The original post: /r/amitheasshole by /u/Skelotonyoga on 2025-02-21 03:06:52.
I work as a waitress at a family-owned cafe, and there's a situation that's been bothering me for a while. There are two people in particular— a woman who is the daughter of the owner and my former manager from years ago, and her husband, who are just kind of… the worst.
Almost every day since I started, the husband calls in the morning to order food to go before he heads to work. Sometimes, he’ll come in during the afternoon for a second to-go order too. He doesn’t tip and doesn’t pay for the food. He gets it for free, while the rest of us waitstaff have to pay half for our meals. And he’s never worked there.
One day, after I made a large to-go order that took a lot of work, he laughed and said he didn’t have money to tip. After finding $3, he joked, “A 300% tip on a $0 meal isn’t too shabby!” His family laughed, including his sister who works there. It felt insulting, especially since he didn’t pay for the food in the first place. His to-go order was over $40.
Recently, he and his wife have been coming in regularly for lunch. For the past two weeks, they’ve been coming in every shift I’ve worked. They sit down at a table (which, in our small cafe with only 6 tables, takes up space that could be used by other well paying customers) and expect to be waited on. My ex-manager used to handle their orders herself when they came in, but now they expect service like regular customers. They sometimes get up to grab their own things too, which makes it harder for me to know how to handle them—should I wait on them like regular customers or should they serve themselves?
They’ve been tipping $5, regardless of the service or the total of their meal, which feels frustrating considering the effort other waitresses put into serving them. And again, they don’t pay.
They’re very religious (which isn’t inherently bad), but the way they preach about being good Christians and good people feels gross to me because it doesn’t match their actions. They treat waitstaff poorly, leaving dirty tables, taking up the small number of tables we have for a long time, and taking away potential customers. And yet they act like they’re kind, genuine people who can’t see how their actions affect us. The wife was a waitress, so she should know how hard it is to make money and how important it is to tip properly.
One incident that bothered me was when the wife took a picture of me at my other job through her car window and texted it to a group chat with her cousin and sister-in-law (who also works at the cafe). She captioned it, “New tattoo?” For context, I have a lot of tattoos, and I’m working with a tattoo shop on the side. It felt invasive and judgmental, especially since I don’t really know her. It made me uncomfortable, and I couldn’t help but feel like she was making fun of me for something personal.
When the cousin or sister-in-law are around, they act surprised when I ask if they can take their table. It’s like they don’t understand how their family coming in messes with our ability to make money. I feel like I’m being made out to be the bad guy because I don’t like them. It’s difficult to explain to others because they just see them as this nice family, but my experience with their actions has been anything but that.
I’ve been struggling with whether my feelings are justified. On the surface, they seem like a nice family, but in reality, they’ve made me feel disrespected and judged. I don’t want to feel like I’m unreasonable, but I also know I don’t like to be treated this way.
The sister-in-law that I work with mentioned recently that the husband “thinks I don’t like him,” which... yeah, he’s right lmao. Some employees who aren’t related to the family agree with me that they’re annoying and judgmental, while the family members think I’m being cold or that I’m the reason for the awkwardness. It’s probably true cause I’m not good at pretending to like someone lol.
They came in today again, and I did my usual thing—being cordial if they spoke to me but not initiating conversation. Watching them with their baby made me feel guilty, like maybe I’m just hating on a nice family for no reason. But technically, they’ve never been outwardly mean. Am I justified in not liking them? I feel like I’m going crazy.