[trodecke]

Not exactly like what you mentioned but this reminds me of something that happened to me a few years back. I was at lunch with a vendor and the waiter brought our drinks. The waiter couldn't have been more than 18 or 19 years old. He was standing next to me and was holding the drink tray in one hand while using his other hand to hand out the drinks. He didn't pull the drinks off both sides of the tray evenly and wound up letting it tilt in my direction. Needless to say, I got drenched with about 8 good sized glasses of water and soda. The poor kid's eyes opened about 6 inches and he stared at me for a moment with his mouth wide open. Several other servers came over and started towel drying me as best they could. The vendor, a low life schmuck that was trying to schmooze us into buying something we didn't want or need, stood up and starting declaring rather loudly that the manager would not only pay for my dry cleaning but would reimburse me for the cost of the phone that just got wet, etc. I rather calmly told the vendor to sit down, that everything was OK.

Later, I noticed the kid getting chewed out by what I assumed was the manager. I went over and politely mentioned that everything was OK and that it was a mistake and there wasn't any harm done. The manager appreciated what I said and comp'ed me a cheese cake (if that tells you what restaurant we were at). I made sure the vendor left a decent tip and I added a few extra dollars of my own to the pot.

I've never truly worked as wait staff but I have worked some benefit fund raisers as a waiter. One would think a church sponsored fund raiser, staffed and attended by church members, would help people take it easy on the wait staff. Was I ever wrong! Those few hours reinforced in me the need to make sure the wait staff is well taken care of.