1) A (fatter) (very round-faced) (shoulder-length-haired) (younger) (bespectacled) (South Asian) woman who sits on the opposite side of the table from a (vaguely schlubby) (bespectacled) (South Asian) guy who ultimately ends up paying for the bill even though she says it's separate checks, and who says "We need a few minutes" in a very b*tchy way when I ask if they need any beverages besides water or would like any appetizer order put in right away while I'm there at the table, and who says "no fish sauce, no oyster sauce" in a very b*tchy way when she puts in her order, and who later when I clear the table and bring her her to-go box and remove excess dishes and silverware, asks me to bring her a spoon, the fork sitting out there on her plate among the remnants of her fried rice (she can't use a fork to scrape rice into a to-go box?!), and then later I walk by and I see a light bulb go off in her (fat) (Indian princess) head but I just pretend like I didn't see it and I just walk on by, and I see her wait a while and then ultimately stroll up to the counter to ask for a plastic bag to carry her take-out in, which she hadn't had enough foresight to think she needed when she originally asked for a to-go box.
(It was $3 tip on a $34 bill, paid for by the guy.)
2) A (South Asian) family of three with a (college-age son) come in like twenty minutes after the hour right when we're closing, and I come out from cleaning the bathrooms only to have my (chubby) (Thai) coworker tell me they're there and to go take their order, and from what they're ordering and how quickly they're ordering I can tell she told them that they needed to order from a limited menu and quickly, and when I dash to go put that in, I tell them we need any dessert order now, too, before the kitchen cleans that station since they close at a quarter to the hour, and the (balding) (dull tan-skinned) (bespectacled) (fervent-eyed) (father) says something about how they want dessert at the end of the meal, so I tell him that that's not really possible now like a normal meal here because it's so late, and he says something about how they can prepare it immediately before the kitchen closes, and the (thoughtful-eyed) (arranged marriage?) (squat) (darker-skinned) wife steps in to calm him down and says something about how it's okay, and then later towards the end of the meal they need boxes and the husband specifies they need two big boxes, and I just say we have different types of boxes and what are they taking with them, and they point it out, and I say I can bring a small styrofoam box and a small plastic tub and they can fit the rice in the plastic tub, but the wife says no, they'd like that separately, do you have a rice box, and I say, yes, we can bring it, and it turns out there's no rice boxes by the host stand, so I bring them the small styrofoam box and the small plastic tub and I say that I have to go back to the back and get a rice box, and I do that -- they're sitting all the way at the front of the restaurant! -- and then I come back and the wife is chuckling and gesturing to the boxed rice and is like, "Oh ho ho, we just put the rice in the styrofoam box, bring us another small styrofoam box!", even though she'd just specified that she needed a rice box and she was aware that I had just made a special trip for that, and then I go get one, and like five minutes later her husband is up at the front of the restaurant, and he is demanding a big styrofoam box and a coworker of mine gives him one, and two minutes later when I go to clear more stuff from their table I can see that the last dish is now put in the big styrofoam box, and the second small styrofoam box that I had just brought them is sitting out on the table, unused.
"Why are Indian people like that?", my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker was like, shaking her head when I told her what they did.
Like, they changed their order on ***take-out boxes*** several times, where I made two special and ultimately unnecessary trips at their specification, one for the ricebox and one for the small Styrofoam box.
I almost did my "working with people with dementia" communication strategy from my eldercare days, where I would state directly, "I am confused with what is happening. I was told I needed to bring a ricebox and I made a special trip, and now that ricebox is not needed. And then I was told that I needed to bring a second small Styrofoam box, and now that box is not needed. What is happening here? I am confused. Did something happen to change the requirements for takeout boxes?"
I mean, I swear.
I didn't even bother looking at the tip after they left, lest it p*ss me off.
(Overall that night though tips were great, on top of base wage I was clocking over $32 an hour.)
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