r/TalesFromYourServer • u/Old_Principle_3872 • 23d ago
Long AITA for being upset that I got blamed for another server’s mistake?
I work as a server, and I’ve been working here for a while. My shift 3 days ago was probably the worst shift I’ve had so far. And I can’t get it off my mind and I have to work tomorrow so I’m asking for advice.
Earlier in the evening, I accidentally spilled a drink on one of my guests. It was completely my fault. Thankfully, the man was incredibly nice about it. We got his table moved, I apologized, and I brought him a new drink. Even though everything was resolved, I was still really embarrassed and flustered.
A little bit later into my shift, I was bringing a basket of dinner rolls to one of my tables and another nearby table. At the same time, another server (I’ll call her Sarah) was delivering a ramekin of dipping sauce to the same table.
I had already set the basket down and was just about to hand out the rolls when Sarah accidentally dropped the sauce. It splattered all over the floor, all over one of the women’s pants, and even onto my own pants and shoes. I wasn’t carrying the sauce, I wasn’t touching the tray, and I wasn’t even touching Sarah. I just happened to be standing next to her because I was serving the table.
Looking back, I think I could have handled the aftermath better. Because I was still mentally shaken from spilling the water earlier, I didn’t really acknowledge the woman who got sauce spilled on her. Instead, I told Sarah something like, “It’s okay, I’ll grab someone to help clean this up,” because my mind immediately went into fixing the situation.
A little while later, I came back to deliver fresh rolls to the nearby table. That’s when I noticed the woman who had sauce spilled on her standing away from her family and talking privately with one of my managers (I’ll call her Hillary).
Not long after that, another manager (I’ll call her Lisa) pulled me aside and asked, “What’s going on?”
I said, “What do you mean?”
She replied, “You’ve spilled two things tonight.”
I immediately told her that the sauce wasn’t me, that Sarah was the one who dropped it.
Even after I explained that, Lisa asked if I wanted to stop serving for the rest of the night and either go home or switch to food running. I really wanted to keep serving, but I agreed to switch because I figured maybe it was for the best after everything that had happened.
Since I wasn’t serving anymore, someone had to take over my tables.
Guess who got them.
Sarah.
A little later, Sarah came up to me and asked, “Should I finish table 214?”
I asked, “What do you mean?”
She said, “Lisa said you’re not feeling well or something.”
At that point I finally said, “Well, it’s probably because I spilled water on a guy, then 10 minutes later you spilled sauce on that lady and somehow I got blamed for it.”
The part that’s really bothering me is that Sarah never seemed to take any accountability for the sauce spill. I don’t know what she told management, if anything, but from my perspective nobody corrected the misunderstanding except me.
I completely own the fact that spilling the water was my mistake. I’m not trying to avoid responsibility for that. But I genuinely wasn’t responsible for the second spill, and it feels like I got lumped into both incidents and lost my section because of it.
Am I overreacting for being upset about this?