Server praised for how he punishes customers who seat themselves at restaurants

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Louise Thomas

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A restaurant worker has revealed some of his biggest pet peeves from customers.

In a viral video posted to TikTok, user Dylan Carlino (@dylanpcarlino) said that his “favorite part” of his job is “punishing people for poor behavior at the restaurant.” One example of poor behavior that he gave was people who decided to grab a table for themselves instead of waiting for a hostess or other restaurant staff member to seat them.

Carlino explained that when customers decide to sit in his section, he will let them sit at the table for around 20 minutes until they eventually flag him down to alert him that nobody helped them.

“I go, ‘Nobody’s helped you? There’s dirty plates, what are you talking about? You guys already ate,’” the server said, reenacting what he tells customers. “They go, ‘These aren’t ours.’”

“I go, ‘Did you guys come in and seat yourselves and not talk to anybody?’” Carlino said. After the customers confirm that they grabbed the first table they saw without people sitting at it, Carlino replies: “That’s not how restaurants work. Get up. We have to go talk to the hostess. There’s a 30-minute wait.”

“Job title: server. Job duties: judge, jury, executioner. Get up. The table is too big for you anyways. There’s two people, why are you sitting at a six-top?” the clip ended.

After posting, Carlino’s TikTok received more than one million views, with many fellow servers turning to the comments section to express just how common the practice is.

“And they ALWAYS pick the dirty table?! Why? How?” one person questioned in the comments.

“My favorite is pretending to be OUTRAGED that a host sat them in such a manner until they reveal they sat themselves,” one server explained their method of dealing with customers who seat themselves.

“I used to go up and bus the table ‘thank you so much for coming in!! Hope yall have a great evening’ and walk away.’ Priceless,” another server mentioned.

A third server mentioned in the comments: “Three people did this once to me. Literally walked around the big WAIT TO BE SEATED sign to sit at dirty table. Ignored them. They flag me down, request menus. Me: can you read? Them: ? Me: can you read?”

Hostesses also left comments saying they didn’t understand how customers would just walk straight past them.

“I USED TO HOST AND HOW DO PEOPLE NOT KNOW THAT THEY SHOULDN’T SEAT THEMSELVES,” one person wrote in the comments.

“As a host, I used to ALWAYS have ppl walk right past me and seat themselves so I would wait until they started looking confused and then I would walk over and throw the menus on their table while glaring,” one former hostess revealed their method for handling these customers.

This isn’t the first time a server has gone viral on TikTok. Sam McCall previously turned to the platform to show her followers how her hairstyles would affect how well she got tipped. “Trying the server hair theory to see what gets me more tips,” she wrote over her clip.

The hairstyle that had given her the largest amount of tips was a half-up half-down look, with $465 in tips.

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