If you’ve ever worked in a restaurant, you’ll know that customer service can be a rollercoaster. One moment, someone’s thanking you for the best meal of their life; the next, you’re being asked to “turn down the music a little, but only the chorus.” For one former waitress in the US, the experience was memorable enough to inspire a viral TikTok confession—a three-minute rundown of the most bizarre, infuriating and downright hilarious requests she ever received while working at a popular steakhouse chain.
After years of juggling trays, smiles and impossible demands, she finally decided to lift the lid on the realities of restaurant life. Her honesty struck a chord with viewers around the world, especially anyone who’s ever had to fake a smile while being told how to do their job.
“Can you change the air conditioning?”
The waitress, known online by her TikTok handle @flabigailfartin, didn’t hold back. In her video, she rattled off a list of unreasonable (and occasionally revolting) customer requests that she’d heard far too many times.
“People used to ask me to adjust the air conditioning, the heating, even the volume of the music,” she explained. “As if I carried a remote control in my apron!”
Then there were the home-made drink enthusiasts: “Customers would ask for extra lemon and packets of sweetener so they could make their own DIY lemonade. Disgusting,” she added, pulling a face that said it all.
But that was only the beginning.
The strange, the petty, and the downright rude
Her list of complaints went on, touching on everything from strange beverage habits to unsolicited flirtation. “People would be weirdly specific about how much ice they wanted,” she said. “Half a glass, three cubes, crushed but not too crushed… I don’t care!”
Then came the steak preferences. “You’re an adult—why look disgusted when I ask if you’d like mushrooms or onions on your steak?” she joked. “It’s not a trick question!”
Some customers, she recalled, seemed to live in an alternate reality altogether. “We haven’t served coleslaw in three years, yet someone argued with me about it because they swear they had it last time,” she laughed.
And of course, no restaurant story would be complete without the awkward flirt. “Being asked for my number or Snapchat right before leaving a tip—yeah, I remember you,” she said, rolling her eyes. “And I hate you.”
Childish orders and endless Coke refills
Perhaps the most eyebrow-raising examples involved adults trying to sneak into kids’ meal deals. “Ordering from the children’s menu when you’re clearly over 30, then asking for the free drink that comes with it—absolutely not,” she said. “Are you under 11? No? Then you’re paying full price.”
And then there was the eternal Coke dilemma: “Ordering both a water and a Coke, then asking for refills on the Coke all night while your water sits untouched. Classic move.”
By the end of her video, she could barely hide her exasperation. “And don’t even get me started on peanuts,” she added mysteriously. “That’s a ten-minute rant I’m not emotionally ready to have.”
A collective sigh from the internet
Her video quickly went viral, amassing thousands of comments from fellow servers, bartenders and fast-food workers who clearly felt her pain. “Every single thing she said—I’ve lived it,” one user wrote. Another commented, “Finally, someone said it! The service industry struggle is real.”
Psychologists say these kinds of viral confessions resonate because they expose a truth many recognise but rarely say aloud: that working with the public requires extraordinary patience and emotional control. A study by the American Psychological Association even found that service workers experience some of the highest levels of emotional burnout across professions.
Still, the former waitress’s tone wasn’t bitter—just refreshingly candid. Her message to the world was simple: be kind to the people bringing your food. Because behind every polite “No problem!” is a human being who’s probably just been asked to adjust the restaurant’s thermostat for the fifth time that day.
And really, is that too much to ask?
