Two customers were rude to their waiter. So their boss made them pay the enormous bill.

The way you treat service workers says a lot about you as a person. Being a restaurant server is one of the hardest, most grueling jobs a person can have, and if you don't treat your waiter or waitress with respect and then tip them mightily at the end of your meal, you deserve what's coming to you.

One waiter recently shared a story on Reddit in which two customers who who were rude to him throughout the entire meal definitely didn't get off scot-free. It's a tale of sweet revenge. A story of justice finally being served. A legend with a perfect ending that most servers who deal with rude customers only dream about. This is the story of two jerks being left red in the face with a $3,000 bill as punishment for their disgusting behavior.

Reddit user and waiter Exs_in_Texas posted his story in the Malicious Compliance subreddit, and boy is it a good one. He explains that he used to wait tables at a fancy restaurant at which many people held their holiday and office parties. Everything — the menus, drinks, and tip — was pre-set, so it was pretty good money. "All of it was in the contract the host signed pre-event," he explained. "Usually the host would make themselves known fairly early on so you would know who to talk to if there was an issue and who to give the check to at the end of the night."

This is all very important set-up for what happened next. One night, he and another server were splitting a table of 30-40 people. That's a lot of people. A group of five to six people showed up a little early, two dudes and three or four women, and they were seated right away. The waiter explained that it was kind of nice when people trickled in slowly because they could get drink orders going right away.

"Me and my bro are going to start with a round of Johnnie Walker Blue, and these ladies are going to have (expensive red wine)," the first guy said to the waiter. Dudebro Two turned to the women and said, "Once you have Johnnie Blue, you just can't drink anything else. It changes you, bro." Yeah. Already these "chads," as the waiter called them, are terrible.

Of course, Johnnie Walker Blue and the expensive red wine were not on the pre-approved list of drinks for the events. The waiter politely offered to put these drinks on a separate tab, but the dudebros weren't having it. "This is our party, just get me what I ordered and don't question me again!" one of them said. "Who do you think you are? You're just some waiter, we have MBAs. Just get us our drinks!" the other jerk pontificated.

So, the waiter did what they asked and bro them Johnnie Walker Blue, which he explained is three or four times the price of the most expensive whiskey on the approved list. "One round of drinks for these people is over $100," he wrote. And somehow, it gets worse from there.

"The whole night goes exactly as we thought," he wrote. "Nothing was good enough, the appetizers were crap, the food was horrible, not enough bread, too many bread plates, drinks were taking too long, why do some people have food and others don't... To make it worse, chads and co are all over the place, moving seats and making others move so they can talk to who they want. This makes serving hell because we did everything by seat number." Ugh. Like he said, he and one other person were trying to serve 40 people. Of course some things would take longer than others.

The waiter did say that most of the people at the table were very normal, polite, and gracious to the servers. But one bad apple (or in this case, five or six jerk faces) can certainly ruin the bunch. It got to the point where "one older gentleman at the other end of the table...apologized for their behavior, saying, 'They might have fancy degrees and good jobs, but you can't teach class.'" Awesome.

After a very long, stressful night and nearly a full bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue, the older man at the end of the table asked for the check. A few minutes later, the man called the waiter over. He believed there might be a mistake since there aws "almost $600 for Johnnie Blue." Luckily, the waiter stood up for himself. "No mistake sir, that is what was ordered and drank."

The older gentleman, still being very nice, asked why the waiter gave these men the drinks when they weren't on the approved menu. "I apologize sir," the waiter said. "They told me that this was their party and since I was just a waiter to shut up and do as I was told. So I did. I'm sorry, I took them at their word." Heck yeah! We stan a waiter telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!

The older man called the two dudebros over, and "What follows was the singularly greatest a** chewing I have every been witness to. He goes on about how he was doing something nice but apparently that wasn't enough. About how horrible their behavior was that night and how [he] is ashamed for them. But my favorite line was how you see a person's true colors in how they treat people that work for them and they had shown theirs." 

It's so true. The first test, when you're out on a date, is always to notice how the person you're with treats the server or bartender. It says so much. 

The older man called the waiter over and addressed him directly: "Apparently I thought this was my party. Guess I was wrong. This is their party and they will be taking care of the check. Oh, and up the gratuity to 25 percent. You earned it." The check rang in at around $3,000. The waiter wrote that he had "never seen two grown men look so defeated."

Good! This was the only possible positive outcome of this terrible situation. I'm so glad the older man, who it turns out might have been the dudebros' father (it seemed like a family business), held these two men accountable for their horrible behavior. Servers are people who are probably working harder than you have ever worked (unless you've also been a server). Treat them with the respect and graciousness they deserve!

This article was originally published on August 7, 2020. It has since been updated.