Reflection: Interpersonal Communication Problem

Hello everybody! I would like to share with you a incident that happened to me when I was an intern at St. Regis Hotel.

During my time there I worked as a waiter in the Brasserie Les Saveurs (BLS), I was attached to a fellow intern there who started a week earlier than I did. I was to shadow him and learn as much as I could about what he does in 2 days. When I first joined the hotel, there were multiple other departments, including the restaurant, that was taking in interns as well. This included the kitchen staff, marketing team and also the events branch of the hotel.

BLS is a fine dining restaurant specialising in french cuisine. However, it is also the biggest restaurant in the hotel. Hence the hotel utilised the restaurant fully and used it to serve complimentary breakfast to all hotel guests. With a capacity of 88 seats and over 300 guests everyday, service within the restaurant can prove to be quite the challenge especially when there are only 5 service staff each day for breakfast. BLS also has a unique breakfast concept where we also have a menu for the guests for them to order any sort of drinks or food from the kitchen at no charge, this lead to multiple requests and really stretching out both the kitchen and restaurant's resources.

One day during a busy breakfast period, I was placed in charge of the back of the restaurant and filled the role of the runner. My task, besides stocking up on plates and drinks at the buffet line, was to collect food orders and hand them over to the kitchen, subsequently bringing prepared food to the table of hungry guests. But unfortunately that day, due to a lapse on the part of the purchasing department, we ran out of notepads which we used to write down notes or orders. Hence I had communicate food requests verbally to kitchen staff, which was mostly made up of interns such as myself.

As time passes after this request was communicated to the kitchen staff, the guest in question grew increasing impatient that his food was not arriving. He constantly checked with my colleague on the progress of the food preparation every few minutes, who checked with me and I had to liaise with the kitchen staff for any updates. Every time I checked the only answer I would receive is "it's coming wait awhile". Which I then relayed back to my colleague and then back to the guest. With the insurmountable task everyone has on their hands, it is not uncommon that specific tasks and requests slip their minds.

Inevitably, the guest was subsequently outraged that his food request never came. He made a massive complaint to the restaurant manager, who came to me to clarify the issue. When the manager and I went to the kitchen to clarify the issue, their response was "I don't remember it, I don't have the request". 

If you were in my position, what would you do?