Server waits on table of what he assumes is a regular family. He had no idea how very wrong he was until he took a closer look: ‘I was mortified’

Waiting tables is not for the faint of heart. An undoubtedly vital backbone of our restaurant-going culture, servers work long hours, often for not much pay. And sometimes, unexpected hurdles arise on the job.

From significant others projecting on them to dealing with tipping nightmares, servers have to navigate a veritable minefield in their line of work. And one server in particular is going viral for encountering a new, unforeseen problem.

What happened with this server?

Actor and server Jayden Benejam (@.jayden____) shared his particularly kooky serving experience in a video first posted on Mar. 22. It has since accumulated over 670,000 views. In it, Benejam conveys his absolute mortification at the experience he had.

“I would rather eat 897 Popeyes biscuits dry, no bev, than relive this interaction that I had at work,” Benejam begins in his video. “This is one of those stories that is just so embarrassing and it comes up and resurfaces in my brain every few months or so, and is so embarrassing that I actually want to just implode, crawl in a dark hole, and die.”

What could possibly result in so much deathly humiliation, you ask? Well, a bit of a gender mix-up. Buckle in for “the story of how [Benejam] confused, somehow, a middle-aged masc lesbian for a 13-year-old boy.”

It all started during one of the first shifts Benejam ever worked in his “first ever serving job.” Benejam was prepared to serve what he thought was a nuclear family of six.

“In my mind I see a little girl, a 13-year-old-boy, two parents, and I don’t know who the [expletive] else,” Benejam says. “But I’m assuming it’s a family. They look similar, they were all up on each other. Little did I know, when they’re all up in on each other, it’s cause they’re dating and they’re not family.”

‘I just keep digging the hole deeper and deeper’

Benejam proceeds to call the apparent teenage boy “big guy.” He doesn’t think anything of it, and then in a later interaction proceeds to call this customer “buddy.”

“It’s not only that I say buddy,” Benejam says. “It’s the tone in the voice that I’m speaking to you.”

He continues, “It’s very much like I’m 18 years old and I’m talking to a 13-year-old.”

He also, as if that wasn’t bad enough, doubled down in the worst way.

“At some point, not only did I confuse a middle-aged lesbian for a 13-year-old-boy, I confuse this woman’s girlfriend for her mother,” Benejam reveals. “I just keep digging the hole deeper and deeper. And they’re not correcting me.”

@.jayden____ unfortunately this one is not ai generated LMAOO #fyp #embarrassing #serverstories #storytime #chud ♬ original sound – jayden

But then, he realizes that as he’s walking away, the table of customers is howling with laughter. And he notices another server calling the teenage boy “ma’am.” Thankfully, the customers were “really nice about it,” and Benejam makes sure to make amends.

“At some point, I just go up to the table,” Benejam says. “I was just like, ‘I’m so sorry. I put a 50% discount on…my employee discount. I’m so sorry.’ I was mortified … Every once in a while, I get a memory of this and it just haunts me. It haunts me.”

In an email to The Mary Sue, Benejam says he ultimately hopes the whole snafu is nothing but funny for everyone involved.

“This definitely wasn’t my finest moment, but I think being able to laugh at myself has been nice since posting the story,” Benejam writes. “The thought of them probably talking about this for a long time does haunt me every now and then but I hope it’s something they laugh it and am very sorry if it’s not.”

What are ‘masc lesbians’?: How to avoid a similar mistake

While Benejam’s experience makes for a deeply entertaining story for the rest of us, there’s a strong chance you might want to avoid repeating his mix-up. One surefire way of doing that is ensuring you don’t get someone’s gender wrong. So what is a masc lesbian, anyway?

According to LGBT nonprofit It Gets Better, the word “masc” (or, alternatively, “butch”) refers to “someone whose gender expression is masculine.” So, simply put, a lesbian woman who physically presents herself—via hair, clothes, etc.—as more aesthetically “masculine” is a masc lesbian.

However, just because someone looks this way doesn’t mean they’re necessarily a masc lesbian. They might have a different sexuality, might identify as nonbinary, or might simply be a straight, cisgender person who likes how they look in this kind of style! The number one way to avoid mistaking your customer for a different identity is by simply avoiding gendered language altogether; avoid “guy,” “ma’am,” and any other words that could get you into a linguistic quagmire.

Ultimately, treat your customers with respect, own up to any mistakes, and you’ll likely end up the way Benejam’s situation did—with laughs all around.

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