A Rule Everyone Should Follow

In elementary school, we are told over and over again, treat others the way you want to be treated. It seems like such a simple rule to follow, right? Apparently not. I have worked in the restaurant industry for years as a waitress, cashier, and hostess, and between customers and misogynistic bosses, that rule has been abandoned. I have been mistreated, spoken down to, and straight-up disrespected, and frankly, I’m sick of it.

Currently, I work as a hostess at a pretty nice restaurant. To give a little background to what I do, I seat people, take reservations, and put to-go orders in the computer via two iPads that to-go orders are sent to. Last Saturday, I went to work, and I looked at the reservations for the night, and there were more reservations booked than I had seen since I started working there. When 6:00 rolled, around that’s pretty much when everything hit the fan. About 15 groups came in for their 6:00 reservation, and there was not a single table available for any of them. People were so angry, but what they did not understand was that this was not my fault. There was a glitch in our system that never stopped people from making reservations once we were booked.

People just kept coming in, and I felt totally overwhelmed. Everyone waiting for their table was giving me an attitude and asking me “how I could let this happen”. Because of how overwhelmed I was, I asked my new manager to pause to-go orders from coming in to relieve some of the stress that kept adding on top of more stress. He did not even look up from what he was doing, could not even look me in the eyes, in a rude tone, he simply said “no.” I thought about walking out the door right then and there. However, I am not that type of person. I said, “I am extremely overwhelmed right now, and it would really help if you paused them.” When he refused, I felt so disrespected, and like he had no care for his employees whatsoever. I started to tear up and went to the bathroom.

When I returned from the bathroom I was met with an overwhelming amount of stress. Between my manager not respecting me enough to pause the togo orders for an hour, and all the angry customers yelling at me, I didn’t know what to do. Overall, I think everyone should think about the way they treat and talk to strangers, because you never know when someone is going through something or having a bad day. Talk to someone the same way you want to be talked to. Don’t purposely be rude to someone just because you are angry about a situation out of everyone's control.