10.29.07
Posted in Restaurant Etiquette 101 at 6:51 pm by Mina
Your parents taught you this. At least, they should have. It is a basic interacting-with-other-people skill, and it’s not very difficult. And it applies whether you’re talking to a friend or a random stranger who happens to be your waitress for the day. Nothing irritates me more than trying to begin an exchange with a new table only to discover that they do not possess basic conversational skills, like to listen when I’m asking them questions and not cut me off mid-sentence.
What does this mean to you, the customer? Well, it means let me finish introducing myself and asking if you’d like something to drink before you bark out an order. It means let me finish telling you all of the side choices before you pick one. It means let me finish asking if you’d like dessert or coffee before you tell me that you’re ready for the check.
In the same vein, be kind enough to pay attention and respond to me when I’m at the table. If I ask you if you’re ready to order, a yes or no answer is nice. If it’s no, SAY SO! Don’t leave me standing there while you puzzle for a few more minutes- I do have other things I need to do. If I come over to ask how the meal is and if you need anything, pause your conversation long enough to acknowledge that I’ve checked on you. If you’re really feeling generous you could say please and thank you, too. (Parents who make a big deal out of their kids saying please, by the way, almost never say it themselves, in my experience.) Simple courtesy: your waitress deserves it; she’s a people too.
Permalink
Posted in Fluffy Musings at 6:36 pm by Mina
…but if you’re a cook, it’s quite alright to take some fries right off a dish that’s already plated up for the customer, or heck, cook yourself a couple extra of whatever just got ordered. While you’re at it go ahead and scream at the waitstaff when you have to remake something because you fucked up, and oh yeah, have your shift meal for free, too. We’ll just charge the servers three or four times the food cost for their shift meals to make up for it.
I do not get why there is this pervasive double standard in restaurants. Every restaurant I’ve worked in, save one, allows the servers to be treated like shit by the kitchen staff. Aren’t we all here for the same reason? Don’t we all deserve to be treated with respect by our fellow workers? Shouldn’t doing the right thing for the customer be the priority of both the cooks and the servers, regardless of who made the mistake? And for heaven’s sake, if we can afford to feed the people we pay $10 an hour, why can’t we afford to feed the ones who are only getting $2.63?
I’m getting tired of working with people who will do things like be as stingy as possible with french fry portions for paying guests, but when called on their own fry-snacking habit will rationalize that it doesn’t matter because fries are so cheap. Thinking it’s time to find a new place of employment, I am.
Permalink
10.23.07
Posted in Politics at 1:09 pm by Mina
A rather well-known internet and action celebrity has just announced his support for GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. Now, while I wouldn’t dare argue with this particular guy (because he could kick my ass without even thinking about it, for one) I have the same trouble with Huckabee as I have with most of the other potential Republican nominees: namely, that they need to keep their fucking religion out of their politics. Okay, you live your faith. Fine. I respect that. But that gives you absolutely no right to mandate the beliefs of that faith into law. Why is this hard to understand? Okay, so you say Jesus doesn’t like gay people. Jesus doesn’t have a damn thing to do with whether or not our government should recognize a committment between two consenting adults. Seriously, this isn’t a difficult concept. L2separate church and state, nubs.
Permalink
10.22.07
Posted in World of Warcraft at 10:15 pm by Mina
Why, you ask? Well, because with about 30 minutes work I got my pretty little priesty one of these. Apparently, or so the forum kids tell me, this is an insult to people who spent weeks wiping on Maggie to get this, which is just a little bit better.
Know what I say to that? QQ, kids! Maybe someday you’ll grow up and learn that the fact that someone else has something doesn’t negate the fact that you have it too. Or, for that matter, that what someone else has isn’t really any of your damn business. But I’m not holding my breath.
Permalink
Posted in Fluffy Musings at 5:33 pm by Mina
After spending much of my day off reading stories over at waiterrant.net, I went into work today really determined to be a good waitress. I wasn’t gonna get pissed off at the people who couldn’t read; I was going to do my damnedest to be tolerant of the troublesome tables and maybe make their day a bit brighter; I was going to try actually selling things to my guests instead of apathetically taking whatever order they wanted to give. It was kind of like starting all over, being new at the job instead of a cynical veteran. And it was actually fun!
I sure did get tested. Three tables into my day people started breezing right past the hostess to seat themselves. I had to explain to a particularly crabby lady why we couldn’t put a highchair for her kid directly in front of the fire exit, and she went on to complain about the prices and the portion sizes and the fact that it didn’t look like the menu picture (you didn’t order an item on the menu, genuis) and be a general epitomized example of the table from hell. But I smiled, apologized, sent my manager over to make nice, and ended up getting one of the best tips of the day from that table. Strange.
One guy asked me to confirm to his daughter that most men don’t really care if you look like a super-skinny model; “Real women have some meat on their bones,” I believe is what he said. I was able to tell her that my husband has always made it known that he appreciates my curves, and besides, we real women tend to be a lot cooler to hang out with anyway. :-} That table didn’t tip me very well, but I was honestly able to tell them it was a pleasure to have waited on them.
Another pleasure was one of my last tables of the night- two cocktails each, full dinners, nice chatty people. Taught me that bitters are supposed to go in a Manhattan, which I’ve never seen one of our bartenders do. Left me a very nice tip, those folks did. A very pleasant end to my evening.
For the first time in a long while I felt as if I was actually connecting with people, doing a job I enjoy, rather than slogging through something I do because it pays the bills. Sure, the money is important. Rent and food and all that ain’t cheap. And somebody’s gotta keep paying to host this domain. But it’s really not all about the money. That was definitely a lesson I needed to relearn.
Permalink
10.20.07
Posted in Restaurant Etiquette 101 at 8:36 pm by Mina
I’ve been a waitress for a few years now. Sometimes I love it. You can meet really nice people, and sometimes they keep coming in week after week and become pretty good friends. But some people are just assholes no matter how you look at it, and those people are seriously in need of a restaurant etiquette lesson. So, here I am, to attempt to spread the good word about having a little common decency, which is severly lacking in far too many people. Even though you’re going out to eat to get taken care of, remember that servers are people too!
So, lesson number one: tipping. By far the thing that is most on your server’s mind while you’re out to eat is how much money you’re going to leave at the end. The reason, of course, is that your server makes a whopping $2.63 an hour, which if he’s lucky is enough to cover the taxes taken out of his paycheck at the end of the week. All he gets to take home is what you leave on the table. For whatever reason, very few people outside of the restaurant business seem to understand that.
Tipping correctly really is not hard. All you have to do is figure out what 15% of your bill is, and if you’re able to read the menu you should be able to do that simple math. If you had a pleasant time with your meal, you can add a little more onto the tip; your server will not be upset if it’s more than exactly 15%. Promise. Whenever I go out to eat, I think of it this way: an extra dollar or two out of my pocket is pretty trivial, but an extra dollar or two from all that server’s tables for the day will really add up.
If you can’t be bothered to L2math or just fail to tip correctly out of disagreement with the tipping system, here’s a novel idea: DON’T GO OUT TO EAT. Go to the grocery store, don’t tip the cashier, and make your own damn food. But if you expect someone to wait on you and make your meal a pleasant one so you don’t have to think about it, you’d better make it worth her while. We sure do remember how you tip, and while I promise at least in my restaurant nobody’s spitting in your food, you’d better believe your next experience is going to reflect how well you treated your server the last time.
Permalink
10.17.07
Posted in Politics at 9:05 pm by Mina
I discovered this channel on my XM called Potus 08, which is all about coverage of the upcoming election. Yeah, the one that’s more than a year away. Now, I’ve never been much into politics, but I sure do hate Hillary Clinton- and, to borrow a term from the husband, that is a “with the red-hot intensity of a thousand suns” sort of hate- so I’ve been paying some attention to it this time around.
I don’t know who I want to be president. I’m not keen on the crazy leftness of the Democrats and I’m not interested in the moral judgements of the socially conservative Republicans, and unfortunately that’s all the major parties we have to consider right now. Rudy Guiliani sounds pretty cool, from what little I’ve looked into him, but I’m concerned that he won’t get enough Republican party backing because he has these crazy ideas like keeping the government’s nose out of what goes on in your bedroom.
Anyhow it’s a nifty station, even if they do go on a bit long about when Iowa’s going to decide to have its caucus. You can find it at XM 130 if you’re interested. 10 points to the first commenter who guesses why they call it Potus.
Permalink
Posted in Stuff at 7:34 pm by Mina
So, turns out I have this website. And not a whole heck of a lot on it except some old pictures and old poems that pretty much no one wants to read. (I can’t say as I blame them, honestly.) I haven’t updated said website in some five years or so, and much of the reason for that is that I don’t really know what to do with it. Obviously, the solution all along was to create a blog so I can babble about all sorts of inconsequential things and pretend anyone actually listens to me. This will be some fun, I think.
Permalink