Customers who assume you’re Stupid

One of the more dreaded customers, these people believe, deep in their hearts, that servers are stupid, and there is nothing you can do to change this.
You could walk up to the table and announce your presence in a Shakespearean soliloquy, while quickly solving a Rubix cube, and this customer will still give you that blank, wide eyed, emotionless expression that can only communicate one thing; you are an idiot.
The communication of these guest is highlighted by several key components:
1) They stare a hole through you the entire time you are talking, a piercing glare that is intended to relay a stern message of intellectual superiority.
2) They become very concerned that you are not writing their order down. They believe you will forget, or they are shocked you have the capability to remember.
3) They repeat their order several times. Each time they repeat, they talk a little bit slower and use a different sequence of words that essentially relay the same message. i.e . I’ll have the pasta with no peppers and extra sauce. Make…..sure…..there’s……no…..peppers. Extra………..sauce. The pasta. No peppers, extra sauce. Why aren’t you writing this down?
4) Any witty jokes you try to make will be quickly brushed aside. Worse, if they make a joke and you try to save something funny in return, you will draw that horrible blank stare and laughing will cease at the table.
5) If they wear eyeglasses, they like to take them off as they are talking to you. This will happen in one of three ways. A) They will take them off just before they ask you a question. B) They will ask the question and then take them off as you begin to respond. C) They will take them off at some point during your response. Regardless of when they take them off, it will be followed by a slight tilt of the head and that piercing stare mentioned above.
6) The entire time you interact with them you feel like you’re interviewing them on one of those highly intellectual CBC radio shows. You’ve become Barbara Frumm on “As It Happens”.
Customers who assume you’re stupid really aren’t that smart themselves. Certainly they have better than average intelligence, but they aren’t “rocket scientists” to use the term that owners love so much. They simply enjoy the inherited status of being the person sitting down, and the mental advantage that comes with it over the server, who has the societal stereotype of being stupid.
This makes them a frustrating type of customer to serve. To be talked to like you’re an idiot for over an hour takes a lot of strength to deal with and hearing a server walk into the kitchen yelling, “ My Table thinks I’m a stupid idiot” is a pretty common occurrence on any given night.
The worst possible thing that can happen to you when serving this wannabe smart customer is to make a mistake. It doesn’t matter how small and insignificant, if you forget one simple thing, you’re screwed. They now have all the ammunition they needed.
You are a stupid idiot.
Ironically, when serving a guest like this, you always seem to make a simple mistake.
God damn it!!
Although maybe these people are right. Anyone who would subject themselves to this type of torture for living may very well be stupid.