Top 10 List of Common Waiter/Waitress Errors
All the examples below are completely true, but Thank God, never all at once!

1. Attitude

  • How many times have you been waited on by a grumpy, rushed, distracted waitress? We go to restaurants to relax and be served, enjoy the company we came with and hopefully eat good food.

  • Check your 'tude' at the punch clock. No excuses. Good advice for any industry. Everyone's got problems. Or didn't you know that working in a restaurant is stressful before you applied for the job?

  • Excuses, excuses..."Oh, it's sooo busy tonight"....."The busboy didn't show up"... The kitchen is slow tonight"...."We have a new bartender"..."The hostess didn't tell me that she sat you"... Would you like some cheese with that whine? If I want to hear whining and excuses, I'll just stay home and have dinner with my kids.

  • Waiters are usually much better about this. Sexist? I suppose so. Just remember that a female wrote this page.

2. Attentiveness

  • You sit and sit and sit. After ten or more minutes, a wait-person appears and asks "Have you been helped yet?" Doesn't the wait-person know who is seated in their section? The inference here is: "Someone else is supposed to wait on you, but I'll be nice and do it for them." When it starts out with the attitude of "doing us a big favor by waiting on us", this is usually a grim preview of things to come. These types ignore you for the whole meal, forget the ketchup, your drinks, etc. They're non existent, but then when it's time to present the bill, they hover and smile sweetly and ask if everything is ok, as if they'd been there all along, fooling no one. Don't do me any favors, just do your job.

3. Waiting on "Daddy".

  • We get these waitresses (usually young, twenty five and under) that are fixated on serving and doing everything for the head male at the table. My husband is a businessman with an authoritative presence. The waitress "knows" that he's paying, so she "plays up to Daddy" for her tip. She always takes his order and serves him first, always looks him in the eye and smiles and during the dinner, comes up and ask him if there is anything he needs, while I sit there, 'persona non grata'. When dinner is over, I'll give my husband a sly look and say "I'm paying". When she reaches out to hand him the bill, I intercept it and state casually; "I'm paying". I just love to see the look on their faces when they realize the person that they've ignored throughout the whole meal is paying. Wake up, sweetheart. Mom pays the bills, too. This situation never happens with male wait staff.

4. No Silverware

  • This happens all the time. There's no "set up" on the table (restaurant lingo for eating utensils and napkin.) The food is brought to the table. I ask for a fork, please. Another five minutes go by and now the food is getting cold. Sometimes I'll get up and ask the first wait-person I see for utensils, or I'll grab a set up off of another table, if available. Just make sure the table is set --if not before the customer is seated, then right after.

5. Wasted Steps

  • How many times have you seen a wait person rushing around, you try to get their attention and they either ignore you or they say "I'll be right back". It's like they have those blinders on that the race horses wear. If they are not carrying something, it only makes sense to stop for two seconds and see what another table wants. Why can't they bring ketchup to one table and mustard to another? Why do they have to prolong this five more minutes by running into the kitchen, only to be distracted while in there. Think "efficiency" and "economy of steps".

6. The Fine Art of Serving

  • The absolute correct manner in which to serve food is from the right. Sometimes that is not applicable by how the table sits. However I don't care about that too much, serve from right or left --but NEVER serve a plate over people. Current serving standards in restaurants are non-existent. No thought is being given whatsoever to this portion of the meal. Because waiters and waitresses are "so busy" these days (read: disorganized and untrained) they need help carrying a few plates to the table. 75 percent of the time now, you are served your food by someone you have never seen before --who appears to be a non-english speaking busboy. Any plate in his hand is placed in front of the person nearest him and then we have to play musical chairs with our food. I so dislike this new fangled "team method" of serving. I am paying you to serve me! I want the person to whom I told my order to remember what I said I ordered and bring it to me. But in the new method the "server" runs off and there is no one there to ask you if you need anything else, which I assure you, you will.

  • The server hands you the plate, while stating "it's hot". The server should put the plate down on the table in front of you, not hand the plate to you. As my kids would say: "Duuuuh!"

  • Wait-person Mantra: The customer is paying me 15% of their bill to remember what he/she ordered. Place the right dish in front of the person that ordered it.

    --Mistakes do happen, but these days I see no attempt at all to get it right.

7. I'm in the desert, I'm dying and I want W-a-t-e-r.

  • "I'll have a coke and a glass of water." My husband says; "I'll have a Budweiser and a water". The drinks come from the bar, but no water. Every time the wait-person rushes by I'll ask; "Can I please have my water now?" Eventually it comes, but sometimes it never does. I did figure out a way to get water. When they come for your first drink order, ask for water first and do not order anything else until you have it.

8. Protocol for the sexes:

  • Always take the womans order first.

  • Always serve the womans plate first.
    I thought this was general knowledge, but apparently it isn't.

  • This rule doesn't apply when waiting on large party

9. Ignorance of menu and of items available.

  • Don't you just love it when you ask what the best item on the menu is and they respond with the generic; "Everything is good here". Gee, that is so helpful. Or you ask how the lamb chops are and the wait-person says: "I've never tried that before"; or even worse: "I'm a vegetarian, I don't eat meat". A wait person is the representative of their establishment. It's their job to be up on the menu and knowledgeable about the food they are serving. If it isn't their job, whose job is it? Wouldn't the wait-person be embarrassed if I asked "le managiere" to come over and make recommendations because the wait person couldn't? They wouldn't like it, it would make them appear stupid. Therefore, I have to place my needs second to theirs in order to not embarrass them. Be prepared for your job, this is not rocket science, merely common sense.

  • Most restaurants have a specialty, that's always the safest bet.

  • When you're in a steak house order meat, when dining at a seafood restaurant order fish. Don't order steak in a seafood establishment and don't complain, if you choose not to take this advice.

  • Another annoyance is when they're out of an item, but you aren't notified of this until later, like when everyone else is being served their entree.

10. Tips, amount assumed.

  • You've ordered a sandwich and a drink. The bill is presented and comes to $11.79. You've placed a twenty dollar bill, it's peeking out beneath the check. The wait-person takes it and says "Do you need change?"

    No, I always give a 90% tip!
    Never 'assume' your tip. If you're good, then you'll get what you're worth.

Note to the Restaurant Management:
"The speed of the leader --is the speed of the gang"

I believe the entire restaurant industry needs an overhaul. There's virtually no training of waiters and waitress, oh, EXCUSE ME, SERVERS these days... and a continual passing of the buck. It's the chef's fault, it's the bartenders fault, the hostess shouldn't have sat you in my section, three people didn't show up for this shift, etc...

It seems the whole dining out experience has been watered down to complete mediocrity. The corporate view is: "How can we make the most profit off of the least amount of goods." They don't hire "chefs", they hire "cooks", management looks like someone who graduated from high school last year, (if you can even find a manager on duty!) and knowing the turn over for help is so huge --they don't even bother to train anymore.

My biggest peeve is seeing the wait staff standing around --chatting, ignoring their customers, sitting down eating themselves or even smoking, while on duty. Then you wave at them to come to your table and they come over still chewing and acting like you've "interrupted them". HELLO!




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