When You Should NOT Go Out to a Restaurant

I’ve been inspired by my friend Tiffany to do a public service announcement. She also works in a restaurant (in another state). She has, on a number of occasions, written on her blog about actions that are NOT acceptable behavior in a restaurant. So here’s one from me.

If you are not able to control your kids, do NOT take them to a restaurant. The restaurant is not a playground for your kids. The staff are not baby sitters for you kids. You should not let you kids run around the restaurant, up and down the stairs, too and from the bathroom. They should not be left to stand in the middle of the doorway to the kitchen so that everybody has to walk around them. If they cannot sit for 1 hour while you eat: 1 eat faster, 2. go to McDonalds, 3. don’t go out. I would rather not have your sad measly tip then wait on your unruly kids!

If you hate your kids or they are giving you a headache, you should NOT go out to a restaurant. I don’t want to have a headache from your kids either. I also don’t need your crappy, rude attitude that you bring along with your headache from your misbehaving kids.

I am your waiter. I am there to bring you stuff that you ask for. So when I come and ask if you are ready or if I can help you decide, you can answer: yes or no. However yelling NO!! is not an acceptable response.

If you are too stupid to read the whole flyer, and miss the writing 4 inches below the list of happy hour specials that says that you have to be at the bar for them. And then your waiter goes to the manager and convinces him to make and exception this once. Then you should say thank you, Pete for saving me $3. You should not get more upset when I explain to you that I saved you the measly $3, you should SHUT YOUR MOUTH.

Also I understand that some waiters/waitresses are rude. They give the good ones a bad name. But unless they laughed when they dropped your food on your lap, then keep your mouth shut when you leave and see their manager. You should definitely not complain to the manager when your waiter got you the $3 off your meal (even though you are too stupid to read the flyer and don’t really deserve it but he has been working all day and just wants you to shut up). And if you are too stupid to tell the difference between yourself and the waiter (meaning that you were rude the whole time and the waiter wasn’t ever rude) you should NOT tell the manager that the waiter was rude.

I hope that someone has found this educational. If I’ve helped even one waiter/waitress, then it was worth it.

This was somewhat cathartic. I’ll have to do more posts like this. Thanks for the inspiration Tiff.

Happy HolidayS

That’s right. Happy Holidays. I had 2 great holidays this holiday season. I hope that you all did too. I say that because there has been a controversy this year about a “War on Christmas”. I think that the media has too much time on their hands. I’m pretty sure they should all have to wait tables full time as well as be a “journalist”. Then maybe they would stay with real news. Apparently President Bush’s card said Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. (This is news?!?) And he was getting all this static about it. First of all I’m sure that he never even saw the card until it was on the news and even then I’m sure he didn’t really care about it enough to look at it. Even if he did see it I guess they were all forgetting that it’s a “Holiday Season” with Christmas, and New Years. I would mention the others as well but it was only the “Christians” that seemed to be making a stink. I’m surprised they didn’t raise the question of bad intelligence from the card people calling it Christmas-gate.

Anyway, as I was saying, I had a good time this year. I drove up to Pittsburgh from DC to see my parents and my little brother and sister-in-law. I drove up after getting out of work early. It took less than 5 hours. It was clear driving all the way up. I wasn’t really looking forward to it. I hadn’t gotten into the Christmas spirit yet. I had been in a pretty bad mood, because I had been working 2 waiter jobs. I started at a Japanese restaurant. Other than yelling WASABI! a lot it pretty much sucked. I didn’t like the managers at all. So I quit 2 days before I left for Pittsburgh. My older brother wasn’t going to be around and I didn’t think I would get to see any friends so I just thought I would be sitting around my parent’s house for 4 days. Little did I realize that that was exactly what I needed. I arrived just before my parents got home from the Christmas Eve Service. I wished I could have made it for that but we got to sit and talk for a little that night. Christmas day was nice. The Service at church was nice and I got to see some people and catch up a little with them. Some of the people that I had hoped to see weren’t there. My aunt and 2 cousins came over for dinner at lunchtime. One of them brought his girlfriend. She pretty much sat there and didn’t say anything except when directly asked a question. Then they left in the middle of the afternoon and my little brother and his wife J-Lo came over and we opened gifts. It was a good evening. Then for the next few days I just hung out and drank lots of tea and hot chocolate and really enjoyed having a few days off from work. Then back in DC for New Years. We had a party at my house. I wasn’t really looking forward to it. I don’t mind parties so much; it’s having them at my house that I don’t like. You can’t really show up late and you can’t leave early. Though it is easy to hide upstairs in your bedroom when you get over stimulated. But it was fun. We played Texas Hold ‘Em, some spades, and Fussball plus there was good food. Also people didn’t stay till 4 am like I thought they would. Most left by 100 or so. I was able to go to bed at like 130 and wasn’t kept up by the few people that were still there. I would have stayed up longer but I had to be at work at 10 am. I ended up with a huge headache too. I only had 2 glasses of champagne. It went away after 4 Advil. I also met someone at the party. Didn’t kiss her at midnight but nobody did that. What a lame party, no booze and no kissing. Anyway, I’ll be looking for her at church. She was white, though, from Arkansas. But she was cute with short blonde hair. Not rich but she had a good job. So, not an Indian princess but I still liked her. Anyway, I hope that you all had a good Holiday Season too; no matter where you were for Christmas or how far ahead of me you got to the New Year.