Answering a question that wasn't asked (mild)

[Roland_Orzabal]

@jacquilynne

Is your restaurant loud?

Not especially. It’s a steakhouse; the bar can get a tad rowdy if it’s packed and there’s a game on, but the dining room is usually quite mellow.

Is your voice quiet?

Nope. Even if I hadn’t been a server too long to forget to speak up, I learned it from debate years ago.

Is your accent heavy?

Nope. I don’t have any natural accent at all. I do inject a barely-detectable southern twang into certain stock phrases such as “how y’all doin’ tonight?”, but that’s about it.

[/quote]
I often find that I can’t hear waiters, and thus answer the question I think they may have asked, which is not necessarily the question they actually did ask. If you’re finding this happens to you a lot, I’d suggest you’re probably not making yourself heard clearly.
[/QUOTE]

No, it doesn’t happen “a lot”; people generally understand me just fine. If a table does it once, they’ll probably do it more than once. I have waited on people who are hard of hearing before, and it is generally clear when that is the case. The people appear to be making an extra effort to listen to me, and in return, I make an extra effort to speak louder and enunciate more clearly. If they answer a question other than the one I ask, that’s perfectly understandable.

In contrast, the people I’m talking about make it obvious that they just plain don’t give a damn what I’m saying. As a server, I do not rank high enough to merit paying attention to, thus anything I say can and will be safely ignored, and demands will be barked at me on a whim. Your average person who is hard of hearing does not, for example, glare at me and snap a condescending “Coke!” when I ask them how they are doing. It’s rudeness, plain and simple.

You can recognize when somebody is going out of their way to be an asshole to you; so can I. I do not go around with a chip on my shoulder; I can say without a doubt that anyone who did would not last longer than a week in this job. I’ve seen them come, and I’ve seen them go, always quickly and sometimes voluntarily. I must say that I’m surprised at how many people are assuming I must not know how to do my job. Is it really easier to assume that than to realize that some customers – not the majority by far, but enough to take note of – are just plain ol’ regular assholes?

[Frank]

@Roland Orzabal

Is it really easier to assume that than to realize that some customers – not the majority by far, but enough to take note of – are just plain ol’ regular assholes?

Humph. I, sir, am by no means a plain ol’ regular asshole; I am an outstanding asshole. I’m sorry, what was the question? Oh, um, no, no it’s not.

[CanvasShoes]

@The Devil's Grandmother

Just a WAG, but I’ll be she was trying to ask for Tuna a-la-carte, not a whole tuna dinner with salad an’ veggies an’ everything. For her, maybe on-the-side means and-nothing-else. I’d order a “side of fries” if all I wanted was fries.

And in defense of restaurant customers who answer the wrong question, is there any way American restaurant could be a little quieter? It’s often really hard to hear some servers, especially if they are tall.

Well yeah, but “a side of fries” is appropriate, as is a side DISH. ON the side is a different phrase completely.

And yeah, I get that eventually the wiater would figure out that she meant a la carte. But to get annoyed at the OTHER person because they’re not understanding her bizarre phrasing is just silly.

The way she said it, all annoyed like “JUST the tuna okay”? As if her phrase "on the side’ were the correct way to put it is, I’m guessing what annoyed Roland

[jacquilynne]

@Roland Orzabal

I must say that I’m surprised at how many people are assuming I must not know how to do my job. Is it really easier to assume that than to realize that some customers – not the majority by far, but enough to take note of – are just plain ol’ regular assholes?

Yes. Generally speaking when one person indicates that they have a recurring problem with a lot of people, I tend to assume it’s the one person’s fault, not the lot of people’s fault. If it’s a small number of people, as you’ve clarified your remarks to, then, well, yes, it probably just is that some people are assholes.

In this specific case, I’ve been on the customer end of a not too different sounding exchange, and it seemed like you were branding people assholes who might not, in fact, be assholish, and thought you might like to consider another perspective. If they’re clearly, deliberately being assholish, well, that’s different.

As a general rule, recurring social problems should be a good prompt to do a little introspection and self-examination. If you’ve done that and determined that you definitely aren’t contributing to the problem, well, great, and I hope venting here has helped you deal with the assholes better.