Service Disaster Stories

Welcome! Share your tales of woe, whether you're on the line or just a customer.

In the spirit of Valentine's day approaching, I will tell you the tale of what I consider the worst Valentine's day service I've had. Buckle the fuck up for this one.

>The day starts when I get a call at 5 in the morning. At the time, I was only rocking a line position, so it's weird to get a call from your head chef, well, ever. I pick up and the head chef is torn between full on berserker rage and absolute despair. Our seafood supplier, without telling us, cancelled our order, which effectively killed about half of our menu. Anyone in the industry would know this as "Way too fucking late" to change up the menu now, so shit has already hit the fan. I was called because I was the closest, so could I go down to the supplier and politely ream every one of his orifices until he produces the goods plzkthxbye. This doesn't sound too bad, until one realizes that I had closed the night prior, effectively giving me a whopping 3 hours of sleep after what was a grueling shift. Welp, no time for sleep, time to terrorize some people.

>6am sees me at the supplier, who tries to give me a sob story about overwork or some shite. Honestly at that point, the only thing that would have made me care is if he said, "Here is the produce, free of charge to make up for fucking you." Eventually I drive the truth out of him; He oversold his stock, and was unable to supply all his orders. Whoops! No big deal, not like this is one of the busiest days for restaurants or anything. I place in the call and tell the head chef what's up, with the standard amount of swears for such an occasion. But wait! I remember a fisherman buddy of mine a ways away who might, just might, have what we need. I hurriedly call up the guy and miracle of all miracles, he fucking has the goods! Only problem is, he's two hours away and I don't have a car. I phone the head chef with the news, and she promptly tells me to take her car, take her credit card, and get it done. I sigh, tell her where where I am, and pour the shitty lobby coffee that's near me into several to-go cups. This day's gonna suck.

>Coffee is my lifeblood now, as I speed to the fisherman's business. This part went without problem, thankfully. Payment, profuse thanks and a few leaky boxes of iced seafood later sees me back to the restaurant! Yes! The nightmare is over! Why am I hearing audible screaming coming from inside! I walk in, and am met with the head chef pretty much destroying the pastry chef's life. Anyone who's made french macaroons knows full well how much of a bastard they are to perfect. Your cooking, resting temperature and storing have to be near impeccable in order to produce an awesome macaroon. We have places set up for just this kind of thing. However the pastry chef had basically checked out, putting the macaroons not in the cooled resting area, but in the walk-in cooler. Walk-ins get moist, that's just how they roll. Walk-ins also keep low temperatures, because nobody wants food poisoning. These two elements combined gave us captain macaroonfucker, destroyer of deserts. Fun fact: The best macaroons take about a day to get to their best state!

>I don't have a jacket. I don't have a hat. (I have long hair) Shit, I don't even have my knives! Doesn't matter. Rag around the head, borrow the chef's knives, and get to work. We work assembly line damn near flawlessly to pump the little bastards out. We get it done, and somehow manage to make a fairly decent batch. Hell yes! But it's now time for everybody to come in and start prep! Oh no! I basically tell the head chef that if I don't get some food in me now, I won't make it to service. I'm given a very generous hour and a half lunch break, all expenses paid. About a half hour into a chill lunch, my phone rings. Goddamnit. I'm already asking for the check before I pick up. Suprise suprise, I'm needed back urgently. Pay and go, grabbing my coat from my apartment along the way. I get back and where the fuck is everybody? It's a full-staff day, nobody should be blind sided by work today. That's when I get told that one of the line got into a car accident, both of our dishwashers just straight up quit, and we can't get a hold of our sous chef.

>At this point, every person in the kitchen is pulling every favor they ever had. To give you an idea how bad it was, we got the owner of an art store and a 16 year old from a crossfit place to come in and do dishes. The head chef somehow managed to get her husband to come in and do some meat prep. We got to the bottom of the barrel and went even further beyond. We in the kitchen go into the worst of crunches, pulling every ounce of chef bullshittery out of our hats. I'm not proud of some of the shortcuts we had to take, but by god we manage to finish prep on time! Holy shit! We just need to set up our mise en place, get ourselves set up with who's going where for what course, and we'll salvage something out of this chaos! But lo! What's that on the horizon? Is it? It is! Our sous chef has finally arrived!

>And he's stone fucking drunk.

>So fuck it, at this point, we CAN'T turn him away, since service is in 30 minutes. The head chef goes to try and sober the sous chef up, while everyone else sets up. I get put on the easiest station, the first course, which is away from the main line, on a small station by the pantry. Small miracles, as I didn't want to be around a sauced sous chef. It's almost go time, and for the most part, people are ready. At this point, the lights go out. No big deal, as the building we're in is an older one, and sometimes the breaker can flip on us. So we go and flip the breaker.
>Nothing.
>Bullshit, we go through this all the time! >Nothing.
>Oh fuck.
>My phone is already out, and I get PG&E (The gas and electric company for my area) on the horn. As it turns out, they were getting quite a lot of calls! Turns out that people get irate when one of your transformers blows out, covering an entire city block in darkness!

>At this point, everybody is freaking the fuck out. How the fuck do you cook and plate ANYTHING in near darkness? Are we going to have to close? What the hell do we do? At this point, I can only commend my head chef's tenacity and drive. Now, I'd like to take an aside to tell you about flashlights. Every kitchen needs a few, since there's always that one dark spot you need to look at. However, a smart chef doesn't go for the handheld flashlights. Instead, you get bike headlamps: Equatable performance, with the added benefit of hands-free light. The dinner? Now a candlelit dinner. As for us in the kitchen? We spelunker now. Thank god we had natural gas in the building, or else it was game over. And so we work, the dim lighting making up for some flaws in the plating. I get done with apps and I'm near tears. I fucking did it! I can go home! The elation lasts until I'm asked to jump on the line, as the sous chef has taken a lengthy "smoke break."

>Now, I have no problem with smokers; you do what you gotta do to get through your service. However, here's a list of things I DO have a problem with:
>Smoking pot during service
>Bringing your friends over to have a pot-smoking powwow during service
>Badmouthing the only people that were keeping the night afloat not 10 feet away from them

>Irrational, I know.

>I do what I can on the line, despite not knowing the plating for what I'm cooking as best I can. At this point, I'm just fully done, running on empty, he's dead, Jim. When the sous finally decides to come back, pretty much everyone agrees that the sous chef must go. He's sent home, and everybody wonders why he wasn't fired on the spot. Whatever, finish service. I don't have to work the dessert because the chef is not an idiot, and she sends me home, telling me that while I most definitely don't have to work for a few days, to please call her when I have the time. I somehow manage to take the bus home, get in the front door and shut it before I passed out right then and there in the entrance.

>About a day and a half later, I call up the head chef. This is the point where I learn about the badmouthing and the little pot powwow. Turns out that he had tried to rope in one of the loyal staff into his bullshit, who promptly about faced and told the head chef EVERYTHING. And that's when the head chef showed her cruel but just machinations. Because she not only fired him, but did something that one might even call evil, if it didn't happen to such a twat.

>The head chef called the sous chef's mother.
>His very conservative mother.
>His very conservative mother who owned the apartment he stayed in.
>His very conservative mother who he owed money to.

>Now, before anyone cries "over the line," the two were not strangers. They had a pre-existing relationship, hell, they'd even pop into each other's work just to say hello. And needless to say, both of them were VERY disappointed in the sous chef. That was pretty much the last I saw of him in town. A couple months later, rumor came about that he was doing rehab and some religious camp/brainwashing sort of thing.