Customer service in America is nearly impossible.

In America, there is a sense of entitlement that is unmatched by any other country in the world. Americans believe that America is the greatest country in the world, so naturally Americans believe they are the greatest PEOPLE in the world and deserve the greatest SERVICE in the world.

And it’s not just adults, although middle-aged Americans can be some of the most self-centered people in the world. No, this sense of entitlement is being passed down to younger generations every day by mothers and fathers who feel that just because they have a little money to wave around, they deserve to be treated as though they were divinely-appointed kings and queens.

For example, a seven-year-old boy was drinking some pineapple juice the other day. We were out of the larger glasses (as this restaurant does quite frequently, we’re terribly-stocked) and so I brought the child his juice in a 16oz. glass instead of an (adult-size, mind you) 24oz. glass.

Sounds harmless, right? Not to this seven-year-old.

The kid: “Ummm…sir…why am I receiving a smaller glass than that of my parents?”
Me: (Shocked at his grammar and diction) “Oh, all the larger glasses are dirty. I’m sure that by your next refill the adult glasses will be…”
The kid: “That is unacceptable.”
Me: “That’s what?”
The kid: “That is unacceptable.”
Me: “Okay, well, what I can do is…”
The kid: “Take this glass (he hands me a cup from an adjacent table) and clean it. It’s not that hard.”

Are you kidding me? I wanted to scream at this little boy. I wanted to tell him that he didn’t deserve to be treated like a prince. I wanted to yell at him about how Santa wasn’t real and how the Easter Bunny would stab him in his sleep if he had the chance and how the Tooth Fairy was really a mass murderer, but I didn’t. I took the moral high road.

Against a seven-year-old. I shouldn’t have to be making the decision to take the moral high road when dealing with a seven-year-old.

Instead, I just put on my fake-happy grin, looked at the parents for some support and received none. Absolutely none. These parents just had some sort of satisfying grin like their little Johnny had done exactly as he’d been taught by his two sorry excuses for parents.

There you have it. Here sitting next to little Johnny were two parents who had instilled in this seven-year-old a sense of entitlement so deep and so ingrained that he will always be treating people as though they are beneath him. It is the parents’ faults. It has to be.

So I go and get the seven-year-old a new glass. I personally wash a larger glass, go to the restaurant’s bar, take out some juice and fill it up for the kid. As I’m walking back to the table all I can think is that the glass is far too large for a child as young as seven. It’s almost too large for me and I’m 22.

I drop off the glass and before I can get my pad out to take their order, the child interjects a little more entitlement into the situation:

Him: “Was that so hard?”
Me: “Excuse me? Listen, if I can just say something here…”
The kid’s father: “I think you’ve said enough.”

I am stunned. I am boiling hot mad and there’s not a thing I can do about it. I can’t get mad or I run the risk of being fired. And I can’t let it go because, well, I’m far too prideful a person.

Me: “Sir, can I just take you all’s orders?”
The kid’s mother: “We should have stayed in New York. This trip to Florida is just daunting.”
The kid’s father: “You’re probably right.”
Me: “You guys look like you all need some more time. Let me give you all just one more minute or two.”

So I give them two minutes. I use the time to go to the bathroom, splash some cold water on my face and regain my composure. It’s going to take every bit of strength I have to look as though I’m even remotely enjoying serving these people.

I walk back up to the table. With eyes rolled, they give me their orders and then proceed to complain that their sushi is too dry and that their filet mignon is too wet. (Who ever heard of a “wet” steak? In all my years as a waiter, I have NEVER heard of a “wet” steak.)

As they pay their check and exit the restaurant, I can’t help but think that these parents are really doing their child a disservice. They’re teaching him that it’s okay to be rude. You’re the customer, you have the money, you can complain to management if you want. You hold all the cards. You hold this waiter’s job and livelihood in your hand.

Those parents are telling their child that you can come into a restaurant and think you are entitled to treat a server like garbage because THEY’RE the service. YOU’RE the ones with the money and you can dangle it in front of them for the duration of your time in the restaurant. You should think you’re doing lucky them a favor by being the ones they service.

Unlucky for them, I had already made about a hundred bucks on the night and didn’t need their “favor”.

Suffice to say, that kid was thirsty as hell when he left our restaurant.

Before I begin, did I just put “black people” and “whipping boy” in the same sentence?

Anyway, I’m just wondering why when someone says “bad tippers” their thoughts immediately turn to “black person”? Is it because there’s simply more blacks than in any other restaurant-going minority, thereby more examples to reinforce this stereotype? Is it because whites make up the largest ethnic group in America that it’s easier to compare blacks and whites? Is it something deeper? I really don’t know.

I know that in most of my articles (especially the one where I called out every demographic’s frickin’ downfall) I’ve tried to paint a fair picture. I call out old people who can’t tip. I call out rednecks who can’t tip. I call out finicky asians who can’t tip. I call out teenagers who can’t tip.

But I say the same thing about blacks and the debate gets heated.

I’ve read around and whenever I post an article that involves a black family not tipping well, it’s lauded and supported with emails and comments as “truth”. But when I rail a family of rednecks, bros who listen to way too much Dave Matthews, or teenagers who wouldn’t know good music if it came up and sang “Golden Slumbers” right in front of their face, it gets quiet. No comments. No discussions. No debate. No nothing.

What is it with us? Do we so crave the black vs. white thing so much that we will ignore idiot-bashing until it’s about black people?

I’ve written almost five times as many articles poking fun at white yuppie soccer moms who wouldn’t know how to fill their Hummer with gas if their life depended on it and yet I have TEN TIMES as many comments on the articles bashing idiots who are black.

I even called a 14-year-old girl hot. Two comments. Accidental pedophilia, people!

The title of the website is I Serve Idiots. Not “I Serve Black Idiots”. Not “Black People Tip Terribly”. This is a place where we can come together as a community of people who hate idiots and…well…hate idiots. Regardless of class, gender, race, economic level, etc…

Please, guys. Tell me what’s up. Help me gain some perspective. I’m begging y’all.

If a customer says it’s their birthday, then the servers are obliged to sing an off-key version of “Happy Birthday” just as the customers are obliged to sing as low as possible while still forming the words with their mouths. Usually, the customer informs one of us at the restaurant that it’s someone in their party’s birthday since we don’t automatically know people’s birthdays unless their name is Jesus or Martin Luther King. This one lady didn’t seem to think so.

Backstory: After a family’s dinner a few weeks ago, the mother took me aside and said, “You know, I’m very…I’m just very disappointed in this establishment.”
Me: “Why? What happened?”
Her: “Well, don’t you all do anything for birthdays?”
Me: “Yes. Whose birthday was it?”
Her: (Loud sigh) “My husband’s. I called on Wednesday.” (note: it was Saturday)
Me: “Oh, I’m sorry. No one told me. Did you tell the hostess when you came in tonight?”
Her: “No, I thought ONE time would be enough.”
Me: “What? You DID tell someone?”
Her: “Yes. I called up last week and told the hostess on duty that it was my husband’s birthday and to be SURE to sing ‘Happy Birthday’.”
Me: “Oh. Well, next time, if you just tell whoever’s serving you I’m sure they’d be happy to sing ‘Happy Birthday’”.
Her: “Oh. There won’t BE a next time.”
Me: (frown and nod)

At the end of this exchange, the woman looked damn near tears. Was she kidding? I didn’t sing “Happy Birthday”. Big freaking deal. It was all some big misunderstanding. It’s not as if I came up to her table and refused to sing the song. The husband was probably glad that he wasn’t embarrassed by a group of Asian waiters banging on a gong and singing a broken-English version of “Happy Birthday

I walked to the bar to get some drinks and when I came back out the woman was arguing with our manager/hostess, April, about the whole thing. I walked up and caught the end of the argument

Her: “…I bring in a lot of friends and a lot of business and you can FORGET it all now.”
April: “Well, ma’am. There’s not much I can do now but say sorry. From the bottom of my heart, I am truly sorry that your husband did not have ‘Happy Birthday’ sung to him on his birthday

April, you are a sarcastic badass.

As the woman walked out, she rubbed her face as if she was tearing up. In a restaurant parking lot. Over not hearing “Happy Birthday” sung to her husband. Wow.

End of backstory

I completely forgot about the lady until a few days ago when she came back in and identified me as “you who would not sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to my husband”. Huh?

Her: “I just want you to know that you ruined my husband’s last night with us. He went off to basic training the next day.”

While I hardly believe that’s even remotely true, that’s what you get for having your birthday at an over-priced Asian restaurant.

Like I’ve said before, where our restaurant is located, we get a good mix of low-income white trash and high-income, stuck-up bitches that have a taste for Appletinis.

File this one under: “low-income white trash”.

A mother and father come in with their children, all under the age of five. The youngest is no older than one. He’s crying and carrying on and flailing wildly but that’s par for the course with mothers like this one missing teeth and fathers like this one asking if we have “PBR in a can”.

I’m fucking 21 years old and even I don’t drink PBR. That shit is one step above “a horse’s piss after drinking bad beer”.

So the mother and father are sitting there, trading stories about pick-up trucks or whatever it is backwoods parents with Dale Earnhardt t-shirts talk about to pass the time.

And the kid is still crying. The other customers at the table are starting to get a little frustrated. I am praying silently she doesn’t use her breast to pacify the little tyke.

For the time being, I’m relived when she pulls out an empty bottle. I’m getting ready for her to ask me to get her some milk to put in the bottle (which I’ll gladly fucking do to 1. shut that kid up, I have a headache and 2. appease the other customers, I like tips).

She unscrews the top of the bottle. “Good,” I think, “she brought her own formula.”

And then she pours…what is that…is that her Coke? Coca-fucking-cola? She’s putting her mother fucking coke in her infant’s bottle and he’s…Christ…he’s sucking that stuff down. He can’t get more than a couple of seconds worth of coke down his throat before he starts to cough, obviously not having a complex enough digestive system to handle something as corrosive (and disgustingly sugary) as Coke.

I once had a problem with my car battery. There was all this rust and crap on it. Do you know what my mechanic suggested I do? Pour Coke on it. I poured a single can of Coke on the battery and the rust completely corroded. That’s why I can’t (and don’t) drink Coke.

Now imagine that tiny child’s tiny stomach lining corroding from having Coke in his system a half dozen years too early. Yea, makes me wince too.

I’m not an asshole. I see that this child who is still bundled up like a newborn should not be drinking Coke. That he should be drinking something like…I don’t know…milk? Juice? Something other than what I use to get the rust off my car battery when it’s not running properly, that’s for damn sure.

So I walk up to the woman and ask (politely, mind you) if she’d like me to bring her some milk for the child. Her response?

Her: “I don’t wanta hafta pay two dollars for Coke you’ll refill for me for free.”

Holy shit. If there was ever a better pro-choice argument, I haven’t heard it.

Me: “Ma’am, I’d be happy to bring you some milk for free for the child. It’s not a problem at all.”
Her: “Oh…well, then…okay. Can you clean out this here bottle from all da Coke in it?”
Me: “Absolutely. Not a problem.”

The other customers at the table are sharing my sentiments that this lady is not fit to raise a parakeet, much less three children.

Two dollars, ma’am? Is it truly worth two dollars for your child’s health and well-being? Shit, I’ll give you a couple hundred right now for formula to keep that kid healthy enough for long enough to realize that you are a shitty parent and that he needs to go downtown and find some new parents. Pronto.