One lunch rush in the popular pizza chain I worked at, a group of four middle-aged women were seated in a booth in my section. They were persnickety with me from the get-go but whooping it up with each other. They seemed like they hadn’t seen each other in a while and were having a reunion.

When I dropped their appetizers off, one of them who seemed to be the lead bitch demanded extra small plates, and another woman at the table also requested more house bread. I said “sure” and as I left to grab said plates, another table I was passing stopped me to order because they were “in a hurry”. Lead Bitch sees this and waves me back over to her. I considered pretending not to notice so I could go grab the plates and bread first but then thought maybe they want to add another request and then I could grab it all at the same time. Anyone who has served knows you have to multitask as much as possible. So when I was done taking the table’s order, I walked back over. Ugh.

“WHY haven’t you brought our plates yet?!” she demands to know. I just looked at her dumbfounded at first, startled by the sheer idiocy and uncalled-for rudeness. Then I responded “I was on my way to grab them…” Lead Bitch didn’t even let me finish my sentence where I would’ve explained the table stopped me to order. She interrupted to berate me harshly by saying “There is a stack of small plates RIGHT THERE!” She pointed to a stack of small plates sitting a few feet away, placed there by a busboy who planned to use them to set a group of tables he just cleared. Even if I had noticed them sitting there, it would’ve been a big no-no to steal them from him, not to mention the house bread was in the back of the house where I could also grab her plates. But people like Lead Bitch don’t think about anything or anyone but themselves.

You learn pretty quickly when you work customer service that there are narcissistic jerks who don’t want to hear explanations, they don’t want to understand how your business is run, they only want to hear you kissing their ass. Anything other than “I’m so so sorry! You are totally right! Let me give you a free meal/gift card/dessert” is ignored or gets them angrier.

As far as Lead Bitch is concerned, she just got off on treating someone like crap and getting away with it, because why would you waste more of your server’s time by calling them back to the table before they bring what you want? If she hadn’t wasted my time to be a douche, I would’ve been back with the bread and plates already instead of standing there plate-less and bread-less just to hear her be an idiot.

As I began to speak again, Lead Bitch snapped at me by pointing her finger at my face and snarling “I don’t want to hear you talk! Just go get what we need!” I gave her my best wide-eyed, astonished look before stomping away to my manager to inform him that I refused to wait on that table anymore. He waited on them instead and told me not to worry about it. The great thing about the managers of that restaurant was that they all came from serving tables before their current positions, so they understood how nasty some people were.