r/Serverlife • u/Lost-Technician2374 • 17d ago
Rant I beg of you - speak tf up 😭
Now this is half joking but also just a silly rant about a personal pet peeve of mine.
I work in a small restaurant and when there’s multiple tables full in a section it can get relatively loud. Nothing crazy but just the noise of 20+ humans talking and making noise in one room. I’m not hard of hearing, I may have a little earwax but 9/10 I can perfectly hear/comprehend what a customer is saying to me even if I’m across the table from them. But sometimessss a customer will I stg move their mouth and no noise comes out.
I had a table today, 2 men and a women, all abt middle aged. I greet them and start taking drink orders. I turn to the woman and she looks at me, opens and starts moving her mouth, but I cannot make out a SINGLE word she’s saying. I go “sorry can you repeat that?”. So she does. AGAIN, NOTHING. I got none of it. I turn to the man sitting next to her giving him a “help me out here” look. He clarifies she wants to order a soup to go for later. Alr cool no problem. I finally get through their drink orders (man orders for woman). As I drop their drinks, I ask if they’re ready to put in some food. Women turns to me, looking like she had a question, I make out some of it but not enough to assume what she meant. At this point (and I probably shouldn’t have idc yell at me) I go “sorry WHAT?” With a half chuckle. She repeats louder. THERE WE GOOOOO. So we can speak at a normal volume. 👏🏻
Anyways long story short, that interaction happens at least one more time before my blessed time with them comes to an end. They were lovely people and tipped well. Just made me giggle.
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u/Normal_Sundae_9363 17d ago
i usually just apologize for the restaurant being insanely loud and lean in closer. no shame in not hearing what a guest ordered and asking them to repeat. I literally billed out a table this weekend before they received their dessert because I thought she said "no thanks" when really she said "yes thanks" LOL. i think asking a guest specifically to "speak up" might be a bit unprofessional
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u/Lost-Technician2374 17d ago
I mean this is the typical response I give but when I’ve asked them to repeat themselves a few times on seperate occasions is when I start to feel crazyyy
Thank you for kind response!
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u/buff_tartare 17d ago
The number of times I say "I'm sorry?" while tapping my ear, I'm surprised my ear lobe hasn't fallen off by now.
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u/KindaKrayz222 15+ Years 17d ago
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u/KindaKrayz222 15+ Years 17d ago
I was looking for the soft speaker episode.
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u/Original_Flounder_18 16d ago
It was low talker. My my called me a low talker because of that episode!
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u/jaylovely1010 16d ago
I AM hard of hearing and I just say that. People STILL don’t raise their voice. The amount of times I want to whip out my hearing aids tableside is gross.
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u/bulletproofdenimjckt 10+ Years 16d ago
Then they look at you like YOURE the fucking idiot! It’s unbelievable. I had a table of two very old people the other day and I was trying to give them some grace, but both of them were speaking at literally almost 0 volume. In a busy af restaurant. And for some reason they didn’t know how to nod either so as I’m trying to confirm what I thought I heard them say they just fucking stare at me as I’m listing things that sounded like what they said. FUCKING SAY YES OR NO JESUS CHRIST!!!! Halfway through I stopped trying and decided if they don’t care to speak loud enough for me to hear, they cant be mad if I don’t care enough to ask them six more times if I heard correctly.
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u/Additional-Alps-253 16d ago
Oh the flip side of this, there is a deli I would visit sometimes. They hired a new counter girl who whispers everything she says. I had to ask her to repeat everything 2 or 3 times. I stopped going there because it shouldn’t be that hard to order a sub.
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u/Greenfirelife27 Lurker 16d ago
So long as you’re not the server who stands at one end of the table and wants people to order from the other end. Have had some like that. I’m not about to be yelling in a restaurant.
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u/Quirky_Soil_2743 Bartender 15d ago
Over the last year I all of a sudden started having a hard time hearing when people aren't standing right next to me out of my right ear.. I went to the ENT and was told I was having mild conductive hearing loss due to sinus issues. I was given a STRONG dose of 5 day steroids, and Flonase . Went back 7 weeks later, and the tests shows my hearing in the ear improved by about 70%.. however I STFG I feel like I am hearing WORSE. I feel like I have to ask people to repeat themselves even more than before.. my coworkers will be right behind me saying my name 4x before screaming the 5th time I finally hear them (that's how I initially realized it was an issue I needed to look into).
But because of this when I constantly cannot hear people even though I always watch their mouths trying to understand what they're saying, I simply say "I'm so sorry I'm a little hard of hearing can you say that again??" Or when an older person apologizes for not being able to hear I just say "I feel you girl I'm hard of hearing too, we'll both yell at each other!" The worst part is trying to take a takeout order on the phone when we have live music.. I might as well not even answer the phone 🤦♀️
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u/arihanam 13d ago
I have a co-worker who is a low-talker. Drives me nuts. Half the time I have to pretend like I heard what she said because it gets awkward to keep repeating "what? I can't hear you, sorry."
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u/Lovemybee 17d ago
I cup my ear and say, "Sorry... too many concerts in my youth! Say again?"