waiter's nightmare 

A bad dream experienced by persons who wait tables for a living. The details in the dream may vary, but the one constant of all waiters nightmares is a full station (assigned tables) of unhappy customers (or members if the establishment is a private club). A common WN is arriving late at work and finding your station already full to capacity. Another common one is not being able to get organized, and realizing you have forgotten to turn in an order to the kitchen for a table that has been waiting a long time. Coming out of the kitchen with a tray of entrees and dropping it on the floor is a favorite. One of the more disturbing waiters nightmares is having a large table of people, or maybe even more than one table in the party, and after waiting for what seems like hours for their food to come up, and it's like midnight and all other customers and wait staff are long gone, and you go into the kitchen to check on your food, and all the cooks have cleaned up the kitchen and left, and didn't make your table's food.

Anybody who has worked as a server is familiar with the waiter's nightmare

waiter's nightmare by Woody Thomas December 11, 2009