RTP-area local music and culture

[Brendan Love <brendan.love AT mac.com>]

D-




On Jan 16, 2005, at 1:06 PM, grady wrote:

> Hello, waitpeople. Thank you very much for carrying hot plates & 
> enduring abuse from the kitchen *and* the customers, and answering 
> dumb questions, and pretending screwups were your fault even when they 
> weren't.
>
> There is just one thing I'd like to ask of you:
>
> Stop asking me "do you need any change?" Just stop it. It is demeaning 
> to both of us.
>
> It makes you sound either greedy, or lazy, or both, and it implies 
> that I'm going to undertip you unless you put me on the spot with your 
> question. (by the way, I'm not; 20% has been my minimum for many years 
> now, and you've really got to work your ass off to be a jerk for me to 
> even drop you to 15%)
>
> I understand that waitpeople are too often overworked & burdened with 
> too many tables & too much to remember. However, that's the whole of 
> the job. That's what being a waitperson is all about. You wouldn't 
> walk up to the table & say "do you need water? because I'm really busy 
> right now."
>
> Certainly if you're one of those poor bastards stuck waiting tables at 
> a joint like Elmo's, where the average check is like $15 and you're 
> covering like 20 tables, then it's understandable that you wouldn't 
> want to waste a single trip, and it might be forgivable for you to ask 
> about the change.
>
> But three times in the past 6 weeks, at three different "nice" 
> restaurants (as in 3.5-4 stars in all the local dining guides), with 
> two-person totals ranging between $55 and $115, I've been asked "Do 
> you need change?" It totally blows the whole illusion of 
> effortless-dining-experience that you & your fellow restaurant 
> employees have spent the entire evening trying to maintain.
>
> When you tie on the apron & pick up that pad & pencil, you're pledging 
> yourself to help other people. You're committing to help the customers 
> locate & order & receive the food that's going to make them the 
> happiest. You're probably also committing to help the chef or owner 
> get rid of that terrible surplus of fennel that's clogging up the 
> fridge, but we don't need to talk about that, because it's your job to 
> pretend you're not doing that.
>
> One thing you're *not* doing is pledging to help yourself. For the 
> duration of your shift, helping yourself should be way at the bottom 
> of the list.
>
> And yet the question "do you need any change?" can only be construed 
> as you attempting to help yourself. It is in no way helpful to me. If 
> I need change, then I need change. If I don't need change, then I'm 
> free to get up & leave the restaurant as soon as I've put the money on 
> the tray, and it doesn't really matter to me what you do with any 
> change that might be left. Asking me whether I need change does not 
> help you help me in any way.
>
> Last night a waiter asked me that & I said "please don't ask me that, 
> it's terribly rude" and he stammered a bit & said something about it 
> being really busy, as if somehow he were too busy to perform this last 
> relatively minor chore & he'd prefer that we just get the fuck up out 
> of our seats & get out the door and quit hassling him & his colleagues 
> with our continued presence.
>
> I don't know where this bizarre "need change?" meme came from; I don't 
> really remember hearing it until 3-4 years ago. Perhaps it has gotten 
> worse in this age of utter credit-card dominance; I nearly always pay 
> with cash & perhaps it's such a novelty that even higher-end waitstaff 
> haven't been trained on how to behave.
>
> So here's the lowdown: take the money to the register. Cash out. Bring 
> back change that contains at least 3 ones; this means that if the 
> change ends in a 5, 6, or 7, you bring 5, 6, or 7 ones, not a five and 
> a couple of ones. Put the change on the table. Take this opportunity 
> to thank the customers once more for coming (studies have shown, by 
> the way that a single final thank you has a higher impact on tip, than 
> general good service throughout the meal).
>
> Thank you,
>
> Ross
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