Waitress Goes Wacko Over Poached Egg Order

January 14, 2015

in Server Stories

My boyfriend and I recently went to a little diner that was near our house. The place isn’t too busy, and we’re seated as soon as we walk in, which is nice.

So it comes time to order. Our waitress was fairly young, probably in college, but so far she seemed really nice and had been back to our table already to refill our coffees.

My boyfriend orders the Belgian waffle meal with hash browns and sausage. I go for the two pancake meal with hash browns and eggs. Now, a lot of places I’ve been to don’t serve poached eggs, but I always like to ask if it hasn’t already been stated on the menu because that’s how I like my eggs.

I ask the girl if the eggs can be prepared poached. She gives me the blankest stare, not saying a word. Okay, they probably don’t serve poached eggs then. So I tell her that I’d like over easy eggs. “Over easy? You just asked if we served ‘poached’ eggs!” she says, a bit too loudly, making quotations with her fingers and all.

“Um, I just assumed you didn’t serve poached eggs so -” She interrupts me, shushing me. I stare at her, surprised. I’ve never had a waitress shush me.

“I don’t know what those are,” she says. I’m a bit confused at this point. Poached eggs are pretty popular, aren’t they? And even if they weren’t, why did the waitress have to know exactly what I meant when I ordered something?

“They’re just eggs that -” Shushed again.

“I’ll go see if the chef makes ‘poached’ eggs. Whatever those are,” she mutters, quotation fingers back in action.

Did she think I was trying to trick her? Did she think poached eggs weren’t a real thing and I was just wanting to give her a hard time? Did she think I wanted poached eggs as in eggs that had been illegally hunted?

She comes back only a few minutes later. “Yes, you can have poached eggs. Do you still want them?” she asks, sounding a bit annoyed still.

I should probably have just said no, since the topic of poached eggs was a rough topic for this girl. But I ordered them anyway. The girl was probably just stressed from college or work, and I wasn’t going to treat her poorly over poached eggs.

When our meal arrives, there’s clearly fork marks in the two poached eggs like someone had stabbed them. Yolk is slowly dripping out of the four little puncture holes of my eggs. I can only assume the girl did this before getting them to me.

Other than the whole poached egg thing, I still really enjoyed the meal. And I tipped the girl well.

– Jamie

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

Unavowed January 15, 2015 at 9:51 am

I have to say that, your waitress had to have been very new. That is the only logical thing I can think of to explain how she didn’t know what you were talking about.
I hope you didn’t tip her well, because shushing you when you were talking and her attitude when returning to take your order isn’t acceptable. She may have been stressed out from other things, but when you in a buisness like this you cannot let it show around your customers.

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Belle January 17, 2015 at 2:30 pm

If anything I would have tipped her less than usual (for me standard tip is a minimum of 20%). Not because of her ignorance regarding poached eggs, but her bad attitude, especially the "shushing" bit. You shouldn't reward bad behavior

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Trixi April 14, 2015 at 12:45 pm

Evidently they don't serve eggs benedict at this restaurant.

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