Please know that no one in the restaurant industry goes to work with the intention of giving bad service. Servers in particular want everything to go as smoothly as possible because their tip is directly influenced by the experience of the customer. Since many servers in the United States make substantially less than the standard hourly minimum wage, those tips are important. Every server wants to give good service, but sometimes things run amok and when that happens, customers have a right to be disappointed and may feel the need to complain.
This is when a server has to activate their conflict resolution stealth mode. No matter what the issue is, the server is the direct contact for the customer and the first one to hear the complaint. The first thing I want to do as a server in that situation is to empathize. I try to put myself in their …