We all know working in the hospitality industry is no picnic, but dealing with stingy customers and long hours is the least of some waiters’ worries.
That is according to one woman who has shared some of her horror stories from working as a restaurant server.
In a video posted to TikTok, the user named only as B, ran through some of her worst moments, which included being forced to keep working even after a customer had just died.
She explained that the man passed away after choking in the bathroom, and that his wife was “on her knees screaming and crying”, but despite all this the restaurant remained open.
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“We kept serving people, and when they were taking his body out in the body bag, I was taking table 31’s food to them,” B recounted.
The TikToker then recalled what happened when one of her coworkers hit her head on a metal shelf after suffering a seizure.
“There was blood everywhere and I was holding her head until the ambulance got there,” she said. “And after the ambulance got there, I got in trouble for not taking care of my tables.”
In the next anecdote, B’s manager got “extremely drunk” at their work Christmas party and gave a speech about how much she “absolutely just f***ing hated everybody”, especially her.
And in the next she remembered how an “old couple” called senior management complaining about her because she had greeted them by asking: “How are you guys?”
“She was like, 'I'm not a man' and literally cussed me out,” the content creator explained.
“She was like, 'I'm done talking to you, I'm not eating here anymore,' and literally almost got me fired over saying 'how are you guys?'"
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As B’s monologue continued, she spoke about chefs getting into fights and customers teasing her with banknotes.
But arguably her most stomach-churning recollection involved the treatment of unsavoury food.
“When we discovered mould in all of our fridges and literally all of our food, our [general manager] told us that we didn't have the money to replace it, and told us to literally ignore it and never talk about it again," she said.
She was, however, quick to stress that her stories were “old” and about her “PAST jobs”, for anyone looking to pounce on any perpetrators.
Still, B’s clip racked up nearly half a million views in four days as viewers shared their empathy with her plight.
"This sums up restaurant life in about three minutes," one wrote.
"The worse part about it is they really try hard to make you think these are regular working conditions," commented a second.
While a third said: "I don't mean to one-up you but someone died at my work and it's a German restaurant and an oompapa live band was blasting loud [sic] as they carried him out."
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