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	lurker32 2004-07-24 10:03 pm UTC (link)
	zellion has my hedgehog! :O [/ot] You know, I understand the frustration when you just want food and all the restaurants are shutting down. I really do. But there are ways to be less of an asshole about it. (Reply to this)

judyhazeleyes
2004-07-24 11:13 pm UTC (link)

Honestly, I strongly suspect that the waitress in question didn't keep repeating herself because she was 'stupid' - she was just totally dumbfounded that someone could be such a COMPLETE AND TOTAL JACKASS.

I don't want to wank. Really, I don't. But if this was a planned dinner out, which it certainly sounds like, why leave so late and make life a living hell for the servers, kitchen staff, etc? Yeah, if you're already halfway through dinner, they won't kick you out on your asses. Yeah, they are duty-bound to serve you no matter when you come in. But you kinda have to accept that you're being an ass, and people just might treat you as such, whether they're in the service industry or not.

This woman needs to get her sense of entitlement checked, because it's obviously got some serious swelling. Gonna be rude? Take your goddamn lumps.

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(Anonymous)
2004-07-24 11:38 pm UTC (link)

I thought she was rude and, yeah, I'd have probably just left if I was told too but I'm not sure she was in the wrong. I've only worked customer service once but at that restuarant the policy was we stopped seating people and taking orders at a set time and then we closed when they were all finished.

Maybe I was being taken advantage of because I was young and had a crush on the chef?

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	(Anonymous) 2004-07-24 11:39 pm UTC (link)
	I thought she was rude = Original Poster. Sorry, it's late here. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	iczer6 2004-07-25 03:47 am UTC (link)
	I think this falls under the 'just because you can do it doesn't mean you *should'. I mean yeah like you said the people who run the place are duty bound to serve you, but that doesn't make it any less of an assholely thing to do. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(Anonymous)
2004-07-25 05:11 pm UTC (link)

I guess it depends on what the shifts are like at the restuarant. Never worked in Outback Steakhouse so I can't say but where I worked you expected to be seating people and taking orders up till 11. I wouldn't have thought anything of anyone coming in at 10:45 to get seated as long as they ordered quickly. My shift wasn't over at 11 anyhow so it didn't matter that much to me.

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	lemone 2004-07-25 08:11 am UTC (link)
	nods If I was her, I'd be too scared that my food would be spit/jizzed in/God only knows. (Reply to this)(Parent)

xero_sky
2004-07-25 04:57 am UTC (link)

I understand that the OP was a rude git.

What I don't get is the attitude that *any* customer who comes in close to closing is rude. Unless it's different in other parts of the world (I'm in California), restaurants are open until certain times because they want customers to come in until then.

I've never worked in a restaurant where customers were turned away before closing. They were welcome to come in 2 minutes before closing if they wanted to, because, you know, we were still open. No fuss, no problem.

I really wonder if this is a regional thing or something. I would have gotten my ass fired in a second for turning away a late customer.

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quinctia
2004-07-25 05:17 am UTC (link)

Most customers that come in close to closing for any sort of service are being pretty rude. Well, let's let close to closing equal coming in for service that will take more time than there is left til close.

I work in a hardware store, and if someone comes in a minute to closing and wants pipe cut and threaded or paint mixed, we just may send them right back out the door, because we've been open for twelve hours and you really don't need your paint that bad if you waited til 7:59p.m. to get it, honestly.

The only way I'd enter a sit-down restaurant 15 mins before it closed and ask for service would be if I hadn't eaten all day and there wasn't any other place in town to get any sort of food. Period. Because I can't be served in that time.

Sure, they might serve me. But I'm not an asshole.

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	xero_sky 2004-07-25 05:31 am UTC (link)
	Different experiences, I guess. For me, closing has always been when NEW customers stopped coming in. Anyone already in the store, restaurant, whatever, got served like anyone else. Late customers were just part of the job. No big deal, and nothing to get pissed off about. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

iczer6
2004-07-25 05:37 am UTC (link)

I think that was the deal though, they weren't already there and finishing up a meal, they basically popped in 15 before the place closed and asked for a table.

Also I think that because it's a restaurant and they weren't just popping in to pick something up or ask a question was what got folks dander up.

I mean I think even a short meal would still keep the staff there for a while, and I can't blame the gal for wanting to go home and not stay extra late for those folks.

Icz

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	xero_sky 2004-07-25 06:31 am UTC (link)
	I guess I've never worked anywhere where it mattered. Late customers happen. I've never gotten to leave a job at closing, so maybe that's why I don't quite get the level of "OMG!!! RUDE!!!!" that's going on over at customers_suck. shrugs (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

renata_hpjc
2004-07-27 10:27 pm UTC (link)

For what it's worth, the restaurant I used to work at was like that, too. It closed at 10, and that meant last seating at 10. No fuss if someone came in at 9:55, because .. well, seating was still open. The kitchen didn't close until 10:30; we usually all got to go home between 11 and 11:30.

So I'm sort of baffled too at the whole "OMG if you had ever been a server you'd know how obnoxious it is to come in 15 minutes before closing!!" thing -- because I've been a server, and it never would've occured to me that it would be rude. If the door's open, the restaurant's open, to me. I guess you learn something new every day.

Renata

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	quinctia 2004-07-25 05:56 am UTC (link)
	Where I work, we also only arrive a few minutes or so before opening. So, I'm just saying because of my experience--except for one job where I wasn't scheduled at all per se--when it's closing time, I leave. I know other places are different, but I'd rather be more polite and assume every place is like my job. (Reply to this)(Parent)

wolfsamurai
2004-07-25 06:19 am UTC (link)

I agree, it is part of the job and people have to deal with it. But I also think that it's perfectly fair and normal for the employees to get pissed at it. If you've been on your feet for 8+ hours or in front of a hot cooking area for the same amount of time, you're not going to look kindly on someone who waltzes in at the last minute in such a way that you're almost certainly going to on your feet or whatever for even longer. It's only common sense to realise that even a small meal is going to take longer than 15 minutes to cook and eat and that's probably why so many people lashed out at the OP. Especially when you're going to be an asshat about the whole thing like the OP was.

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(Anonymous)
2004-07-26 10:50 pm UTC (link)

Honestly, the whole not-wanting-to-serve-late-customers thing, in my experience, is a product of shitty management. "We admit new customers until closing time, so you may be here later than that on occasion," is fine, especially when combined with a policy of kicking said customers at a certain point after closing time--forty-five minutes or so seems reasonable and overtime wage. Saying "your shift is from twelve to nine" and then refusing to turn people away such that employees routinely have to stay overtime, especially without increasing the rate of pay, sucks.

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greenling
2004-07-27 12:43 am UTC (link)

Well, y'know... the thing is that it's closing time. Depending on the restaurant, this may be a huge problem or not be a problem at all.

If you're in a fast-food restaurant, for example, or if you're getting something to go anywhere, there's no problem. The problem comes when you *are* there past closing, regardless of when you came in. Some people don't understand that closing time means the store is supposed to be CLOSED, empty, devoid of customers, doors-locked cleaning-up equipment-emptied stock-taken-back registers-taken-up-and-counted closed. You aren't supposed to be there, and bending the rules because technically you were there *before* closing doesn't make the place any less closed.

That's why it's rude to come in fifteen minutes before closing at a steakhouse- the chances of you ordering, eating, paying and leaving all within fifteen minutes are just about nil. Therefore, regardless of what policy is about accepting you and giving the benefit of the doubt, they *are* going above the call of duty by serving you, because at some point in the *very* near future you aren't supposed to be there and you're still only halfway through your entree.

I mean, you deal, but you have to deal with a lot of crap in that sort of job and that doesn't make it any less crap. :3

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	bishounenhuntrs 2004-07-25 12:24 pm UTC (link)
	I once had to ask a restaurant fix me something just 15 minutes before they closed. But I had sense enough to get it to go, was ultra-polite to them, and tipped heavy. treating badly the people who serve you never made any sense to me. You give them crap, you'll most likely get it back. (Reply to this)

oxydosic
2004-07-25 01:27 pm UTC (link)

Wow, reading that post made me really mad. It's really inexcusable for her to call that woman stupid, regardless of the situation. On one hand, obviously a person has the right to come in any time before closing...but on the other, it is kind of in bad taste and very inconsiderate to the people who have been on their feet all day.

If it had been me i would have just gone somewhere else to eat, because i would feel bad for making the staff stay late. I tend to be sensitive about employees like that. Guess i'm weird.

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bakashinobi
2004-07-25 07:43 pm UTC (link)

All this outpouring of sympathy for the poor widdle hostess is very nice, I'm sure, but also (IMNSHO)misguided. She was acting against the policy of the place she worked,the manager called her on it, then she turns right around and does the same thing again. Hel-looo...she IS stupid. End of story, or should be, anyway....

I don't know where in the country this took place, but my family and I have eaten at Outback Steakhouses in our area (Metro Detroit) dozens of times, sometimes even close to closing (mea culpa, mea culpa) and none of the waitstaff ever treated us like that. They gave us service with a smile, we were happy and left good tips, which presumably made them happy too. The problem, if there is one, seems to be just with one...ahem...challenged individual, and not widespread.

Just my two silver mon....

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	lurker32 2004-07-25 08:09 pm UTC (link)
	Eh. Yeah, from the evidence available it was not a good call on the hostess's part, I agree. It's just that irisheyes was such an ass about it. If it'd been me I would have been tempted to stonewall her too just because she reeked of entitlement. (Reply to this)(Parent)

gal_montag
2004-07-25 09:30 pm UTC (link)

I think, though, that the nastiness was out of line. Yeah, the hostess was wrong, but that doesn't make her stupid because her co-workers want to go home (or herself too, I don't know if hostesses at Outback have to stay and help clean up) it was less the coming in so close to close and more the fact that they had to insult her and then gloat about it like they dun good.

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	iczer6 2004-07-25 10:14 pm UTC (link)
	Exactly while the hostess may have been in the wrong I'm not gonna fault her for wanting to get home before midnight. And while the OP may have been in the 'right' it still seems like a jerkish thing to do [IMO], which isn't helped by her condescending attitude about it. Icz (Reply to this)(Parent)