Customer Service shouldn't be so awkward!

     How were your last couple experiences with customer service?? I'll tell you about my last two, and I'm going to be honest, they were awkward.
     So I'm going to go back to my birthday weekend for the first instance of awkward customer service. It was March 12, 2011. Margo and I were meeting Dennis and Emily at Clyde's in Chinatown. I wanted a steak dinner and Dennis suggested Clyde's because it fit right in with my price range. We head upstairs for our reservation, get seated promptly, so far so good. Our waiter comes over and has a thick Brooklyn accent, that doesn't have anything to do with it, I'm just saying. So we order our drinks, we all get carded, no big deal. Well the Virginia license I recently got hadn't come in the mail yet, so I had my old PA one with "VOID" punched in it. It didn't expire till the next day but he wouldn't accept it because it said void. So I showed him my military ID which had expired in September 2010 and that was fine. Go figure. Anyway, we get our drinks and order our food and everything seems to be going fairly smooth.
     Well that didn't last long. First it was taking forever for our food to come out. Our waiter forgot we were his table. The food we ordered wasn't quite right for everyone. So we just laugh it off, it's not a big deal. We had our drinks and some good material to make jokes about. The manager, PJ, didn't feel the same way. So he came over to offer some apologies for the slow service and mix ups. So you'd think the manager of a nice restaurant in D.C. would have some kind of social skills. WRONG! This guy was as awkward as it could get. Long pauses between words, weird eye contact, I think he ate one or two of his own sentences. It was strange. So we brush it off, and order a nice bottle of wine. That turned out to be a mistake. It took 20 minutes for them to come over and say they didn't have that wine anymore. Here comes PJ, he'll take care of it. So he comes up to the table, pauses a second or two too long, and then waves his hand in a windshield wiper type move and says "I'm back!" . . . . . "So we don't have that wine in stock and we're going to give one of our nicer bottles on the house." Thanks for getting that out PJ, we appreciate it. "He's still here, what is he doing?" I whisper to Margo. After a longer then comfortable pause again, he continues. "I just grabbed the nicest bottle I could find back there, I'm so mad right now" as he shakes his fist. Yes, he actually shook his fist as if he were in a badly scripted soap opera. I guess I can just say soap opera. Anyway, you'd think after that he would tell us to enjoy the rest of our meal and wine and walk away. If that were the case I guess I wouldn't be writing about it. He stood there for a few more awkward seconds in silence and then walked away. So I wonder how he got this job? Is Clyde his father? That's the only explanation. Again, no big deal, we take the free bottle of wine and continue to enjoy ourselves. Uh oh, here comes PJ. He walks up to the table again to apologize for everything and explain all the items they were taking off our bill. While he is explaining why we are getting stuff for free, we all kind of chuckle a bit at the situation. "No, it's not funny" he says while staring at the light fixture on the wall above our table. How awkward is it when you are laughing at something and someone says in a very serious tone that it's not funny? It makes you a little uncomfortable right? That was the cherry on top of our Awkward pie. When it was all said and done we got like $100 of free food and drinks. Happy Birthday to me! So I'm thinking, this has to be a one time deal. There can't be more than one establishment that would hire such social rejects. WRONG!
     Fast forward to this weekend. I was in NYC on a social visit. I don't know if you've been to NYC before, but brunch is a big thing up there. So, when in Rome right? So we head out to find a good brunch spot. There is only one stipulation for the place we choose. They must have oatmeal. I was with Margo and Kristina and Kristina only wanted oatmeal in case you were wondering where that stipulation came from. So we walk a couple blocks downtown from Hell's Kitchen checking out joints along the way. We come across one place that seems to have a pretty good deal. The busboy enjoying a cigarette outside tells us how good it is and convinces us to try it out. They had an all you can drink Mimosas and Bloody Mary's special with brunch which is a good selling point. We noticed there was no Oatmeal on the menu, but the gentleman assured us they had some. While we're checking out the menu a couple walks by and is intrigued by the all you can drink special. As the wife comes over and scans the choices she notices one of the selections is "tasted bagel" I didn't spell it wrong, that was on the menu. So she makes a joke about a bagel with a bite out of it being the tasted bagel. Everyone gets a good laugh out of it. It must be some type of foreign bagel or something, they wouldn't have a typo on their menu right? Wow, wrong again. Guess what kind of pancakes they had. If you guessed Bluebarry, you win! Yep, you read it right BlueBARRY. Weird right? So anyway, that's all before we even get in this place. As far as the typos go, that's another post for another time.
     We get in and are greeted by the bartender who signals for the hostess to seat us. Here comes a young looking fellow with water. He looks like he probably plays Dungeons and Dragons between his Harry Potter marathons. So now that you have a visual, lets get into how creepy his service is. It's the same story as above. Long pauses, weird eye contact, he didn't eat any sentences he would just kind of stop them mid-way through and walk away. He brings over the napkins and it takes like 20 seconds to say "Sorry they weren't out already." All while just kinda standing and staring into space. This continues throughout the meal. Every time he comes over and leaves we all had something else to laugh about. It was almost like it was his first day. Not his first day on the job, his first day talking to other people. What kind of interview process did he go through? It must have been all online. They didn't have oatmeal by the way. That doesn't really have an awkward story to go with it. It was just FYI. So how do these people get jobs in customer service when they have such a hard time in social situations? It doesn't make any sense to me. If your job is to communicate with people and make them feel comfortable in your establishment, I'd figure you can at least talk to someone in a normal fashion. If it were up to me, these guys would be fired on the spot! Judging by their past performance in a public speaking environment, I'd be half-way through the Hand-job before they even mentioned they required a Ham Sandwich in return. And that's just not fair!
     On a side note, I asked the waitress about the Bluebarry pancakes. I was thinking maybe it was on purpose and there was some special type of berry I didn't know about. "Oh, we employ a lot of Eastern European people here, so they can't spell that well." REALLY?? That's the excuse? Unreal. Like I said before, that subject is for another post.
     So do you have any awkward customer service stories? Sorry this went a little long. I'm on a 4 and 1/2 hour bus ride and just felt like getting all the details in there.