The water jug purloiner

At my restaurant we only have five jugs. This is to service an enormous restaurant and it's probably so the restaurant earns more money so people don't quench their thirst by drinking too much water.

Chirpy tables always come in, who promise to be lovely and always end by saying: "And we'll just have a jug of water."

Now comes the awkward moment. "We don't do jugs, but I can bring you over some glasses of water?"

Their smiles always falter: I've given them crucial, heart-wrenching disappointment. They were going to be my friends and leave me twenty pound tips. Now I'll get £2 at most.

But do you know what the real pain in the arse is? If I have a table of six then I'll have to locate six glasses from somewhere. My restaurant has an issue with glasses. We have a colossal shortage. They are the most broken things in the whole place and there are never any free. I run to the shelves. None. I run to the back. The timer on teh glass washer is counting down. 2.59. 2.58. 2.57. Argh. I jog to the bar, the last resort for any waiters.The men behind the bar never, ever give us any of their glasses. They guard them territorially.

"Go get some from the back" they snarl at us.

"But there aren't any, I just checked." I really did just check. And now my table are still sitting, waiting for water.

George walks up to me. "Your table just asked me for water."

"I know, I know." Meanwhile, three other tables have been seated and are waiting to be handed menus.

"Please, give me a glass."

"I can't."

Argh.

I run to give my other tables menus.

"Excuse me, do you have our water?" I am captured by my water requesting table en route to resuming the hunt for vesicles. I muster up a smile as sweet as Annie's and say, in a sickly, goopy sort of manner."I'm on the case Madam, I am on the case."

I walk off at a slight jog and find some misshapen wine glasses and a champagne flute. This will have to do.

I jog back, place them on the table and ignore the look of disappointment emanating from angry table no.1.

"I thought you said you didn't have any jugs?" The woman on the table looks at me sweetly and innocently.

"We only have 5 in the whole restaurant madame, and we only give them to tables of more than 8 people." This is absolutely true.

The woman on the table raises her eyebrows at her smarmy, suited boyfriend. I can see. I am not blind. You're pissing me off.

"Well, maybe you could leave it here."

Seriously, what is your problem? "My manager will tell me off."

Again, the eyebrow raise.

"Can we order?" Another table calls me. I turn to go. The woman from the water jug table calls me back. "We'd like to order now, we've been waiting a long time."

Die, bitch I think. But my sweetest smile resurfaces. And I relish the empty tip-tray after she and her horrific boyfriend have left. Fuckers.

Hi.

So there are lots of blogs out there that tell you all about American servers and how much their service jobs suck. But I've noticed fewer blogs out there about British servers, and let me be blunt, the only thing that gets me through my shitty waitressing job is browsing these blogs after shift and feeling better that somebody else is also suffering from customer stupidity.

I have a degree, I want to be a journalist and I'm about to start my Masters in Journalism in September. The only problem? It costs £10000. So I'm saving saving saving. And that means tips tips tips.

During the day I work an unpaid internship on a magazine, which I love. But this is about waitressing.

I work at an incredibly busy chain restaurant, described as London's flagship restaurant. It's manically busy, and often stuffed to the gills with tourists.

And most of them need to stay at home.