snapped "Only two, house or ranch is all we have. I always bring one bowl of each with each salad" It turns out they had more than four dressings to pick from. I don't think any of us got to order without him 'correcting' us one way or the other. As in "You have to specify which because everything is so different!" instead of a simple "___ or ___?" Shortly after everyone had finally gotten started, the manager came in to see how we were all doing and the person who'd been told bluntly to read the menu herself relayed the story to him. He looked horrified, said he'd get us a new server and hurried from the room. Two very friendly, if not hyper waitresses came bouncing in to refill drinks and had to spend five minutes getting dressing orders because the first waiter hadn't specified which flavors. They kept coming back, and coming back, and coming back, asking how things were, refilling the drinks, and bringing bread, to the point where it started to feel like overkill and I was getting a little embarrassed. Our food starts arriving and one of the waiters holds up a platter and wants to know who ordered the bruchetta and also who ordered calamari. There ended up being an extra calamari because first waiter had put the order in twice and the manager just told him to give it to whoever wanted it. No one claimed the bruchetta, either. Two minutes later several staff come in, loaded down with plates and plates of the stuff and gave that to us, too. Later they showed up with a serving of Greek custard for each of us as well. All the while apologizing profusely.
Remember my coworker that had to eat and run because she was on lunch? Now comes the fun part. Hyper waitress comes back in, holding a loooooong receipt and asking if anyone by the name of Coworker On Lunch was there. Because when she replaced first waiter, they transferred his orders over to her, but somehow everyone's order ended up on poor COL's Visa. Yes, all 30 odd something of us. Waitress then had to make another round down the room, taking all of our orders again so they could get it sorted out so COL didn't end up buying us all dinner unawares. I'm not even sure how this happened since she paid before we had even ordered our food, but I know it's not good. And yes, the first waiter did ask and was aware that most of us would be a separate check except for the couples and families. We waited about 30 minutes before that got sorted out and we could all go up front and pay individually, but these poor people never did stop apologizing and I hate to think how stressed they must have been. One of the younger waiters came in at one point and said "Hey we're really sorry about all this and we hope it won't stop you from coming back. But we did send that douchebag home!" While that wasn't necessarily appropriate for him to do, something tells me that our first waiter already had somewhat of a reputation there. And I went to the restaurant when it first opened, and he was there and I remember my Mom not caring for his service too much.
Turns out that he saw COL on her way out and said something to her about the fact that he'd been sent home for the night because of us and said "Last time this happened I got sent home for a week to think about what I'd done." She mentioned this to the manager, who was even more mortified by it than he already was. I'm not sure the guy's still gonna have a job now, and I kind o feel bad, but management also mentioned that we were hardly the first people to say something and that they'd gotten quite a few complaints on him recently. I guess that would explain why they went into overkill with the customer worship on us.
It was a very weird experience
Second of all, if this guy had a prior history, why oh why would they put him as the waitstaff of choice for a large party? Something else was going on with that one. 
Fortunately I had just enough to cover the balance, but I was pretty ticked.
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