Unpleasant dining experience

This was an unusual experience for me and I probably should have said something. I stopped in for a late lunch at a place called the Jersey Diner in Stuart, Fl. The place was nearly deserted and I was looking forward to a reuben sandwich that I had before. The woman who was my waitress was also a manager or maybe even the owners wife. She was very pleasant to me but the entire time I was in the place she was loudly berating the staff both cooks and waitresses for their shortcomings in failing to do what was expected. She even went to the parking lot to look for a waitresses car who had apparently left without setting up her tables. After finding the waitress gone she loudly told another employee they would have to take up slack which resulted in a couple of Fu's and if you don't do what I tell you find another fn job. Even though the sandwich was pretty good I won't be going back. Pretty weird all in all and not how I want to spend my lunch break.

Audible F-bombs may be beyond the pale, but I often eat lunch quite late.  I'm an active investor so I often stay at home in front of my computer and CNBC until the New York markets close at 2 PM local time and then go to lunch.  That puts me in the restaurant at what is probably their slowest time--just in the middle of the period between lunch and dinner.  And I'm sometimes the only person there and even more often the only person sitting at the counter near the kitchen.  It's very common for the staff to be doing "house-keeping" business at this time, everything from making future work schedules to putting up holiday decorations (or taking them down).   Very often there are discussions not meant for a patron's ears but I just ignore it all.  Today, for example, 2 waitresses were discussing their dislike for a waitress in the place's other location (where one of the 2 had apparently been working).  I just stuck my nose deeper in my copy of the Wall Street Journal which I usually read over lunch.

While I applaud your "understanding" of down time in a restaurant,BT, whether one customer or 100 customers are in an establishment, decorum is important. Jersey Diner lost a customer, and in this economy that is not good. As a restaurant supervisor, I have let a couple of questionable things slip out in our slow period, but my employees know to remain as professional as possible at all times.

This should not happen in front of a customer!!!!!