Letter to a Terrible Waitress

Dear Terrible Waitress:

Waitressing is a stressful job. I say that with all sincerity - you're on your feet, having to be nice to people even when they're jerks, managing information, remembering orders and specials and faces, dealing with kitchen staff, dodging traffic... it can be a really tough gig.

I also understand the sexist stigma that comes with being a waitress as opposed to a waiter. Or at least, I do now, after doing a Google image search - when I searched for waiter, lots of charming clip-art surfaced immediately, featuring men in coattails carrying silver platters, smiling bus boys, and so on. When I plugged in waitress, several naked pictures turned up, along with ads for topless bars and strippers. (And the only word I was searching for was "waitress." That was it!) So I get it, and I'm sorry.

However.

You, sweetheart, you in particular, are just about the worst waitress imaginable.

First of all, when my friends and I are seated at the table, ready for you to take our drink order, you instead first spent no less than five minutes ranting to us about what bastards your last customers were, and how they didn't even leave you a tip. Initially, though a little weirded out by your over-the-top rant, you did have our sympathy.

Then, when we asked you what the specials on tap were, you didn't know. You had to go check. You took ten minutes to come back... and when you returned, you said "Oh, gosh y'all, I already forgot what all's on tap, it's so hard to remember! I do know we have Bud Light, or maybe it's Miller, or that other one?"

Like the nice (thirsty) patrons we are, we said anything was fine, really, and put in an order for an appetizer as well. Besides, tap lists change, sometimes it's hard to remember, no big deal.

Forget the fact that the appetizer didn't arrive until after the meal. Forget the fact that you got every salad dressing order wrong. I suppose we could blame the kitchen for those things; never know, it could be their fault. But these poor moves, I pin squarely on you:

• Talking with the cute guys one table over for 15 minutes, after we gave you our order and before you turned it over to the kitchen.
• Rolling your eyes when we asked where our appetizer was.
• Calling me sugar, baby, sweetheart, while keeping your eyes fixed on the men.
• Calling me sugar, baby, sweetheart, when you told me the kitchen was closing so you couldn't fix my mis-prepared order.
  
• Calling me sugar, baby, sweetheart, though you are probably about 5-10 years younger than I am (and I am not generally so irritated by overly intimate terms of endearment from strangers, but you really overshot your quota).
  

These were all bad calls, but the last straw was when we were waiting for our check, and I went inside to find you, and I saw you sitting at the bar doing shots with some other patrons.

And when you saw me, you hid. Like literally, dropped the shot glass, ran into the kitchen, and hid there for another 10 minutes before you brought us our bill...

...and I'm such a sucker, that when you brought us the bill and singled me out as the perpetually sympathetic one and gave me the tear-jerker line about how it's your first night and you're so new and overwhelmed, I typically would have been guilted into leaving you a gigantic tip.

Except that you told me it was your first night the last time you were my waitress. At this restaurant. Six weeks ago. So, sugar, work up a new routine, or find a new job, baby, because you are really a terrible waitress. Sweetheart.

Follow up to this post, 6/26/2007: due to our first choice venue being closed, my friend Mac and I wound up back at TW's restaurant again last night. And of course, we were seated in TW's section. And of course, TW was, well, T. But I felt so guilty about venting online, anonymously as it was, that I left her a 20% tip this time. Mac nearly killed me.