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Served: Night from Hell

Posted by Hannah Howard, June 2, 2009 at 8:25 AM

I blog by day and wait tables in a New York City restaurant by night. I'm excited to bring you Served, dispatches from the front of the house. Enjoy!

The couple had been there for hours, savoring two bottles of wine, some cheeses, white anchovies with pickled fennel, another round of cheese. Then, check please. They wanted me to split the bill on their two cards. Done.

“Thank you,” I said, and handed them their credit cards and receipts. The place was rocking, and I was trying not to look like a madwoman as I ran back and forth, wiping tables and taking orders. I noticed the couple was there a few minutes later, still mulling over their receipts.

“Is everything OK?”

“Actually,” the gentleman said, “We didn’t realize that this was a gift card.” He held up the Visa, indeed a gift card for a hundred bucks. “Can you put the whole hundred on the gift card and charge the rest to the other credit card?”

Technical Difficulties

“Sure,” I told them. This would be a minor inconvenience most of the time, but I was deep in the shits and it was a pretty sizable inconvenience. I voided the old sales on the credit card machine and started over. But the gift card wasn’t complying. “Not authorized,” the machine told me when I tried to charge a hundred dollars. I tried again: same thing.

I asked my friend and fellow server A. for help. He often plays the role of de facto manager because he understands so many of the restaurant’s mysteries. He was weeded himself, and less than thrilled to be delivered an additional and onerous task. “Here, you pour this for position one table eight,” he said, handing me a bottle of Riesling, ‘I’ll take a look.”

Without getting into boring details, I learned that a gift card doesn’t act exactly like a credit card. Once we had authorized the payment the first time, we couldn’t charge it again. And we couldn’t put more than $75 on the card in the first place, because we are a restaurant and they expect the customer to put a tip on the card.

I explained the news to the diners, who were understandably vexed. We couldn’t seem to reach any agreement about what to do next. They insisted a few more times that I put $100 on their gift card. I would if I could, but it was a technical impossibility. They refused to believe me.

“A.,” I said, “I’m so sorry. Can you talk to these guys? I’m not getting anywhere and they’re pissed.”

A. got somewhere. We ended up keeping their card and charging it the next day, after the previous “void” registered with the credit card company. It wasn’t an ideal solution for us—it would complicate the night’s paperwork—but we had reached an acceptable solution.

Only a few minutes later, I split another check on two cards. I tried to anyway. “Transmitting,” says the credit card machine as it chugs along. But this time the machine blinked “transmitting” for an eternity. I restarted the machine. I unplugged it and plugged it in again. I did a magic dance. Still, “transmitting.”

I felt like I had broken it with my bad karma, somehow. “A., I think the credit card machine lost its connection.” He came over and I demonstrated its infuriating behavior. He was not happy. I was not happy.

The dishwasher tried his hand at fixing the problem, we called the owner. The temporary fix was to plug the machine into the phone line in the basement. This meant we had to pop outside and downstairs every time someone needed to pay and wait for the dial-up connection. It was less than ideal, but at least we could charge our guests.

Not Over Yet

An hour later, I headed downstairs with a credit card and a check. Back upstairs, I returned it to a friendly lady. “We gave you two cards,” she told me.

“Are you sure?” I asked. I stayed cool but there was panic firing in my brain. Another credit card incident was the last thing I needed.

“Positive.”

I was sure I had picked up only one card. The search began. I scoured the shelves by the credit card machine, the refrigerator whose surface we used to stash stuff. I retraced my steps, combing over the floor. I went back and asked the ladies to make sure they didn’t have the card, one more time. They were sure.

And there it was—it had slipped behind the bar into the crevice of the shelving. The dishwasher, F., held it up triumphantly. I gave him a relived hug and went downstairs to charge the two cards.

I broke a plate. A guy from school I have a big crush on showed up with a date. I have never been so happy to head home. Right now, I’m off to work. I’m hoping very hard for a smoother night.

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