If you've ever worked in the dining industry, you know well that customers can be a mixed bag. Everything from being interrupted during your intro ("Hi, how are yo-" "Breadsticks, now.") to snapping fingers to get your attention are all-time classics. And while there are some exceptions - kind, easy to serve customers that leave a generous tip - dining clientele has been behaving reportedly more and more obnoxiously towards servers as the years go by.

At one point, in 2021, one restaurant in Massachusetts felt obliged to close for a 'Day of Kindness' after customers' rude behavior made the staff cry. "People are always rude to restaurant workers, but this far exceeds anything I’ve seen in my 20 years,” said the head chef and co-owner of the place in one interview.

You may think that voluntary isolation, heightened anxiety and life-altering changes of the last few years are to blame. And to some extent, you are not wrong. "We’re going through a time where physiologically, people’s threat system is at a heightened level,” Bernard Golden, a psychologist and the author of 'Overcoming Destructive Anger', explained to TIME. Even science supports this.

But this was a prevalent issue even before the pandemic. As a survey done by Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association employee union reported back in 2018, 87% of fast food staff (in Australia) had experienced some form of abuse from their customers. This includes everything from snide comments and insults to yelling and screaming.

"It’s very easy to blame the pandemic for a multitude of bad behavior, but it’s not an excuse," Diane Gottsman, a national etiquette expert and the owner of The Protocol School of Texas, told Bored Panda in an email. "Bad manners at a restaurant generally means their behavior is consistent in other areas as well."

Another valid explanation for customers' outright awful behavior at dining establishments can be explained by power dynamics. While some customers may feel entitled to mistreat restaurant staff because of low wages, this is not a valid excuse, regardless of how much they are paid.

“Waiters may be thought of as taking a subservient role and where clientele may have power over them,” Daniel Redhead, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, explained to Guardian once, adding that extreme wealth, fame and influential, high-powered jobs are the usual factors for these troubling power dynamics at play. Which brings to mind the story of chef Lee Skeet, who called out and banned obnoxious customers for harassing one of his waiters.

Interestingly enough, there now exist places where the tables are turned and customers get to experience what it's like to be on the receiving end of the stick. "I went to the new Karen’s Diner and I've never been verbally abused so much while eating a burger," one attention-grabbing headline reads. Sure, this may seem counterintuitive, even outright disrespectful. But for some establishments, like 'Wiener's Circle' in Chicago, it's all part of the experience.

Reportedly, you may likely be served a middle finger as a side-dish with your fries. Or get napkins thrown at your face. Just imagine what it would be like to bring your parents to one of these places without proper forewarning...

But what does it say about us or about the times we live in? For one, there's a case to be made that we, as humans, became progressively more tolerant towards rudeness and disrespect (in which case most people who work in the customer service industry must be immune to it).

However, Matt Johnson, a consumer neuroscientist, founder of the human nature blog, and author of "Branding That Means Business", has another theory. "The purposefully obnoxious diners may fill an interesting need: it provides people with a clear set of norms for how to treat staff, which they in turn have ostensibly agreed to," he told Bored Panda via email.

Of course, being the butt of a joke is not everyone's idea of a great time. But for someone who's just coming out of the pandemic with rusty social skills and an appetite for something different, Johnson thinks, "this kind of environment may be especially appealing."

While we're still here, talking about purposefully awful places where you should most definitely not spend your first date: why do we tend to go back to establishments that don't meet our expectations? Think of your favorite pizzeria where the service is just genuinely terrible. McDonald’s (the official second-worst place for a first date) and its painstakingly slow service. Why do you keep going back despite there the clear evidence that it, well, sucks? Matt believes this is the fault of a psychological phenomenon known as the prediction error.

"Prediction error is the difference between what we expect to happen and what actually happens," explained Johnson. "For example, imagine going to a restaurant expecting it to be so-so. But when you get there, the food is amazing, the waitstaff is friendly, and it’s an overall fantastic experience. This is a large, positive prediction error."

In other words, the more you are far off from your expectations, the more you'll seek to repeat that experience. It's also why personalized or attentive service can help make up for a subpar meal and vice versa. Just like a nice, generous tip can soften the blow of obnoxious customers.