...at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now:
1) My one (chubby) (Thai) coworker texts that she's late and on her way, and she and I are replacing my one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones and our one (tall) (young) (Latino-American) coworker, so I text her back something like "Okay," and then I send another text saying that our one (tall) (young) (Latino-American) coworker is getting angry, and I have him do a theatrical angry face and he puts both his fists up and I take a picture of him like that, and I text her that picture of him, too.
2) When I come table-side to refill water for two (older) (demure) (nerdy) (white) women, the one is just picking up her water to take a sip, which she does as I stand there waiting with my water-pitcher, and then, she holds out her glass for me and is like, "That sip was badly timed."
3) When a (younger) (Chinese) guy comes up to the front counter to pay his like $90 bill, I see him sign and leave no tip, so I ask him if everything was okay with the food and service, and he looks at my one (taller) (Chinese from China) coworker who happens to be standing there and he says okay, he'll leave some tip, but he told his friends that this place was a nice place and a bowl was dirty, and at that my one coworker says that line about the boss seeing no tip and wondering what went wrong with the food or service, etc., a completely non-coordinated reaction between the two of us, as the customer puts down a $10 tip.
And, after the customer leaves to go back to his table, my coworker says that one of the soup bowls that they brought to the table for the group of four wasn't clean, and so the group sent it back and asked for a clean bowl.
(That was it! And, for that, no tip on a $90 bill?!?)
Later, I mention this to my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker, and she just shakes her head and sighs, and I said it was reminiscent of some other (also presumably rich) (similarly young) (Chinese from China) students who were in like half a year ago, and one girl called us over and was upset because the ice cream for dessert had begun to melt in the bowl that we brought out (?!?!?!?!), and, just like this customer, that group blew it all out of proportion and left a low tip, and yes, she agreed, it was probably a rich Chinese thing.
I also wonder, too, if it's a cultural thing, where they don't know how to appropriately adjust the tip for (mild) dissatisfaction, or what (mild) dissatisfaction is.
4) When I call to the one (younger) (male) (Lao) cook and say his first name with (English) question intonation -- that is, the kind of intonation where you'd be like, "John?" -- my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker overhears, and she's very insistent that I use the proper tone when I say his name, and she repeats it for me and I can't do it, and as we're repeating it back and forth, the one (older) (female) (Thai Chinese) cook hears and starts tittering at what I'm saying, and finally I can say the name right, so we go back to what we were doing, but later I ask my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker what what I was saying meant, and she says she won't tell me, and then I ask her if it's a bad word, and she says yes, and so I tell her that she has to tell me, and then she holds her hand out and says it means something that's lying down and then stands up, and she raises her hand up, and I'm like, "Like 'erection'?', and immediately at that she starts laughing, and is like yes, when you said his name with that tone, that's what you were saying.
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