Someone got himself in hot water. Another one found herself doused with hot water.
A mother surnamed Lin dined with her mother and 7-year-old daughter at Mr. Hot Pot, a restaurant in Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province on Aug. 24.
The dinner turned out to be a disaster for the 29-year-old Lin when a 17-year-old male waiter surnamed Zhu poured hot water on her and then physically assaulted her.
It all started with a typical customer complaint, according to China Daily.
While Zhu was attending to another table, Lin asked him for water for her pot. The young waiter told her if she could wait a little longer because he was busy with other diners.
Lin was “impatient” when she asked Zhu to hurry up.
When the waiter finally was able to comply with her request, instead of letting the incident pass without giving any comments, she told him that his service was bad and that he was slow.
Zhu said in response that Lin shouldn’t pick on him if ever she was in a “bad mood.”
Lin asked him to call the manager, a sign that she didn’t like the exchange of conversation, but even before the manager arrived, she went online and blogged about her complaint.
The manager reprimanded Zhu and asked him to talk to Lin.
The next round of conversation between the diner and the waiter turned out to be the worst, as Lin uttered a vulgar word that is insulting to mothers, which she herself is one.
The word struck a chord in Zhu, who happened to be a product of a broken family. He was only a toddler when his parents divorced and his father has since looked after him.
If actions speaks louder than words as the old adage goes, then Zhu made known his feelings by pouring hot water to Lin, pulling her down and kicking her.
Zhu’s emotional outburst took five-six persons to prevent him from further attacking Lin.
Everything was caught on the restaurant’s CCTV.
Diners have every right to complain, especially if they really find anything wrong with the food, with the ambiance, with the kind of service--with anything.
Service personnel are trained to deal with customers with utmost respect and to render quality service at all times.
There are incidents when a customer would treat a service crew shabbily without any fault on the part of the poor waiter/waitress; on the other hand, there are also instances when a waiter/waitress lacks the appropriate manners.
Despite where Zhu was coming from, his actions were not right; nonetheless, Lin could have chosen her words, and, given her age and status as a mother, could have acted more properly in the presence of her own mother and young daughter.
As they say, kindness begets kindness.
The same thing goes for respect.