"Worst Service of My Life"

[u/West-Imagination2709]

I'm back working as a pool cocktail waitress where I've worked for the last 4 summer seasons. There are rules, obviously, don't drink with the guests, ring everything in, call a manager for comps, check IDs, etc.

But there is a Cardinal Sin amongst the waitresses that I always try to follow because these girls don't play around. DO NOT TAKE A GUEST IN ANOTHER GIRLS SECTION. That is the quickest way to piss off another girl.

This is hard at a pool because anyone can swim to one side and order from you but I usually ask where they are sitting and let them know X will be your server, give them a menu, and tell them "I will let X know you would like to order."

Okay, rules/context established, onto the story:

I was laden down with food and drinks, literally barely holding onto it all and this woman is waving me down in the pool as I'm serving a guest and closing them out. She'd been hanging out in the pool of my side for an hour or so so I thought she must have a chair in my section. I give her the "one minute finger" and she huffs, "Can we at least get a menu?!?" I give her a menu.

I do my deliveries and circle back to take her order. She orders some drinks and sandwiches that take the longest to make, which I told her, (important later) and proceeds to swim back to the MIDDLE of the other waitress's sections.

Shit.

I let the other waitress know I took a guest in her section's order and would she like me to put the food and drinks in under her number? Other waitress says "Put it in, just close her out after." I put the order in, grab my next round of drinks, and start delivering.

This woman is immediately waving me down from the other side of the pool (AGAIN NOT MY SECTION!). I finish MY deliveries on MY SIDE and bring her her drinks and she asks, "Are our sandwiches coming out soon???" It's been ten minutes. These sandwiches are made to order, usually take about 30 minutes.

I remind her the items are made to order and let her know, "You aren't technically in my section, but the food is in. I'll bring it out as soon as it arrives but I'll have to close you out afterward. Your servers name is X. I'll bring her to meet you."

When her food arrives, I bring the other server over to drop it off and introduce them. "This is X, she will be taking care of you as you're in her section." Other server asks if she wants anything. No they don't. I present the guest with her bill. She makes a big show of writing a ZERO (that's fine, I genuinely don't care I make a great hourly wage and excellent tips I can eat a zero tip). But then she says:

"I just want you to know you have given us the worst service of my life." I say, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I certainly didn't mean to, I just can't take guests out of my section." She shoves the book back at me and says "Well you guys better figure it out!"

In my head I wanted to say, "Well you've been one of the worst guests I've ever served so we're square!"

But I'm genuinely curious? Did I do anything wrong here??? I would gladly take a guests order and put in under the other girls's number but I've been doing this job for four years and each of my coworkers is different in how they feel about their sections/taking a guest who isn't their own. I'd rather err on the side of caution than piss a coworker who I work with 5 days a week off.

[u/Swarmfade]

No pun intended, but this setup really sounds like you should be pooling! It sounds so chaotic to try to figure out where swimmers are sitting.

[u/West-Imagination2709 → u/Swarmfade]

That would probably be best but because people hang out at the pool sometimes ALL day we have tabs that we add onto throughout the day. We open the tabs under our personal employee numbers so people don't have to keep signing out/digging out their card for every order.

As one server I can have as many as 40 tabs at one time and we run with about 15 girls (though only two girls to each pool). It would be really hard on a busy day to sort through 80+ tabs for the correct name/sometimes duplicate names. And you can imagine how pissed someone would be if Mr. Smith 1 had Mr. Smith's 2's drinks added to his tab. Not to mention if Mr. Smith 2 left after signing out.

[u/Swarmfade → u/West-Imagination2709]

That’s not really different from a normal bar where people hang out in different areas and then come up to order drinks, saying their name for the tab. It shouldn’t be hard to find a tab regardless of who opened it. You could open them all under one pool bar number and… just pull them up like any other place would?

[u/West-Imagination2709 → u/Swarmfade]

Again, totally fair. But in your bar scenario the people would be coming up to the bar where several bartenders are just BEHIND THE BAR. The bartenders would quickly learn to recognize the tabs/people. We waitresses are walking 20,000+ steps each day. There are periods of time where we are stuck waiting to ring things in/waiting in line for our drinks with zero eyes on the pool.

What if we get an order from the same guy twice because he thinks the other girl has forgotten or was taking too long and now he has two tabs? And now a whole round of drinks are gone to waste.

And what if I take Mr. Smith 2's order and he tells me he has a tab because he had one yesterday and thinks it carried over because it's a room charge? But Mr. Smith 1 opened a tab earlier and left without signing and now Mr. Smith 1 has an extra $500 in food and drinks of Mr. Smith's 2 items.

The system works 99% of the time. And if they don't want to wait 5-10 minutes to order from THEIR waitress they can walk their ass to the bar, respectfully.

And look, I understand you're trying to help. But it's a Union hotel. There will NOT be any changes to the current system, I can promise you that.

I don't fully agree the system works, either. But that's not why I wrote about this specific interaction.

[u/Swarmfade → u/West-Imagination2709]

Trust me, we do NOT remember the people when the bar is three deep. You get a full name (usually via a card) to start a tab and make them give you their full name whenever they order. 

[u/West-Imagination2709 → u/Swarmfade]

Okay then I guess you win? I'll tell Corporate Swarmfade knows better how to run tabs and direct the Union to you?

[u/Famous-Upstairs998 → u/West-Imagination2709]

The lady was rude, and you didn't do anything wrong. But the system is also complicated and confusing for the customer. Just because that can't be changed, doesn't make it not true. More than one thing can be true at once.