Log with Liv

The restaurant when the power went out.

Working in a restaurant is a shocking display of the highs and lows of humanity, and, quite frankly, a sociologist’s dream. As a sixteen-year-old, I watched grown men throw tantrums about having to wait half an hour for a table. I have been in an argument with an old woman that our parking lot was too icy (much to her dismay, I, as a hostess, was unable to salt the parking lot right then). One of my personal favorites was when I was yelled at by an old man because the entire stretch of buildings around the restaurant and the restaurant itself lost power due to a car accident that hit a power line. According to him, it was a) my fault that the power was out, b) unacceptable that the kitchen could not make his dinner in the dark, and c) outrageous that he had to wait for a table for twenty minutes in the crowded restaurant only for the power to go out right when he sat down. On the other side of the extreme, countless people have apologized profusely for their parents’ or friends’ undue behavior, and I know every regular customer by name. To be honest, these contradictory interactions are one of the main reasons I love my job. Every shift brings new drama (from the customers and staff) and a new cast of bizarre characters. I work at a half-bar, half-restaurant in Lisle whose main patrons are old people and the people who line up outside the restaurant when we open in the morning to get to the bar as soon as possible. One of my greatest joys is getting to interact with this Breakfast Club-esque collection of patrons.

Working at a local family-owned restaurant where the idea that the customer is always right is scoffed upon, I caught on fairly quickly not to read too much into the emotional outbursts of the people yelling at me in complaint. I was told when I started the job, “Olivia, this is the real world. Learn from it.” Sure, I learned how to interact with combative conversational partners, so to speak, and I certainly learned the responsibility that comes with having your first real job, but there are a few principal lessons I experienced and one incredibly important guiding rule that I follow above all while sitting behind the host stand. 

Under no circumstances should you ever ask a customer if they are joking. 

Yes, they are serious, and yes, they really do have a thirty-person party that would like to sit together in the restaurant with no reservation on a Saturday evening. When a woman calls on the phone to ask if she can rent out the restaurant’s tables (mind you, physically rent and take the tables home), she expects a legitimate answer and she will get increasingly agitated when you ask clarifying questions on how exactly taking the restaurant’s tables and chairs would work.

Above all, the “Invisalign Incident” is what truly convinced me of the necessity of such a rule. A few months ago a woman calls the restaurant’s number and unfortunately, I am the one who picks up. She says that she was at the restaurant earlier in the day and left her Invisalign after wrapping it in a napkin and forgetting about it. It was an unfortunate occurrence, but realistically there was nothing that could be done to rectify the situation because her table had already been cleaned off and any napkins and other trash thrown away. As I explain the reality of the situation to her, she decides to share her plan for retrieving the Invisalign with me. “Where do you keep your trash?” she asks as the other hostess and I stare at each other, mouths gaping, each coming to the conclusion of what she is suggesting. My coworker takes the lead in my shocked silence and explains to the woman that our trash for the afternoon was probably two or three massive garbage bags filled to the brim with food scraps scraped from the plates of every person who had eaten there that day. Essentially a soggy, gravy-filled, schnitzel-y mess contained in a few plastic garbage bags. My coworker explains that there is absolutely no possibility of us going through the trash to retrieve her Invisalign, a task as impossible as it is revolting. With yet another shocking revelation, the woman replies that she will arrive at the restaurant in thirty minutes herself to pick up the bags of trash. 

In the subsequent half hour, I spend my time retelling the story to every server and busser I can find, basking in the look of horror and disgust that predictably fills their face as they realize what she intended to do. (Keep in mind that this is also in the middle of Covid.) As the minutes come and go, we feel sure that she will not come, we are confident that she has realized that no $50 retainer is worth what she is attempting to do. Just then, an older woman who is probably in her fifties walks in and requests to be taken to the dumpster. She, unfortunately, is completely serious. In my shock, I even ask her, verbatim, if she is joking (I know — I broke my own rule), in a final attempt to confirm what I fear her intentions are. She simply glares at me before repeating her request. My coworker then takes the woman behind the building where she picks up several bags of trash, placing them in the backseat of her car before driving away with an unmistakable look of triumph on her face. 

No one knows if the Invisalign was ever found. No one knows what happened to the pounds and pounds of old, soggy leftovers piled into her car. I like to imagine that she laid out a tarp and dumped the contents of the bags on the floor and was immediately hit with a wave of regret (not to mention a stench) so strong she physically had to back away from the trash. What did I learn that day? First, I worried a bit about the trajectory of mankind after such a shocking event. More importantly, though, my hostess golden rule was cemented as gospel. Customers are weird. If you think it is a joke, it is probably not. If you feel like laughing, don’t. They are serious, and they will ask for your manager.