Here’s the problem with making jokes about your customers in the point-of-sale system at a restaurant: you really should make sure that you erase those jokes before there’s any chance that your customer might see them. Better yet, maybe stick to making fun of customers the old-fashioned way. In the kitchen or the break room. Where they can’t hear you.

At a restaurant on Saturday in Arlington, VA, a party of diners and their server had a brief discussion about whether the rice should have been served family-style or in separate bowls for each person at the table. The interaction was sort of awkward, but ultimately not a big deal.

When they received their bill, there were two extra entries that were not food items: “im a plad asshole,” said one line. “i have a small penis,” said the other. Three members of the group did happen to be wearing plaid, but never mind that: those comments should have been deleted from the point of sale system.

At the time, the diner who shared the incident with the Washington Post said, the manager on duty didn’t seem especially sorry. “I would say they seemed slightly embarrassed,” he told the Post.

When a reporter called the restaurant the next day, they were more apologetic. It turns out that the same servers had been reprimanded for doing this exact thing before. While the manager hadn’t decided as of this afternoon whether they would be fired, he told the Post that they had been taken off top-earning weekend shifts.

While it might be an easy shorthand to identify customers by their disability, weight, or race: just don’t put in-jokes on customers’ tabs. Don’t.

Servers trash customers in private note on check — then forget to delete it [Washington Post] (Thanks, Lisa!)

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