Picture this: the restaurant plays soft music in the background, the sound of silverware clinking against plates is intermingled with chattering voices, and the lights are just dim enough to help people forget that the restaurant is located in a strip mall next to a Wal-Mart.
My family and I are waiting a reasonable amount of time for our meal, although my father is already starting to check the time on his phone. His foot lifts, threatening to start tapping incessantly on the floor when…HARK! Here comes our food now! The waiter sets our plates of steaming food (emphasis on steaming) in front of us.
Now, it’s time for the verdict. My mother delicate stabs a piece of macaroni and puts it in her mouth. She chews once, twice, and smiles. I start to sweat because I’ve seen that smile before and it does not mean good things.
I must stop her! But before I can say anything, she’s already waving our waiter over. I am too late.
“Excuse me,” my mother says, grimacing slightly, “my food is too cold.”
“So sorry, ma’am, we’ll fix that straight away,” our waiter dashes off with my mother’s macaroni which is on fire by this point.
The elderly couple behind us is now arguing about whether they should shell out another five cents for the tip–“Linda, she didn’t even ask if we wanted more bread!”–and the table next to us has started throwing used napkins at their waiter. The posh ambiance is completely shattered and a full on war rages in the restaurant.
While I may or may not have embellished a few parts of this anecdote, it still stands that some people severely lack a thing called “manners.”I get sending food back if it legitimately taste like an ancient relic from the Ice Age. But if only one noodle out of your many noodles is more warm than blazing hot, is it reason enough to make a scene?
This is not the first occasion where I have been greatly humiliated my parents’ lack of manners. Just during spring break, my family and I went down to the Keys. One afternoon, we had lunch in a quaint little restaurant by the ocean. My parents ordered this seafood platter to share. It arrived in a blaze of glory, shrimp sautéed to perfection, scallops lightly browned, mussels plump and ready for slurping.
My dad took a bite of a perfectly normal scallop and announced to everyone and no one in particular, “I don’t like it.”
What? It was a perfectly normal scallop that tasted perfectly normal like every other scallop he’s every eaten in his entire life? WHAT? I told him as much.
“I don’t like it,” he repeated defiantly, “and it’s cold.”
Naturally, I sampled the scallop to prove him wrong and lo and behold! The scallop was delicious and tangy and burnt my tongue. I don’t think my taste buds have grown back yet.
Still, my dad remained petulant and morose as he sipped his rum cocktail and gave our waitress a measly tip because he “did not enjoy his meal” and, apparently, the perfectly nice waitress should suffer for this. I can never go out with my parents.
Unfortunately, I have also encountered far too many customers like this now that I work in the food industry. There’s no reason to give a nasty attitude if I or another employee politely informs you that our policy doesn’t allow us to give you two teabags per cup or that, yes, the grilled veggies are a meat substitute I didn’t just make that up sir, no, sir, you can’t just stomp away and leave your sandwich here!
Of course, this is by far not a very common occurrence. Most of the customers I have dealt with are incredibly lovely people who laugh at my awful jokes. But I will never forget that asshole that yelled at me for putting lettuce on his sandwich. Even though he literally said the words “lettuce, please,” he really meant to say “NO, THE MIXED GREENS!”
So, the question remains: why the lack of manners? Do people let the expression “the customer is always right” get to their head? I know my parents are firm believers in getting their money’s worth, which I guess makes sense, but they act as if they paid for a spa treatment to go along with their meal and their towels weren’t fluffy enough. On second thought, that might be something they actually complained about at the hotel…
Or maybe it’s the notion that at a restaurant, we are being served by others and our every whim is being catered to by smiling employees. There’s a certain expectation to being a customer. If even the smallest thing goes awry (i.e. slightly less warm macaroni noodle) we absolutely lose our shit.
Regardless, we should remember food industry workers are only human; mistakes can be made and sometimes, the universe just doesn’t want to heat up that damn noodle.
Be nice to your waiters, deli workers, and baristas. We are gentle creatures, and even just a “have a great day!” goes a long way.
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