Oh, as for slowing down the line, no not really. We just hold up the rest of that particular tables food. Have you ever dined with someone and they complain that their food is cold? That's probably because their med-rare hamburger was sitting in the window for 20 minutes waiting on your steak to finish. (Don't mean to sound antagonizing, it's your steak and you're paying for it, eat it how you wish. I'm just sayin what the cost is.)

Granted, some of that is the fault of the cook. We should be timing things much better. But the nature of the beast is that most ticket times work well together, but a med-well to well steak will take much longer than anything else to cook, and the other stations want to get your tables food tickets done with. So they throw up the table's food, laugh about it dying while waiting on a well-done steak, and then we'll just comp a free dessert when your table complains about cold food.

We get offended about a well done steak, because we take it as the the guest saying they don't trust us to handle or cook their food properly. It says that they don't trust us to order quality food, store it properly, and cook it to perfection in a safe manner. A well done steak/burger is a slap in the face to the entire crew in the restaurant. From the purchasing manager, all the way down to the grill cook and expo. We spend our entire career making sure our food is the best and safest it can be, and a well done steak is just a giant "fuck you!" to all that.

Hopefully I've explained the hate a bit better. It's never anything personal, but we are a pretty onry bunch that gets offended easily.