A Customer Tips In Burger Toppings After A Rude Interaction With A Waitress — ‘Just Pick It Off, Sweetie!’
Karma has a way of working things out.
Lysenko Andrii / Shutterstock Tipping your servers goes a long way, but so does providing good customer service. One user on Reddit shared a story years after an unpleasant experience with a rude waitress who refused to accommodate them.
“I was dining at a restaurant with friends around 9ish in the evening — not a fancy restaurant by any means, but an affordable, delicious option that’s always open late,” the user began their confessional on the “r/pettyrevenge” subreddit, an online forum where users share stories of their small victories after being wronged in a situation.
The customer tipped a waitress with soggy burger toppings and a worn-out dollar bill after receiving bad customer service.
“[The restaurant] wasn’t busy and there was one very bored waitress who looked to be in her 40s," the user wrote.
“She put on a perky face and took our orders,” the user continued. “Being a picky eater, I asked for a burger with no lettuce or tomato. I’d ordered the exact thing dozens of times before with no real issues, but something was ‘off’ about this waitress.”
Photo: Bogdan Sonjachnyj / Shutterstock
With obvious condescension, the server pointed out, “It comes with the lettuce and tomato, honey.” Figuring the waitress had only been teasing, the user offered a laugh and brushed off the odd remark.
Unfortunately for this customer, this was serious business. “It just comes like that,” the waitress repeated. “That’s how we make it — with lettuce and tomato.”
The user and their friends could only share confused glances with one another before having to reiterate the order once more in hopes of providing more clarification. “I was waiting for her to understand, but she acted like I was speaking nonsense,” they wrote.
“Sorry, but that’s JUST how we make it,” said the woman. “If you don’t like it, just pick it off, sweetie!”
Photo: Drazen Zigic / Shutterstock
After some time, and to no one’s surprise, a burger with both lettuce and tomato was placed right in front of the customer, who was too stunned to process the ridiculous, and entirely preventable, ordeal.
And as they had feared, the hamburger bun was, in fact, soaked with tomatoes. “It even looked like they had even managed to add more toppings than usual, and I wondered what I ever could have done to this strange waitress to make her f–-k with my hunger like that. Did I hurt her in a past life?”
In hopes of salvaging the parts of what could be qualified as a burger, the user asked for fresh buns but quickly realized that any attempt was useless in the end.
Ultimately, the user claims that they “never made a scene” or complicated matters by requesting to speak to the restaurant manager. Instead, "I ate my fries and the parts of the burger I liked.”
However, karma has a way of biting you back, and this waitress most certainly wasn’t the exception.
“I left her the oldest, dirtiest one-dollar bill from my friend’s wallet as a tip (because you should always tip your servers!), but I put the lettuce and tomato on top of that nasty dollar bill with a note, saying: ‘Just pick it off, sweetie!’”
At the end of the day, while customers should practice kindness and empathy with servers at their local dining establishments, everyone will encounter rude wait staff at some point. For this Redditor, making a scene just wasn't their style; instead, they exacted revenge in the best way they knew how.
Xiomara Demarchi is a writer based in New York and covers human interest topics on YourTango’s news and entertainment team.