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Brooks Peterson
Brooks Peterson's column is published Mondays. Brooks also sits on the Caller-Times editorial board and can be contacted at petersonb@caller.com
Monday, February 7, 2000
Hey: The waiter you're berating is human, too
It occurs to me there's one approach to this column that I don't use nearly as much as I should. I mean, I do my level best to keep you entertained and informed - but when was the last time I gave you news you could use?
Well, it's never too late, is it? Let's pass over the usual frivolity, then, and meditate on an issue that has plagued the world from the beginning of time:
Why do so many of us insist on treating waiters/waitresses like dirt?
(Note: For the sake of brevity, I will refer only to "waiters." I have noticed that when referring to thespians as a group, we style them "actors." If they can live with that, surely our friends in the food service industry can accept a similar usage.)
I have seen any number of ugly little waiter-patron scenarios acted out in my long history of dining. One of the more memorable came on the occasion of my college graduation: My parents treated my fiance and I to a hi-luxe dinner at a classy Austin joint - the Polonaise, I believe it was, with a killer view of the Capitol - during the course of which a seriously nasty scene erupted a couple of tables away.
A gent with an attractive female companion (a tad younger than he, if memory serves aright) pitched a fit. Communicating his displeasure to a thoroughly flummoxed waiter, this character went to some pains to explain just how anxious he had been to impress his date, and how grievously he'd been misused.
Then, the coup de grace: "You call this chateaubriand? I call it GARBAGE!"
So: Here we had a waiter being subjected to the Death of a Thousand Cuts for a sin (if sin it was) not of his making - and no doubt a chef out back meditating on whether to impale himself on a skewer. All so a boor could score points with his chick. Where is it written, I ask, that common humanity need not apply at the waiter-patron interface?
You see infinite variations on this theme: A few evenings back, as we dined at a downtown eatery, we were treated to the spectacle of a young woman being batted around like a catnip mouse by a table full of louts. These characters whiled away the time by sending dishes back, changing their minds, re-ordering, and just generally making themselves obnoxious. Under the circumstances, the patience the young woman displayed was little short of saintly.
Look: I'm not going to tell you every waiter you encounter is going to be as attentive as he/she should be. Nor that waiters don't occasionally foul up their orders. Nor that you'll never run across a waiter who's having a bad evening. Nor that there aren't a few bad waiters out there.
By and large, though, if my experience is any indication, most of the waiters you encounter are going to be doing their level best to treat you right. Why? For one thing, most of them are conscientious people trying, just like you and me, to do a good job.
And, of course, they have an incentive: that little matter of the tip.
A word or two on that: Now, in the best of all possible worlds, this annoying institution would long since have been replaced with a more rational arrangement. But there it is, and here we are - and, dang it, unless your waiter tries to set your necktie on fire or starts pelting you with breadsticks, is it too much to ask you to come across with a stinkin' 15 percent tip?
I mean, look, these people are not getting rich at this job. Me, if I get better than average service, I hesitate not a moment to boost the tip to 20 percent. Criminies: Get in touch with your inner humanitarian.
What's it to me? Simply this: While I've never worked as a waiter per se, I did spend my freshman year at college as a server at the university's dining hall. No tips, needless to say - and of course I never had to master the business of taking, amending and delivering individual orders.
But I did have my own indelible Waiter Moment: that Date Night when all the prepsters were there with their sweeties. Somehow (it's a gift), I dumped a whole tureen of spaghetti and meat sauce on the table. And floor. And probably some of the diners. My, how they laughed. My, how I wanted to sink through the floor.
So: Before you light into your waiter, at least imagine walking a mile in his/her moccasins. And if the chateaubriand is garbage, try to communicate your concern in a civil fashion. That's a fellow human you're dealing with, not a scratching post.
Bon apetit.
(Peterson can be reached by phone at 886-3772, or by e-mail at petersonb@caller.com)
Brooks Peterson
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