The worst service you have received

[Visiting Crazy Town]

The thread of compensation for inconvenience got me thing to experiences i have had while dining out and made me think of my worst dining out experience ever

My Co workers and i were being treated to lunch by our boss and he decided to take us to go to lunch at a restaurant (starts with A ends in Bee) when we got there we had to wait 20 minutes before we were seated which would have been fine but we were pretty much the only customers in the restaurant and we could see a lot of empty tables. 

   once we were finally lead to a table then tried to give us a table all of the way in the back next to the kitchen which we did not like due to the swing door would almost certainly hit my co worker the back of the head every time it was opened

  I hostess acted very put out when we asked for another table ever though we passed several empty tables to get the one that they were trying to seat us at, but she finally seated us at a different table

    there were several of us (about 8 or 9) that went to lunch together and the waitress and the hostess made a point to bemoan within our hearing about how much work a large party of people are and how they usually don't tip very well

    after sitting at the table fro about 10 or 15 minutes the waitress brought us our menus and demand to know what our orders were before we ever had a chance to full view the menu.and when we told her we would need a few minutes she huffed and stomped off without asking us what we would like to drink

  After our orders were taken our food was brought out at different time so some people were eating while other were still waiting for their food to come out

   while bring out one of the dishes the waitress spilled some of the dish on one of my other coworkers and just through her a couple of papertowel and an off handed sorry and after having spilled some of the food on that coworker proceeded to serve the same food to the co worker that originally ordered the item and griped about replacing her meal with food that had not been spilled

  I ordered some chicken wings and the food made me ill and got sick while at the restaurant when i complained to manager about getting ill he stated that i it probally was something i ate before coming that that it was not their problem and refused to remove the wings from the bill even though i became ill after eating them and had only eaten 4 wings out of the 12 that were ordered . i have never gone back

our service and food continued to be bad for the rest of the evening and then the waitress had the nerve to complain that we did not leave her a tip in addition to the 18% tip that was automatically added to the bill


Shay

[ginlyn32]

The worst service I ever had was at a McD's where I used to live.

I had to send the order back 3 times before they finally got it right. I finally asked the manager and she gave me my money back.

Part of the problem was I asked for a cheeseburger with bacon, lettuce and tomato added. The first one was just a regular cheeseburger. The next one had the L, T, B but no pickles or onion. Notice I said ADDED. This means in addition to what they already put on the sandwich. I finally asked the cashier if she wanted me to go back and make it myself. I knew how to make them since I used to work there. Finally, the sandwich was correct. THEN my fries they tried to give me were so cold and greasy that I could not eat them. So I asked if I could have new fries.

No wonder everyone in town HATED going there. The only reason they made money was because the town was a very small town and was literally the ONLY McD's in town. They also had a DQ, Pizza Hut (also terrrible) Pizza King (not bad), Monicals Pizza (not too bad) and several other restaurants. Most of them were of the steak/fish/chicken variety.

Ginger

[Amy Rose]

Shay, that's horrible!  

I have a story along the same vein, if you don't mind.

I dunno if I told it before, but my mother, FH and I were at a restaraunt, and we were seated in the far back of the completely empty restaraunt. We waited a long time for our orders to be taken, and had to savor our drinks since they were never refilled. We all ordered sandwiches, but for some unknown reason, I got a pasta dish instead (which they expected me to eat with my fingers, since we never got any silverware), and not only did they not take my food off the bill, we got billed for both the pasta (which I sent back), AND the sandwich that I ordered in the first place. NEVER going back there again, even if they do have delicious pie.

[Cupcake Fiend]

Hoo, boy.

The location: A chain hotel in Atlanta, Georgia
The timing: Dragon Con 2000 - a large annual sci-fi fantasy convention.

DH (at the time he was my BF) and I were traveling down from Pennsylvania.  Our friend A was traveling up from Florida.  To cut down expenses the three of us were sharing a room we had booked several months ahead of time.  DH and I arrived Thursday night, A was coming Friday morning.

After various flight delays and the scariest taxi ride of my life, we arrived at the hotel somewhere around 2 am.  Checked in, went to our room.  Where there was one bed.  Uh-oh.  We went back down to the front desk and spoke to the clerk there.  We explained that we had booked a double room as we had another friend joining us in the morning, and could she arrange for us to get the room we had requested the next day?  Desk girl stares at us, says there are no other rooms available, too bad for you.

Well, then maybe we can get a cot?  (despite the fact that there was barely room to walk around the bed in the room as it was).

Nope.  No cots.

This whole time desk girl is staring at us in a strangely malevolent, yet uninterested way.  She is absolutely no help at all.  DH and I decide we will wait until morning and straighten it out then.  

Nope.  Next morning, desk girl is still there.  We try reasoning with her again, and it becomes apparent that she is enjoying our discomfort.  A arrives, and tries again, with similiar results.

In the meantime, the light in the bathroom has burned out.  The maintenance guy comes in and while he is changing the bulb, overhears us talking about our dilemma.  We are genuinely worried at this point - we are good friends, but not THAT close and A was even calling around other hotels but everyone was booked solid.  Maintenance guy mentions that he just finished replacing a toilet seat in a double room, and he'll have our stuff moved up there right away, as long as we promise not to use the toilet for an hour or so until the caulk dries.

We head out to enjoy the convention, thanks to the wonderful maintenance guy, and the desk girl gives us the look of death as we go past.  And every time we went by for the rest of our weekend.

We're not sure what about us set her off...but we haven't stayed at that hotel chain since, and 2 letters (one from us and one from A) were sent to their corporate headquarters detailing our adventures with desk girl and why, exactly, we would not be using their hotels again.  But also letting them know that their maintenance guy was awesome!

[Pixie]

I know I've told this one before.... BUT....since you asked,

Hubby and I were in a small family-type chain restaurant (starts with Denn ends in Y's) while we were traveling.   It was about 11AM, and we were the ONLY customers. 

 The hostess sat us, but never asked if we wanted drinks.   

(10 minute wait....)

The waitress came and gave us menus and took our drink orders.

(10 minute wait....)

The waitress brought our drinks and took our food orders. She seemed very put out that the coffee I ordered had magically turned into a glass of milk behind her back, and blamed the hostess. (I never order milk in a restaurant) 

(2 minute wait....)

The waitress brought our bill and asked if we'd be paying with cash or credit card.

(10 minute wait....)

The waitress brought our food.


We ate, paid, and left without leaving a tip.  I did however ask to speak to the manager, I asked him if it was normal for a club sandwich to look feel and taste like a bacon cheeseburger.  He said No, and offered to pay for our meals, We declined, but did laughingly mention we'd never be eating there again.
(Not a real threat as this was in Minnesota and we lived in Idaho at the time!)

Normally I would have felt guilty for not leaving a tip except MOST of the fault was with the waitress, and I do not tip for lousy service.

[Tabris]

Same place (begins with an A, ends with Bees) at lunchtime with me, husband, friend, friend's husband, second friend (that's five) and baby.

Total= 6 people.

She seats us at a booth for four people.

When she comes back with menus, we are spread across two tables. She seems put out that I'm not sitting on my husband's lap and the baby wont' be dining on the table. We all go back to the front where she looks over the seating chart and brings us to one of those super-tall tables where you have to sit on a bar stool.

Which would be great, except the baby is in a baby seat and his head would be lower than the table. Not much fun for baby, huh?

We point this out. Hostess again looks annoyed.

Hostess: You can stack three high chairs up in order to have it higher.
Me: Are you kidding?
Hostess: It's perfectly safe.
Me, totally flat voice: Would you care to put that in writing?

Hostess huffs, then leads us to a table that's big enough for SIX PEOPLE! Wow. Who'd have thought?

The rest of the experience was okay.

[Cupcake Fiend]

And my other one:

We went camping and whitewater rafting in a small town in Western PA.

When we got off the river, we were ravenous, and as we had just gotten off the river, stopped at a bar/restaurant figuring we wouldn't look too horribly out of place there in our old rafting clothes.

We walk in, every head in the place turns and stares at us, looking us up and down, and we hear a comment from someone sitting at the bar - "man, this place is really going uptown".  SERIOUSLY!

We decided we would be more comfortable eating at one of the outside tables.  (I should note here that it was raining out - only drizzling lightly, but still...)

If I remember correctly, there were 5 people in our group.   Two other outside tables were also occupied, one by a couple and one by three or four people.

The waitress comes over, brings menus, recommends the chili, takes our drink orders.  Everything seems fine.  She goes  to one of the other tables and takes their orders.  We hear her recommend the chili.  A few minutes go by, and she comes and takes our orders.  Let me state here that NO ONE at our table ordered the chili.  Some time passes, we are chatting about the rafting and what we're doing the rest of the weekend, and the waitress comes out with the other table's food.  We hear them arguing with the waitress a little bit about not getting what they ordered, and we continue chatting until she comes back out with ours.  Starting with 5 bowls of chili.  As she puts it down in front of each of us we all tell her we didn't order any chili.  She starts to argue with us and gets more and more belligerent , saying she knows we all ordered chili and she wrote it down and blah blah blah.  We send the chili back, she takes it and stomps off with it.  When she comes back with the food we DID order, she says, yeah, I screwed up you didn't order the chili.

My order was still messed up and I requested that she take it back and get me what I had ordered.  She takes it from me, and says well I'll try but the cook here is a real Female Dog and you probably won't get it.

I think I was afraid to eat anything there after that point.

[kingsrings]

This happened to my mother and her friend at a restaurant that has the day of the week in it's title. They went there, and it took absolutely forever for them to be seated. Then it took absolutely forever for their order to be taken. Then another long period of time and their food hadn't arrived yet. Then the waiter came over and asked how their meals were. My mother's friend replied, "They were so good we ate the plates!". And while this was going on, another waiter dropped a tray full of meals onto the floor in front of their table, and it all just sat there the whole time with nobody coming along and cleaning it up.

[Alida]

This is long... but the service inspired a fic for a roleplay group  

Truth be told, this actually happened. When we went to Eclecticon, they had a restaurant inside the hotel.  After the evening's events one night, we stopped there for a snack..in costume...and got treated VERY rudely by the restaurant staff. It wasn't the first time we had been there that day in our Jedi garb. They treated us fine at lunch and supper, but that night...*sigh* I've never been treated like that. *still shaking her head over her $4   4.0 oz of ice cream served in a Styrofoam cup thunked on the counter by an annoyed waiter.* - Commentary by Togin's player

That's What You Call Service

"Master, this is getting ridiculous," Togin Conpeq muttered under her breath, Only her master and Kaliandra could hear her complaint.

"Patience, Togin," Alida said quietly. Her lips twisted into a slight smile. The rudeness of the establishment's proprietors was, sadly, becoming more and more common throughout the Republic. There had been a time, not long before, when the Jedi would have been welcomed in this place with open arms. Now, however, they received suspicious stares but were otherwise ignored.

This was not acceptable to the three hungry Jedi. However, Alida was content to wait until their presence and the fact that they blocked the restaurant's main entrance could no longer be ignored.

"Master, she's right," Kaliandra grumbled. "We're going to starve before they ever decide to seat us."

The Jerzeens had been amazingly adept at sidestepping the three robed figures. Togin was quite impressed by the fact that they managed to go around the Jedi without ever making eye contact.

After waiting for a while longer, Togin finally sighed audibly. "Let's just get this to go. They can't possibly ignore us if we stand right at the counter, can they?"

Apparently, they could. Even Alida's patience was being tested. They did not have time to seek out another eating establishment, as they were due back at the negotiations.. Perhaps, Alida mused, this was why the Jerzeens were so unfriendly. The trade negotiations between Jerzeen and Yawk had been extremely difficult and not quite as popular as the leaders of each contingent seemed to think.

With a hungry knight and padawan by her side, Alida decided that the situation called for more than quiet patience. Leaning over the counter, she snagged the sleeve of a passing waiter. "You need to take our order," she said, bringing the Force to bear on the hostile being.

"I need to take your order - in just a minute." He shrugged from her grasp. Togin hid a grin behind her hand. Kali didn't bother. Even as annoyed as she was, she couldn't help but laugh at the look of disbelief on Alida's face.

Finally, the surly waiter returned and before too much longer, three grease laden paper sacks were plunked down in front of the Jedi.

"Oh, yum," Kali snickered. She held her bag away from her robe, watching in dismay as grease dripped to fall to the ground. They made their way out to the walkway in front of the restaurant.

"Greasy vegetables?" asked Togin. "They really don't like us, do they?" She also held her sack at arm's length, her nose wrinkling at the smell coming from the bag.

"It's nourishment," Alida said. "I promised you food, I didn't say it would be good food."

"I think you should let me pick the restaurant for dinner tonight," offered Togin. Kaliandra nodded enthusiastically.

"Please let her, Master! You don't have the best luck in finding-"

"Togin Conpeq and Kaliandra Daroa! Are you insinuating that I cannot find a decent restaurant on this planet?"

"No, Master. I'd never insinuate something like that. I'm coming right out and saying it," laughed Togin.

The Jerzeens on the walkway gave the three smiling Jedi a wide berth. Some muttered behind their hands to their companions.

We'll be done here soon, Alida reassured her current and former padawans. Not everyone appreciates what the Jedi do throughout the Republic.

They paused at the entrance of the state building where the negotiations were being held. "True, Master," agreed Togin. "I just wish they wouldn't try to poison us, as well."

And, with that, three lunch sacks sailed through the air and into the garbage disposal unit.

"No big loss," Kali said. "There's always dinner."

[sparksals]

shayshay - Welcome to the group!

Would it be possible for you to use punctuation in your messages?  They are very difficult to read when a paragraph is a single sentence with no capitalization, commas or periods.  

[IndianInlaw]

In 1978, my brother and his roommate invited me to see Man of La Mancha (with Richard Kiley!).  Before heading off to the theater, they took me to the restaurant that is slightly older than Boston's third oldest restaurant (how's that for disguising it?).

We ordered dinner and waited and waited and waited and waited.

People came in, dined and left..and there we sat.

Finally, my brother's roommate called the waiter over and asked what was what.  The waiter seemed to have a lightbulb moment and reached for his order pad, which was clipped to his belt.


He hadn't turned in our orders, which was strange, since he  had served other people.

We fled and got sandwiches.



Second dinner from you-know-where, involved a pizza joint that was right at the end of the street where I grew up.  When I lived in Iowa, all Cop and I (well not ALL) talked about was this pizza place and how much I wanted to go there.

After I moved back here, we went there.  It was now a vaguely fancy Italian restaurant.  We waited for the waitress to come and at least give us a menu. She walked right by and started waiting on someone who came in after us.

I spoke up and said "Um..we were here first".

Cop said he was going to say something and he wouldn't have been as nice as I had been.

Gosh, I wish I had gotten to see that.

[Barghest1031]

This is long... but the service inspired a fic for a roleplay group  

Truth be told, this actually happened. When we went to Ecleticon, they had a restaurant inside the hotel.  After the evening's events one night, we stopped there for a snack..in costume...and got treated VERY rudely by the restaurant staff. It wasn't the first time we had been there that day in our Jedi garb. They treated us fine at lunch and supper, but that night...*sigh* I've never been treated like that. *still shaking her head over her $4   4.0 oz of ice cream served in a Styrofoam cup thunked on the counter by an annoyed waiter.* - Commentary by Togin's player

That's What You Call Service

"Master, this is getting ridiculous," Togin Conpeq muttered under her breath, Only her master and Kaliandra could hear her complaint.

"Patience, Togin," Alida said quietly. Her lips twisted into a slight smile. The rudeness of the establishment's proprietors was, sadly, becoming more and more common throughout the Republic. There had been a time, not long before, when the Jedi would have been welcomed in this place with open arms. Now, however, they received suspicious stares but were otherwise ignored.

This was not acceptable to the three hungry Jedi. However, Alida was content to wait until their presence and the fact that they blocked the restaurant's main entrance could no longer be ignored.

"Master, she's right," Kaliandra grumbled. "We're going to starve before they ever decide to seat us."

The Jerzeens had been amazingly adept at sidestepping the three robed figures. Togin was quite impressed by the fact that they managed to go around the Jedi without ever making eye contact.

After waiting for a while longer, Togin finally sighed audibly. "Let's just get this to go. They can't possibly ignore us if we stand right at the counter, can they?"

Apparently, they could. Even Alida's patience was being tested. They did not have time to seek out another eating establishment, as they were due back at the negotiations.. Perhaps, Alida mused, this was why the Jerzeens were so unfriendly. The trade negotiations between Jerzeen and Yawk had been extremely difficult and not quite as popular as the leaders of each contingent seemed to think.

With a hungry knight and padawan by her side, Alida decided that the situation called for more than quiet patience. Leaning over the counter, she snagged the sleeve of a passing waiter. "You need to take our order," she said, bringing the Force to bear on the hostile being.

"I need to take your order - in just a minute." He shrugged from her grasp. Togin hid a grin behind her hand. Kali didn't bother. Even as annoyed as she was, she couldn't help but laugh at the look of disbelief on Alida's face.

Finally, the surly waiter returned and before too much longer, three grease laden paper sacks were plunked down in front of the Jedi.

"Oh, yum," Kali snickered. She held her bag away from her robe, watching in dismay as grease dripped to fall to the ground. They made their way out to the walkway in front of the restaurant.

"Greasy vegetables?" asked Togin. "They really don't like us, do they?" She also held her sack at arm's length, her nose wrinkling at the smell coming from the bag.

"It's nourishment," Alida said. "I promised you food, I didn't say it would be good food."

"I think you should let me pick the restaurant for dinner tonight," offered Togin. Kaliandra nodded enthusiastically.

"Please let her, Master! You don't have the best luck in finding-"

"Togin Conpeq and Kaliandra Daroa! Are you insinuating that I cannot find a decent restaurant on this planet?"

"No, Master. I'd never insinuate something like that. I'm coming right out and saying it," laughed Togin.

The Jerzeens on the walkway gave the three smiling Jedi a wide berth. Some muttered behind their hands to their companions.

We'll be done here soon, Alida reassured her current and former padawans. Not everyone appreciates what the Jedi do throughout the Republic.

They paused at the entrance of the state building where the negotiations were being held. "True, Master," agreed Togin. "I just wish they wouldn't try to poison us, as well."

And, with that, three lunch sacks sailed through the air and into the garbage disposal unit.

"No big loss," Kali said. "There's always dinner."

I just had to say, that story made my day.

For my own tale of poor food service, fiance and I had decided to stop by a new branch of one of our favored restaurants. We get seated rather quickly as there’s pretty much nobody there. The fact that the table was one of the ones out in the middle of the floor, in the way you had to walk to get back to the kitchen, is important. The waitress takes our drink orders, and we get our drinks. We look over the menu, decide what we want, then proceed to wait for the waitress to come back and take our order.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

It had to be at least 15 - 20 minutes later that a manager finally seemed to notice that we’d been sitting there an awfully long time, looking incredibly bored and frustrated. She asked us what we’d ordered, and when we pointed out that we hadn’t even ordered yet she nodded, took our order, then went off to get it for us. I didn’t see that waitress for the rest of the time we were there, so I presume she either left after seating us. . .or the manager chewed her out for walking by us helping other tables for that long. (Thankfully, the food was good as always, and we’ve never had bad service there since then.

[Chartreuse]

The location: A chain hotel in Atlanta, Georgia
The timing: Dragon Con 2000 - a large annual sci-fi fantasy convention.

Mind if I ask?  H or M?  I've heard that the one used to have a history of similar behavior from front desk staff.  You weren't the first or the last who got treated that way.  I've also heard that things have changed considerably in the past few years.  Hubby and I haven't had a problem yet, and our friends who stay at the other hotel haven't had issues either?  Hopefully that's a sign things have improved.  My only complaints the last few years have had to do with remodeling. 

[Slartibartfast]

Hoo, boy.

The location: A chain hotel in Atlanta, Georgia
The timing: Dragon Con 2000 - a large annual sci-fi fantasy convention.

Ooh, ooh, Dragon*Con!  I'm already working on my costume (for September) for this year!  We actually had great service there - two years ago, DH and I and two friends booked a room for 4 people for the weekend at the main hotel.  We got there to check in, and found out they thought we had *three* people instead, and were planning on putting us in an itty bitty room with a rollaway.  No dice, and they clearly had in the computer that we had paid for four.  So the clerk tells us the only room they can fit two rollaways was the executive suite, would that be okay?  For the same price we already paid, we ended up with a HUGE room (two rooms, actually, since DH and I slept in the "conference room" area), a minibar, conference table, two sofas, etc.  I know it doesn't help to see someone else say "but they were nice to ME!", but hopefully you just had the one rude (and probably very overwhelmed - some of those staff act like they've never seen Klingons, Stormtroopers, pirates, and Nazgul all in the same place before!) staff member and she's not there anymore :-|

The long version of my worst experience was posted on a forum here, but in short: my airline overbooked, and the gate agent gave me a free ticket AND an earlier flight to get home instead of the complicated one I had booked already.  Except he messed up, and after four and a half hours at customer service, they gave me the choice of being stranded in Nashville or Chicago overnight, at my own expense, and standby tickets on an already oversold 18-person flight late the next day to get home.  After freaking out and ending up in Nashville at midnight, the only helpful person on United Airlines's staff managed to get me home on an earlier flight the next day (that actually had seats), got a hotel for me, and gave me a $100 coupon for a future flight.  All of which the customer service counter people said wasn't possible to do.  Oh, and I couldn't use the free ticket or the $100 voucher because they had to be an actual United flight, and I would have had to drive for 5 hours to get to an airport that didn't use some subsidary like "United Express" or "United flight operated by American Eagle".

[Evil Duckie]

.