Jay's Bad day!

Jay is a nervous server! He is hard working, conscientious and always willing to go the extra mile… but he is NERVOUS!

For the past three months since his bad day he has only worked as a food runner and busboy. Only in the last couple of weeks has he found the courage to go back out on the floor.

The evening started off well. There were a few other tables dining in the Grill room that night, some of them leaving early to go to the theater.

Mr. Frontier came in with his newest girlfriend. He is on the house committee and we are all keenly aware he will report back if there are any issues with his experience; so we all immediately surround him with more help than he will ever need. So far so good!

Soon after Mr. Knuckle arrived. He is a new member, who has so far been hard to read. By this I mean he appears to be happy but he never thanks us at the end of his meal; he never complements anything he eats and gives no clues on how we could exceed his expectations.

Jay has both of these tables in his section.

Mr. Frontier is ready to have his order taken. He allows his girlfirend to order her food then orders a burger, Medium rare. Let me explain that in this state you may only have them medium well or well done. Even in a private club. Many establishments flout the rules, but not us; so Jay kindly informed him of this and watched in horror as the explosion occurred!

He came to me almost in tears saying Mr. frontier needed to speak to me.

I then calmed mr. frontier down but reassurred him that it is not only club policy but also the law. He told me to just order his girlfriends food and he will take another beer. He continued to throw insults to Jay for the rest of the night, even after I had a mini beef slider (medium rare of course) made up to appease him. He just got up; walked into the service station and bitched Jay out for not bringing more bread quickly enough.

Now it was Mr. Knuckles turn. He sent his CHILLED Gaspacho soup back. Reason? Too cold! He then had a filet mignon for his entree, rare! He sent that back too complaining it was too bloody!

By this stage I thought Jay's head was going to spin off his sholders.

After all this Mr. Frontier offered to buy the tables surrounding him drinks to apologize for his obvious over reaction and Mr. Knuckles the following week sent in a survey praising Jay on copeing well under pressure.

Even so, Jay still chose not to serve tables for a few months as he was so rattled. Remember next time you go to a restaurant that if there is something wrong, it may not be your servers fault! Don't give Jay another bad day!