The Waitress Who Didn't Have a Chance

Today, the cliché about not being able to decide on what to make for dinner was more of a dull reality than a sitcom punchline. Annie was racking her brain trying to figure out what to make and, uncharacteristically, deferred to me to come up with a solution. I, on the other hand, did the very characteristic 'guy thing' to do: resolve to go out to eat.

So off we went to a local IHOP for a quick bite. The service was... shall we say, the opposite of impeccable; "peccable"? - I think that is actually a word. Anyway, it was really bad.

My friend Gregg will be laughing if he reads this because he's always saying how these bad service situations always happen to me while they rarely, if ever, happen to him. (Except when I'm around. Then it happens to him all the time.) I'm beginning to think Gregg is right.

After the waitress took our drink orders and returned with two waters for the kids, an iced tea for Annie, and hot coffee for me, I stopped her before she left and said, "when you get a chance, can you bring me a glass of water as well? Sorry. I should have asked for it before. Thanks." She replied kindly with a bubbley, "sure!"

After our food comes - about 15 minutes later - I kindly reminded her for my water again. "Can you bring me a glass of water when you get a chance?" Slightly embarrassed that she forgot, she assured me she would.

Annie, wanted some ketchup to go with her hash browns and scambled eggs and patiently waited for the waitress to return. Annie really didn't want to eat those side dishes without the ketchup so slowly, as sure as excited potato molecules eventually lose their momentum and cool down, her eggs and hash browns got cold. I, after eating half of my sandwich, was starting to get thirsty for some water to help wash down the bread.

The only time I saw our waitress was when she was waiting other tables.

On top of all that, there was this huge onion ring that was completely undercooked. Parts of the inside of the onion ring was all drippy and cold with uncooked batter. Yuck.

Finally, I spot a ketchup bottle at a nearby table that Annie had to just grab for herself. If we waited any longer, Annie's food would have gone from hot to cold to moldy. We ended up talking to another waitress about my request for water and I watched as she walked over to our waitress (who had just finished bringing drinks to another table and was taking their dinner order) to tell her to bring my water.

Our waitress looked up at me and mouthed the words, 'I'm sorry.'
OK, fine. She's sorry. She admitted she was at fault and felt bad. All is forgiven. But she was sorry, right? Oh, so wrong.

When the waitress finally returned to our table with my glass of water - a full 40-50 minutes after I initially asked for it, she said to me, "well, you said 'when you get a chance'; unfortunately, I didn't get a chance."

WTF!?

First of all, I was just being polite when I said 'when you get a chance.' It's just a polite thing to say. You mean if I had said, "get my water now" you would have gotten it for me right away?

Secondly, what do you mean you didn't get a chance? I saw you get drinks for two other tables in the time that you didn't get it for me. Certainly the water spigot from which you get your iced tap water isn't located in another room than where the soda fountain is located, is it? Surely the water isn't locked in the basement where you need two operators to simultaneously turn two separate keys in order to unlock the fireproof mag-lock safe, is it? You didn't have to boil the river water to kill all bacteria that might cause me dysentery, did you? You didn't have to make any ice from scratch or fetch it from a mountain top, did you? How can you not have a chance? It literally takes less-than-ten-seconds to get a glass of water. I bet you could get a glass of water faster than you can tie your shoes! Didn't get a chance. pfft, Sarah, please.

Thirdly, you are a waitress. You have one singular job: get stuff for people. It's not like you're running the UN Security Council. I get that if you had the skillset to work at a higher-paying job, you would, but I assume your boss thought you were qualified enough to shuttle plates back and forth between the kitchen and some diagrammed, numbered tables. If he didn't, I don't think he would have hired you. So why the betrayal of trust? Why stab your boss in the back when you said, "yes" to his question, "will you be able to get water for dudes that ask for water" and then straight up not do it? Why go back on your promise and make a liar out of your boss who surely tells his wife at home that all the waitresses he hires "can fetch junk from the kitchen on command"?

Fourthly,... actually, secondly again, (back to the whole "I didn't have a chance" thing) if you didn't have a chance to 'get stuff for people', what were you doing? Playing squash with your attorneys? Curing cancer? What were you doing that prevented you from "getting a chance" to do your job? Maybe you double as a super-villain and you were busy building a giant robot with which to rule the European Union. If that's the case, then all is fogiven (except for the part about trying to rule the European Union - if anyone should rule the EU, it should be all Americans, not just super-villains.) But somehow I doubt that was the case. I suspect you just forgot and a simple, sincere, "sorry. I totally forgot" would have sufficed.

Needless to say, I spoke to the supervisor working that night. She was very understanding and apologetic. She was empathetic enough to understand our frustration with everything and she was thoughtful enough to give us a 20% discount off our ticket.

It'll be a while before we go back to that IHOP, me thinks.