Best and worst of servers

I'm curious to hear about what eating out is like for other people. I started to waitress when I was young, so I'm not really sure. By the time I was old and mature enough to realize hey this person is working their butt off to serve me or how much I should tip and not challenge friends to eat packets of sugar, I started to serve. And that obviously skewed my perspective a little. Personally, I find myself hyper critical of any server I get; few live up to my standards. It ticks my mom off big time, let me tell you. But I can't help it. I'm a good server (if you'll forgive my bragging), and my bosses hold me to a really high standard. Most servers aren't up to our standards. So I find several things they did that bugged me or that I would do differently, but I still (almost) always tip well.


But, please, tell me about your experiences going out to eat. What was the best server you ever had like? The worst? Why?


For me, the best server I've had was, hands down, a young lady at this big chain restaurant. I was pretty tired and cranky (my friends and I were up at the crack of dawn for the victory parade and rally for our team winning the championship a few years ago), so she must have been good to impress me. Lol. She was real nice, got everything promptly, but what impressed me most was her knowledge of the menu. Every order she was asking "now that comes with this, do you want that sauce?" or something similar. I thought I knew my menu, but this girl was good.
The worst was at this café my friend loves on vacation. We were done and after a long ass road trip, we just wanted to go hit the bar for a quick drink and get to the hotel. We ask for boxes. The waitress, who had like 3 tables total, looked at us with this kind of dirty, angry look and said (somewhat peevishly) "you'll just have to give me a minute." I'll never forget that tone, that tone of "ohmygod, how dare you ask me something, I can't get it right now, good god, too much to do!" My one friend, who is also a waitress, and I just looked at each other like "did she really? Oh hell no!" I get it, sometimes tables have really bad timing with their requests (another table was just being sat or something I think). Sometimes a server just has too many things to be done at any given moment. We've all been there. But you do not snap at the customer. Geez. A simple "sure, I'll get those for you a moment" or "I'll be back shortly" would have sufficed. I don't appreciate that kind of attitude from anyone, let alone someone in customer service (and especially since servers usually are so pleasant and polite). By far the absolute worst server ever.

Now your turn.