RTP-area local music and culture

["Steven Keith" <skeith AT capstrat.com>]

I have wanted to say this (much less thoughtfully and exceedingly less
eloquent) for 5 years.  Thank you. Happened again at Elmos in Durham
Saturday morning. 

-----Original Message-----
From: ch-scene-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:ch-scene-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of grady
Sent: Sunday, January 16, 2005 1:07 PM
To: RTP-area local music and culture
Subject: Note to waitpersons

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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