Astrid approached the table. "Hi! I'm Astrid! What can I get for you to day?" she said with a big smile.
For you see, Astrid is a very nice waitress, and often enjoys her job. Her regulars describe her as "saucy" (she is often covered in sauce), cheerful and sarcastic.
Astrid took the family's order and went to the kitchen to help prepare their order. She talked to another waitress, Luz, as she sliced cucumbers.
Suddenly, the man from table 30 was in the kitchen! He looked terribly concerned! Astrid was very concerned too! Customers are not supposed to be in the kitchen, nor do they ever enter it. It is behind some doors in the back of the building.
"Miss! Miss! There is a FLY on my table!", said the man from table 30.
"A fly?", said Astrid, "Like.. a fly?"
"YES!"
Astrid wondered if the man was simply playing a joke on her. Luz stared at Astrid and the man.
"So a fly is on your table?" she said.
"YES,IT IS ON THE TABLE!"
Astrid told the man he should not be in the kitchen, but she followed him out to his table to see this fly anyways.
The fly was not large and radioactive, it was not ordering a Moons over my Hammy. The fly wasn't even near any food, no food was on the table! The fly did not even need a refill. It was just small, buzzy and sitting on the edge of the table.
"SEE!", said the man, "See it! It's on our table!"
"Um, yes", said Astrid.
"WELL AREN'T YOU GOING TO DO SOMETHING?", the man yelled.
Well, Astrid was a bit confused, because she didn't know what the big deal was. These people looked like normal folks. None of them appeared to be under the influence of any substance. They appeared to be a nice family with a husband, a wife and two children.
The man was beginning to get angry, so Astrid shooed the fly with her hand. The fly was startled and began to fly away toward the door. The man watched it fly. More customers entered the restaurant and the fly exited Denny's through the closing door.
Astrid laughed nervously. "Well, it's not on the table anymore!"
The family received their food and ate it without complaint. The were not as friendly towards Astrid as they had been earlier in the evening, but Astrid smiled and was friendly towards them.
They paid and left.
Janet, the acting manager approached Astrid. "ASTRID, YOU DID NOT TELL ME THAT THERE WAS A BUG ON THEIR TABLE?", she said.
Astrid told Janet the story of the fly and table 30. Janet told Astrid that the family had complained about her. According to the family at table 30, Astrid did not care that a fly was sitting at the edge of their table. Astrid did not attempt to trap the fly, nor did she put the fly outside. Astrid did not even offer the family a discount on the food that they had not eaten yet, because they had to deal with such a trecherous pest! The family had demanded to Janet that their food be free and that Astrid be punished. Janet gave them a free meal. (She did not understand what had happened, the family just said a bug was in their food and they were angry)
Astrid spent 10 minutes writing up an explaination of what had happened with the family at table 30 and why they received a free meal. It will be mailed to Denny's corporate in the morning.
I would find that shocking, but I came to a conclusion a long time ago that people are idiots. 'nuff said.
Was this fly one hundred flies?
That sucks.
Ah, customer service. Whether you're at retail or retailing FOOD. It's idiocy, 101, and damn well lack of CURTOUSY 101. 
:"> ,
That @#%! pisses me off. Dammit, that damn well deserved spit in their food. I hope you wrote that the man RAN to the kitchen. I hope you wrote that you DID something about it. What freakin' good is trapping the fly gonna do? Trap the fly? Why sure! Let me get that glass of yours, let me empty it of its Coke contents, TRAP IT, set it outside, come back, refill your glass, and hand it back to you. Now isn't that better?
Did your manager ACTUALLY take their side 100%?!?! O_o She didn't see the lunacy of this?
Ah, customers. Can't live with them and can't run a business without them.
Reminds me of an experience my girlfriend had described to me when she was working at a Starbucks.
June (my significant other) had made Double Latte for this woman with her usual smile and "Have a good night". June is a very polite girl, the thought of even giving anyone a bad attitude scares her. She, like Astrid, likes her job very much and is described by frequent customers and kind, courteous, and quite good at her job. Two days later, this woman who ordered the double latte shows up againto the store, this time however she is irate, and is holding an empty Starbucks cup.
She claimed that some "snot nosed girl" threw her drink at her with "such an attitude" that she just gave a "snarl" to our "poor defenseless" latte drinker. The girl's name was "Jane" or something. On top of that, the woman says that she did not enjoy her latte at all, and it "pained her" to drink it. She demmanded a refund.
At this point, June walks in to start her shift, and the woman points out that this was the girl who had
given her this heinous atrocity of a caffeinated drink.
She then demmanded action be taken. June's manager cowardly handed over the refund for a Double Latte in exchange of the empty cup, and assured the woman that June would be "dealt with."
The manager, knowing June, knew that June would never do such a thing, and just had her fill out some report giving her side of the story, and he had to give her a write up. Since then June has quit (not because of this incident) and has moved onto better things. But still, the fact that a 2 day old empty Starbucks cup merits a full refund and a write up for a nice person is quite confounding.
LOL. That sucks.
Then again, I think Denny's sucks, too.
Wait. I think everything sucks. Nevermind.
Reminds me of two times. Customers like those two need to be kept indoors, away from the general public.
Ben works at a Kroger near where he lives. Ben also works the do-it-yourself lane, and usually comes home with a headache, for he does not particularly like his job, and is currently looking for a way out.
One night, Ben was in a decently cheery mood for once. The lanes were empty, and the machines had been running without much error, which was unusual for them, for they complain to Ben like spoiled children; i.e., it was a nice night. Then, out of the corner of his eye, Ben notices a customer pitching a fit at the managers, then sees the manager point at him. Goodie goodie gumdrops, wouldn't ya know, the customer approaches Ben and demands he scan his orders, for he worked at Kroger for thirty years, and evidently, thought he deserved special treatment. Now, Ben holds the opinion that you could be the president of the world and he'd still treat you with the same level of respect as anyone else, so Ben offers to teach the man to work the U-Scan, as per what he does with every person using it the first time. The man snaps at Ben that he did NOT WANT to use the U-Scan, but the lines were overly full, although it was clear to anyone that there was not more than a two-minute wait at any line, which isn't too bad. Ben, about ready to snap said old guy in two, literally, calmly points out the various features on the U-Scan, considering the guy seemingly was S.O.L. However. The man demands that Ben scan his groceries personally, while a line forms in the U-Scan, inconviencing what must have been six different customers, three at the registers awaiting their change, for the dispensers were off for the night, and at least three more waiting for the other three to get their change so they could get in to scan their orders and go home or wherever it is people go after buying groceries. But no, the man worked at Kroger for thitry years, as he repeated to Ben, who was on his last couple of nerves and now had quite the stress headache, as the old guy refused to even touch the payment screen, making Ben scan his card and get his reciept for him and reload his cart, while blaming people like Ben. U-Scan workers, for taking jobs away from other cashiers, even though the U-Scan makes an 11th lane in an otherwise 10-lane store. Needless to say, Ben did not follow through with regulation and tell the customer to have a good night, as he knew that once he opened his mouth, he would put his foot in it. Fortunately, the other customers were sympathetic and good-humored about the whole ordeal, and forgave Ben for the wait.
That does suck.
I'm not in service, but I also have a grumpy story.
I wanna get a restauranty p.o.v, bcause I'm pretty sure I'm justified.
Me and a bunch of my friends were in downtown DC, and they wanted to watch the Kentucky Derby, so we decided to go to Union Station to eat (It's like the Grand Central of DC). The place we wanted was doing a private event, so we went to this snobby restaurant instead because it was the only place there. Anyway, we just start eating our appetizer when this guy starts yelling, "EVERYONE OUT!" So we go outside while the entire station evacuates and a few fire trucks pull up and the firemen go into the station. We wait around for half an hour. After the all-clear, we go back in, and the staff acts like everything's normal. I think the waiter could've at least said, "There was a fire the place down but everyone's okay" or "I have no idea WTF just happened," or just something stupid and polite. He didn't say anything, he kinda just threw our food at us and left. Man. And I wanted a free dessert too.
Needless to say, our food was cold and we missed the Kentucky Derby too.
So we tipped him pretty badly. We never did find out what was going on, if there really was a fire/bomb scare/bio-hazard/whatev. That train station is like a few blocks from the Library of Congress, the National Archives and the US Capitol building, you'd think someone would tell us what was going on.
On the bright side, there weren't any flies on my table.
It does suck that they did not reheat your food, give you time and attention or give you any explaination. I'm sort of not suprised that they didn't explain though. Once we had a gas leak at my work and we had to ask everyone to leave the restaurant. When people came back in we calmly explained that there had been a "maintenence problem that prevented us from staying in the building" and most of the customers accepted this. The manager told us to try not to elaborate because it could cause panic. Especially because we have a smoking section. 
In a situation like what you described, it very well could have been a fake bomb threat or a fire. Could you imagine how panicked some people might have become if they thought their safety was threatened? It could hurt the business. So, while I think they should have given you some reason, I can understand why they weren't jumping to give you all the details.
I don't know about the free dessert thing, alot of people pull that with us for all sorts of reasons. I think the food you ordered should have been reheated and made to your liking, but whatever happened probably wasn't exactly the restaurant's fault. It's like when people break into customers' cars in our parking lot and our customers ask us for a free meal because of it, um no, we didn't break into your car. 
Sounds like the waiter definitely didn't know how to work with people. He could have been alot more sympathetic.
I was hoping for a free dessert, but I certainly didn't ask for one or expect to get one. It would have been very nice of them, not mandatory.
I was like, "Oooh, they might give me a free dessert now!" not, "GIMME MAH PIE, WENCH!" 😛
I've also been to restaurants where the people are insanely uber-nice, like,
"Oh, so sorry your food was a bit slow! Here's a free slice of cake!"
"So sorry your orders didn't come out at the same time. Have a drink on us!"
Buh... @___@
For the car breaking in thing, really all I'd do is let them use the restaurant phone, and let them stay there until someone comes to pick them up or whatever. That's about it.
Free food? Nahh..
I give out free desserts and stuff if I'm the one who made a mistake. Like, last night, a lady said she wanted her steak Medium Well. When I brought it to her and she cut it, bloody juice came out. I felt horrible because I should have checked the steak before I brought it out. I gave them a 20% discount and free drinks. I can't give out free desserts anymore, apparently last month 3 cases of pie went unaccounted for. We had a mandatory meeting that decided NO MORE FREE PIE.
Stuff like that stinks majorly. Some people have no manners whatsoever!
My mother told me about a time when she was on the bus. Sat a little way ahead of her was a mother and a six year old child. The bus was packed, and there were no seats available.
At the next stop an elderly man, possibly in his 80s, gets on the bus, and he is clearly weak in the legs. As the bus starts to move he is struggling to stand, and he politely and quietly askes the six year old child if he could sit down. And what happens?
The Mother (yes not the child, the mother) Starts shouting at the old man and going ballistic at him! She puts her hand on the child's shoulders saying "Don't you dare move! We paid for these seats!"
Sickening. Truly sickening. It seams that certain ones in the world today have lost all sence of morality and common human decency. If you ask me they should all be locked up away from everyone where they can do no harm to society!
Wraith
I dunno. I love Denny's. It's my usual hang out with friends and such. We'll go there just to munch on mozarella sticks and seasoned fries for god's sake just because we're BORED.
Every Denny's I've been to, I've never had a problem, nor have I ever WITNESSED one. And everyone's been ever so friendly. I've only had like two shares of waitresses that obviously didn't care for their job, (slow day, long wait, no one in restaurant to help except us and like one or two other table? No excuse to take forever to get us at least drinks), but with that I just solve the problem by tipping poorly or not at all, (you have to suck REAL BAD for me not to tip. I'm a nice tipper. Nothing extravagant, but I at least match the 15% to as much as I can afford).
I've never had to get up and piss and moan at a manager because my Super Bird had tomatoe, or because my Heart Attack on a Bun (the Double Cheeseburger... yum) had pickles in it. Ohnoes. Let alone flies... I can do that myself, I'm not a biggot. Nor a p@#%!y if you catch my drift.
Hope you have better luck for whatever might be coming your way, and here's hoping it's nothing.
Quote:
Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.
(From the "Declaration of Revocation! 😛 So sez mr.Cleese!" Topic.)
Well, maybe Brits don't have to go through this thing. 😛 Yeah, that does suck. I feel sorry for all you abused waitresses out there. May a fly never lead you into an awkward situation again! *tips hat*
*The store is empty, except for Gyser, who is working, and a few of his friends who happen to be passing through. A woman comes in, marches over to the PC section and is looking. Gyser nods to his friends as a signal
to leave the counter for a while while Gyser helps out the customer. Woman marches over to the counter as Gysers freinds fan out across the store to look at the new games.*
GYSER: Hello! How's it going?
WOMAN: (Snappily) Fine thank you. *Throws a less than $19.95 PC game down on the counter*
GYSER: *Upset, but keeps smiling. Scans the game through.* That comes to $19.95 thanks.
WOMAN: *Throws a $20 note on the counter, and crosses her arms impatiently.*
GYSER: *Takes the note, and puts the cash through, handing over the 5 cents change.* Would you like a bag to carry this one in?
WOMAN: (Snappy) No I wouldn't!
GYSER: *Pulls receipt out of machine, puts it together with the game and hands it over*
WOMAN: *Snatches it out of Gysers hand, and storms out of the store*
----
*Three days later*
GYSERS MANAGER: Gyser, I need a talk with you.
GYSER: What is it?
GM: We've had a complaint put against you.
GYSER: ME? What for?!
GM: Apparently you sold a game and didn't put this disc in it because you were too busy talking to your friends.
GYSER: *Remembers back to that day* Man, that was bull*** and you know it! It was a less than $20 game. They're SUPPOSED to have the disc already in. Besides, she was the kind of woman who looked like she'd complain if I'd folded her damm receipt the wrong way!
GM: Yeah. I figured as much when I dealt with her. I just had to let you know...
-----------
Long story short... People suck.
