I used to work at a restaurant. One morning, between myself and my manager not communicating with each other as we should have, we messed up a customer's order. What happened was that I was supposed to bring everything to the tables myself, but my manager was in the kitchen when it came up and he took it to the wrong table, and the person at that table got two plates of food and ate them without a word. It was very odd.

Meanwhile the guy sitting on his own didn't get his order at all.

We closed down breakfast, and were not cooking any more breakfast, and I should have checked on him but I knew that the right number of plates had gone out. I messed up, for sure.

When he finally called me over, after sitting in silence for a long time, he was very very angry.

He was hungry; again, I don't blame him. But he didn't draw my attention to his problem, and he could have resolved it much quicker- for his own sake.

When I told him that breakfast was shut down and we cannot make him what he had ordered, but would give him lunch on the house, we were now serving lunch, anything he wanted, he spent the next hour yelling at me that he didn't have time to stay for lunch.

He would not let me help him. I tried to fix it, but he was adamant that I would not be able to resolve it. But he stayed to yell at me. Again, we messed up, but I was more interested now in trying my best to fix it- a gift certificate for a meal, anything- no.

He forced me, in the end, to say, "sir, if you won't let me help you, then I have to go about my work, I can't stand here and be shouted at. I made a mistake and I'm sorry, but if you won't allow me to make it better, then I have to move on. Good day to you."

I don't know what else I was supposed to have done, or how I could have handled it better once the mistake was made.