The Like/Hate Thread

[Ashe]

Got walked out on again today on a 77 dollar tab. Some of my co-workers pooled in to help pay for it.

I'm just... I'd say amazed, but I'm really not. Not anymore. Not even surprised. Some redneck fuck that kept ordering double jack + coke. He was fine most of the meal (though he kept asking me about how busy the night was and if we were having a hard time keeping track of things, in a friendly manner, but that was a tipoff that I'm learning at this point). Right at the end he got really suspicious by suddenly looking pissed and pressuring me to go get his check. Before the chef had even left. I come back with the whole table's checks (remember, about four different groups per table, so other people as well) and boxes for everyone. He's pressuring me to do him first (midway around the table) but I hand him his check before anyone else, then begin boxing from my right to work my way around the table. I've learned not to immediately give a box to someone doing that because they tend to dip out while you are still boxing by asking for sauce or something to get you busy. So he gets impatient, exchanges some quiet words with his wife, then vanishes.

I finish up, his wife suddenly asks me for a lot of sauces. I get someone to watch the table while I head to make them, also checking the computer to see if the guy (who had taken the check with him) had gotten the manager or someone to pay him out (which shouldn't happen, but I was leaving the chance that he was unhappy about something, given his sudden attitude problem, and had possibly complained to a manager and paid with them). Nothing paid out. I get back to the table right as the woman is standing up to leave and call her out to give her sauces, giving everyone else theirs right after. I then pick up everyone's checks (minus her's) and she's back to sitting and just staring at the table as if she's waiting on him or something to get back.

I head out, but instead of going to a computer to pay out, I go straight to the front hostess stand and wait. She comes walking quickly past me (not seeing me) and straight for the front door, shuffling on a pair of high heels and holding two heavy boxes. I call her out and she nearly jumps while turning to me. I mention that he hadn't paid yet and she swears that he told her he was going to pay "at the front register" (usually another tipoff, as we quite clearly are not the style of restaurant with a register up front) and meet her in the car. She then said "Well do you have the check? Here, I'll go ahead and pay that out" but doesn't open her purse. I say "I need to reprint the slip since he had it." and she's like "That's fine, he was a bit drunk so he probably just didn't realize it. Sorry about that." in a normal, not obviously fake apology.

I slip around the corner and immediately grab a manager to tell them what's going on in as quickly an explanation as possible. "I need you to go up front and watch this lady, they are trying to walk out on me." He goes out. I hit the computer, print the check, run back to the front and find him walking around looking for her. She'd run straight for the door in her damn high heels with boxes through a LOCKED FUCKING DOOR by using the lower handle that only works from the inside and jumped in his waiting vehicle. They were nowhere to be seen when we walked through the parking lot.

Fucking pro. Like, have probably done this once or twice. She fed me bullshit on a silver spoon and made me feel bad inside for still holding suspicion against "such a nice woman", despite having previous experience telling me that the most cooperative people tend to be the ones that really knife you. Straight to my face, dips out.

What pissed me off was that I did everything within my power to prevent it. Proving once again as I always say, if someone plans to do it, we can't stop that. And what really gets me is that they tend to show up again a few weeks later and do it again shamelessly, because we can't "prove" it was them that did it the past time (camera footage of any kind anywhere is always too shitty to really count half the time, we had someone stick his arm straight in and steal all the bartender's tips for the night, like 100+, and then use that to pay for his meal that he had already told us he didn't have the money for, and despite someone walking up on him and catching him IN THE ACT, we couldn't get it back from him because he immediately pulled a minority card and tried to call legal action and his friends started backing him up, making up shit on the spot to claim we'd been insulting them and falsely accusing them. Walked straight out with us unable to do a thing.)