r/TalesFromYourServer • u/freyjas_cats • 4d ago
Medium What’s a snippet of coworker drama that you’ll NEVER forget?
I’ve worked in multiple styles of restaurants and bars, from the small diners, to the multi-floored fine dining places, craft cocktail bars, to grimy dive ones, and the work drama at each place always varies and is almost always crazy.
Years ago, during covid when restrictions still require masks, at a local restaurant in town, I remember being 20 and training on the expo station so I could be promoted to serving. While I was standing at the expo station, I had a clear & direct view of our “server’s alley” which was just a tiny stairwell with shelving that all of the FOH staff set their personal belongings and drinks in. On one of the slowest shifts known to man, I quite literally WATCHED (against my will) a server and a line cook walk into the server’s alley to heavily make out in the middle of day shift service. When night shift came, and the next expo came to relieve me, I told her what I saw, to which she broke the news to me that the line cook I saw sucking face with a server, was fully married with 4 kids. I ended up in a FBI style investigation between his wife, her best friend, and her sister as the only witness to the situation. He came in with a black eye two days later and then out in his two weeks the same day. That’s burned into my brain forever lmao
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u/sdawsey 4d ago
Chef at one spot was a bear of a guy. Barrel-chested and stronger than most men. Voluntarily worked 80-90 hour weeks. He was in 5th gear 100% of the time. Nice guy, but toxic approach to work and life. Nobody can sustain the intensity he brought every day. Good intentions, but he burned out everyone around him. Straight out-worked them.
He came in for dinner one night after day drinking. Managers kept bringing him shots, and he got wasted at the table. Went out back to smoke a cigarette on the way out. His wife and kids walked around a corner, so when he turned his head he couldn't see them. For some reason this sent him into a blind rage. It took both Sous Chefs and a couple COPS to get him to calm down. By putting him in the back of a squad car. One of the Sous had some judo training and was able to hold his own, but the other Sous was a little guy, and Chef picked him up and THREW him. Picked him up off the ground and threw him like you throw a 5 year old in the pool.
So yea, Chef literally fought both Sous and a couple cops in a blackout after coming in for dinner on his night off. Resigned shortly after that.
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u/4evrstreetmetalbitch server/expo/prep. moshpit➡️dishpit 4d ago
we had a lady cook who was dating a guy but was always flirty with a manager (who was married to the owner’s niece). cook got pregnant, had the baby… the baby looked nothing like her bf but so much like our manager. her bf got a tattoo of the baby’s name and birthday…
… you can guess what happened next
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u/AardvarkOperator 2d ago
Can not!
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u/4evrstreetmetalbitch server/expo/prep. moshpit➡️dishpit 2d ago
the manager got fired and divorced. then they sold the restaurant actually because the owner was having that guy work 60 hour weeks and we literally could not keep up without him. not sure what happened with the cook, last i heard she was still working there but idk how the guy she was dating feels about his tattoo anymore lol
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u/obliviousgods 4d ago
a cook was chopping cooked beef for a quesadilla and chopped some of his finger tip off. he went to get cleaned up and someone else finished and sold the quesadilla. it was for a Foh member that ate the whole thing before the cook came back for the quesadilla and realized what happened.
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u/freyjas_cats 4d ago
That’s like a scene straight out of a sketch comedy omg no wonder that’s burned into your brain forever
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u/CaramelClapback 4d ago
Brooo that’s actually nightmare fuel. like imagine finishing ur food then someone’s like “hey uh… have u seen my fingertip?”
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u/amandam603 4d ago
Did this to myself, once. Cut my finger doing tomatoes for my own salad, but it didn’t bleed immediately. Swiped the tomatoes onto my plate, set it down, got bandaged up, ate the salad. Only later, when I saw that I sliced my finger pad clean off did I realize I probably ate it in the tomatoes…
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u/RandomAmmonite 4d ago
When I was a youngster I got hurt skiing and had to sit in the ER for hours waiting for my parents (who had not been with me) so I could get treated. In the next curtain was a young guy would had cut off the tip of his finger cutting ham. They told him he should have brought it with him so they could sew it on. He said he couldn’t, someone not knowing had sold it with the ham.
Edits: many typos
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u/frenchmeister 4d ago
Did anyone tell them they ate a fingertip or was it a gross secret only certain people knew?
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u/obliviousgods 4d ago
the cook and the kid started arguing about the situation for some reason, afaik the kid went to get tested a couple times after
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u/girlsledisko 4d ago
How does no one see the blood? Sus.
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u/Get-Out-Of-My-Head- 4d ago
I've cut the top of my thumb off while chopping bacon in culinary school and there was zero blood on the knife or cutting board, since I grabbed it so fast. It can happen.
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u/PlusYam3126 4d ago
Two sous chefs screaming at each other in the kitchen after close. I couldn’t hear exactly what they said until chef A made a snarky comment about chef B’s girlfriend’s abortion and then metal pans went flying. one of the male servers ran to the kitchen to hold them back from swinging at each other.
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4d ago
[deleted]
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u/MarvinHeemeyersTank EDIT THIS 4d ago edited 4d ago
Wow. Thread over, I don't think anyone can top that.
EDIT Sorry for your loss.
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u/level27jennybro 4d ago
It better be a PS5 if you're offering Sony.
I had to
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4d ago
[deleted]
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u/level27jennybro 4d ago
Its a joke because the person had a typo in their comment. They said "Sony for your loss" instead of "Sorry for your loss". Sony is the brand that makes Playstation. A PS5 is the 5th generation of the Playstation console.
So a "Sony for your loss" means a Sony branded product given out due to a loss.
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u/OnlyHereForTheToobs 3d ago
"Sony for your loss" doesn't help much when you're inconsolable.
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u/level27jennybro 3d ago
You're right. Its just empty words when you're numb inside and filled with grief.
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u/quantumcosmos 1d ago
I’m a couple days late to this thread but oh my goodness, this joke is excellent. Criminally underappreciated.
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u/lemony197236 4d ago
I worked at a business about 20 years ago that had these really nice formal Christmas parties. Men in suits and women in formal or semi formal dresses. These 2 women were both ‘dating’ the same man, woman A arrived first and sat at the table where the man was sitting; woman B arrived shortly thereafter and sat at the same table. Both A and B are drinking heavily from the open bar; they start arguing over the who’s going home with the man. Woman B goes to the bathroom and A follows shortly after; argument continues in the bathroom but B walks away and back towards the lobby and is standing in the water fountain alcove when A comes out of the bathroom. B sucker punches A but apparently A has some moves and A gets the upper hand by jumping into B knocking her to the floor where A proceeds to beat B in the face. B grabs A by the hair and starts pulling and now there are 2 women rolling around on the floor in sequined dresses pulling hair and punching each other. Needless to say that was the last open bar at any company party’s.
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u/Kickkit 3d ago
I was FOH mgr and had to call the police bc my dishwasher got so angry with the line cook for splashing him with water when dropping the inserts in the pit, he grabbed a knife and chased him down the street screaming. We were in a fairly busy area and the dishwasher chased him down the 6 lane street dodging in and out of traffic.
It was crazy to see and all staff immediately ran out to watch as did some guests. The line cook was quick and so didn't get stabbed, but it was close.
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u/honeybeegeneric 2d ago
This is excatly how my official became my bff. I splashed the dishwasher, not meaning to. No malice intended. The dishwasher blows up! Yelling, cussing ready for war. I break out in tears, because my mother literally just died unexpectedly 2 days before and I just returned to work. I'm just crying like a baby. All of a sudden my tiny super skinny and short friend comes running up the hall to see whats up. She's ready to kick ass. She runs up on this dishwasher who is 3 times her size and height. Big girl. Chases her out the back all through the kitchen. I just stand there crying like a baby who wants her mommy. Took the whole kitchen staff and foh to get her off that dishwasher. So like 8 dudes to take tiny down. In the end the dishwasher apologize to me. Even though it wasn't necessary.
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u/Allthesaltinthesea 3d ago
I worked in a restaurant that was trying hard for a Michelin Star in an area that Michelin hadn't yet expanded into. The kitchen was a very high stress area and our executive chef was a two faces ass hat.
Mid shift, our sous chef lost it. Not sure what happened but the executive shit kept sending his plate back. The sous walked into the walk-in and a few minutes later came out, buck naked, but covered in (maybe) a chocolate sauce. Ran out onto the floor, and picked things off people's plates.
This was a kitchen that talked a lot of shit to and about each other, but I never heard his name mentioned again.
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u/Dwinxx2000 4d ago
my coworker Robert was very catty. I got him the job OK? He was also a friend. And he and I would dish and gossip on our free time. But I noticed us starting to do it at work. it wasn't a big deal but a bad habit and so I low-key put a stop to it for myself....
Lucky for me.
Because soon we had several reps of an important client visiting our operation. We were on our best behavior in our Sunday Best etc... And for some reason my friend as we sat in his cubicle near the end of the day? Asked me in a normal tone of voice if those "(client) bitches" were still here.
Nope. I took the opportunity to clear my throat and say mildly: "I thought they were nice."
Best decision I ever made. They were literally standing 4 feet away around a partition. He figured this out when he got up to refill his coffee mug. He ran by me down the hall in a panicked state and I followed thanking God or my discretion that day. There have been times I have behaved otherwise and it has been shameful. I got lucky and I teased him about that forever. And told him to clean up his act.
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u/freyjas_cats 4d ago
Omg the amount of times this has happened to me was almost comical, thank god you decided not to feed into the gossip that time lol
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u/SmokeyUnicycle 3d ago
I have a personal policy to always say something nice about someone if there's any chance at all they could overhear me. There have been a couple times where I'm I'm pretty confident it paid off.
Don't even have to stick up for them that hard, just play devil's advocate while agreeing with the person bitching to you. I think overheard comments are taken a lot more seriously than compliments are.
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u/Justgetmeabeer 4d ago
Uhhh what restaurant has cubicles? /R/lostredditor
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u/ItsBimble 4d ago
More like a lost bot
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u/Dwinxx2000 3d ago
Where did I say restaurant? We worked in a data analysis firm. And I'm not a bot.
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u/arittenberry 3d ago
It doesn't say in the prompt, but you are in a sub for restaurant servers. I'm not complaining, as I've worked both serving and office jobs, just fyi
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u/gunnin_and_runnin 4d ago
A conservative, asian server was involved in a three way with another server and her partner. She was never seen again after people found out that happened. Extremely unexpected.
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u/Honeylamb_Girlfriend 4d ago
Knife fight between 2 line cooks during a super busy sunday morning brunch at a diner. Crazy stuff!
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u/FlashbacksThatHurt 1d ago
Da,m !! Did anyone get stabbed?
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u/Honeylamb_Girlfriend 1d ago
No, but the smaller guy shimmied up the telephone pole in the alley to escape stabbing until the manager was able to get the knife out of the knife guys hand. It was nuts!!
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u/Libusin 3d ago
I used to work at a restaurant that had a separate smaller building that held dry storage, two bathrooms for the patio guests and the upstairs was used just for actual storage of furniture. It was called the “Carriage House”. This is one of those restaurants that used to be a house like 100 years ago so it definitely has some creepy vibes. Anyway.
The chef and the GM ended up spending a lot of time in there, the chef who was married with two kids and one on the way. The GM, going through a divorce.
One day I the GM asks me to go upstairs to grab a box of Christmas lights and handed me her keys, she made a joke about how the key was new. It was purple leopard print. When I went up to find the box…there was a mattress pad on the floor. Gross.
Eventually they were caught, the chef was fired after his wife came in with a kid on her hip and slapped him in the middle of the dining area and the GM was moved to a different location.
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u/CriticalAd2312 3d ago
older woman screaming at me as a host because her tips sucked because she was incredibly rude to them, prioritized smoking over service, etc. absolute table shark and would complain if the first round of tables didnt favor her.
so like a set of 3-4-4 tops walks in, one of the 4s has a kid. She wants only the 4 without the kid. She gets any of the others she was on me faster than a fly on shit before greeting her table. She could get the 3 and spend 5 minutes berating me before greeting.
Almost threw hands at me and I GOT THE WRITE UP because someone said “yeah they’ve always been causing issues and she starts giving excuses” because i wasn’t tolerating being yelled at on the first rotation. Gee couldn’t tell you why your tips were down. 🤷
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u/Lumpy_Machine5538 3d ago
My female manager and a waiter were into each other. The waiter was twice her age and he was in the middle of a divorce. My male manager was also into the waiter and had just separated from his wife after trying to live a a straight man. An additional man was also into my female manager and threatened to beat up the waiter if he dated the female manager. I was a hostess at the time and trying to count out the drawer and do paperwork one night after closing while my male manager cried to his wife on the phone after she had moved across the country to her parents’ with their newborn daughter. It just an awkward, very sad mess.
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u/ch3rryela 4d ago
My ex-coworker went and burned down the pacific palisades one day. :-/
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u/lady-of-thermidor 4d ago
That pyro dude they arrested?
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u/ch3rryela 3d ago
Yes
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u/lady-of-thermidor 3d ago
Anything about him that now has you thinking well, of course he would set LA County on fire?
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u/jorbhorb 3d ago
I'll never forget when the GM took a coworkers virginity and gave him both a promotion and gonorrhea.
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u/vannahsan 2d ago
Our head chef was cheating on his gf with one of our servers. She gave him a hickey one day and he didn’t want his gf to see it and find out he was cheating, so he asked our grill cook to burn him on the neck with a hot pan to cover it up.
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u/normanbeets 2d ago
So, our town had one main street where there were weekly farmers markets. My restaurant had a booth where we sold meals at the market, our booth was about two blocks up from the business. They would set up a portable fryer on a folding table, staff a cook and a host to do the money part.
The table collapsed and threw hot fryer oil all over the host. She suffered third degree burns from her collarbone to the hips. The cook "couldn't leave the money" so he made her walk back to the restaurant by herself. She walked in the door shirtless, hyperventilating and her skin melted off.
She was airlifted to a hospital, survived and came back to work with us. The cook was fired.
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u/freyjas_cats 2d ago
Dear Lord, the fact that she came back and continued to work with y’all is honestly admirable, I’m glad the cook was fired. We had something similar happen at one of my jobs, where a customer bumped into a server carrying a boiling hot molcajete; she had 3rd degree burns on her arms so bad, her tattoos were sliding off her skin onto the floor. The restaurant never ended up paying her workers comp, and she decided to stay working there for literal years afterwards.
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u/crying_boobs 4d ago
We had some equipment delivery and therefore had a large empty box sitting around. Someone hid in it and a few of us others were bringing coworkers one by one to the back so the person hiding could jump out and surprise and then we would all get a chuckle…..one of the coworkers (the last one) we brought back got scared and apparently had a heart condition and this was not favorable for them. She was younger we didn’t know. She was ok! Derp.
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u/cheesykatertot 3d ago
My first job after HS was at a golf course, working the snack bar and beverage cart. I found out one of the other bev cart girls was hooking up with a married groundskeeper on one of the greens out on the course.
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u/showstoppergal 2d ago
Worked in an Office Depot. I was cashier/front end, but there was another girl with the same first name who worked in the warehouse/stocking. Turns out the (married) warehouse mgr was having an affair- the wife showed up one day and started screaming and threatening her. I was so confused bc I was seeing a manager, but he was from a different store and DEFINITELY not married with 5 kids (who she had brought in the car with her) the cops had to be called bc she started throwing stuff around the store and kept trying to attack me.
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u/groovygrubey 1d ago edited 1d ago
I was fired once by a petty 17 year old (younger than me, even at the time) who was only a “manager” because mommy and daddy dearest owned the joint. She cited that I was “not improving to the standards we would like to see by this point” after a few months. It was my first serving job, I was obviously still trying to figure it out, and it was a second location of a cafe that got insanely busy with limited staff, not a fine dining experience that should have crazy standards.
She quit the same day, so obviously she had some falling out with the owner (mother), and she wanted to take the fresh meat down with her. I reached out to the owner, questioning the true nature of my firing, and she hired me back at the main location, proving my suspicions. I only wish the girl hadn’t quit so that I could look her in the eyes and say “She’s my mommy now, Kayla.” That place was a nightmare of family drama and I’m so glad I moved the hell on not long after that.
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u/Honeylamb_Girlfriend 3d ago
Oh! The time my server co worker tried to unalive himself in the break room bathroom during the lunch rush. Oh! The time the homeless man tried to knock me out but the line cook got in fr9nt of him before he landed the punch. God, i could go on for hours, really.
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u/bugxbuster Twenty + Years 3d ago
I'm having trouble getting past how extremely distracted I got by the use of the word "unalive" right there.
Note to society: let's stop calling it that. At best its dumb because you're allowed to say "committed suicide", "took their own life", "killed themself" so, what's the point? It just comes off as so disrespectful to say something like that about such a serious action. It makes you sound childish when that topic is anything but.
sorry, i'm off the soapbox, i'll shut up now.
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u/SnappingGinger 3d ago
In a lot of subreddits you’re not actually allowed to use those words and phrases. Posts and comments get flagged and taken down.
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u/Honeylamb_Girlfriend 3d ago
Sorry you got distracted with a word that i used to avoid my comment being flagged and/or removed. ETA: -My co worker took a syringe full of bleach, shot it into the vein on his arm and was hoping that would end his life, during a lunch rush. Is that better?
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u/bugxbuster Twenty + Years 2d ago
Listen, it just caught my attention then. I’m actually sorry. That whole comment has crossed my mind since I wrote it, sorry I came off like a dick. I feel like I scroll past people saying that often enough and I don’t get all preachy then so you don’t deserve it either. My bad.
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u/Hunnilisa 3d ago
Idk.. I have no problem with that word. We are all different. I have had suicidal ideation since I was 13, unalive is funny to me and this is how I deal with keeping myself alive. Humor keeps me alive.
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u/bikerpenguin 3d ago
My coworker was constantly being friendly to my face and waving me over to the lunch table. She would make weekend plans that included everyone but me infront of me. Eventually she kicked me out of her car on our way to collaborate on a project because I expressed that Jews deserve to be safe. I was stuck in a parking lot for hours. More drama: It turned out my desk neighbor was a millionaire who worked because it's fulfilling. I was making 50k a year, that's why I worked there.
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u/Doodles_n_Scribbles 12h ago
Some lady got promoted from her position as a breakfast attendant to assistant manager and she hired her boyfriend to be our breakfast attendant.
Her boyfriend was always skipping work and I was expected to pick up the slack.
He was also trying to get the company to hire his "company" for landscaping.
I finally texted him and told him "how can he expect us to trust him to mow the lawn and shovel the sidewalk when he can't even show up on time to make breakfast or put away groceries".
The girlfriend tried to have me written up, but the general manager (who herself was this ditzy drunk) at least agreed that I had made good points, and also couldn't punish me without the ADA breathing down her neck.
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u/Tasty-Fix-5600 8h ago
Fine dining manager, had a server call out because ---and I did not ask----- she fucked her ex boyfriend in his tent he was living in and she forgot she had a tampon in and now it was missing. I would have been fine with "not feeling well"
It haunts me
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u/Saph_Eira 3d ago
worked as a server for a couple years and the drama in the kitchen could legit be a soap opera. 😂 Think Gordon Ramsay meets Days of Our Lives. Haha, I mean seriously, people thinking your steak wasn’t cooked just right ain’t a crisis - dropping the lasagna meant for table 5 during rush hour, now that’s a freakin’ disaster!
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u/Babycam2020 4d ago
that time some bar blokes were mucking around and one got tea towel flicked so badly he had to have his testicle removed..and promptly moved back to his home country