Interesting. My brother’s a waiter, and I’ve gone out to eat with him and he’ll stack up his dishes when he’s done. I’ve never followed suit, though, because I figure I’m just as likely to mess up the waiter’s system as I am to make his or her life easier.
On the OP: like many people in the thread, I say thanks almost every time my server does something for me. Exception: I don’t interrupt conversations or talk with my mouth full.
I also don’t thank the server on other people’s behalf. I figure it’s rude to my dining companion, even if I wish they’d be more considerate themselves.
Ah, but you see, because he’s a waiter he probably stacks the dishes in a way that makes it easier for the server to clear them. The problem i often encountered was that people would stack dished willy-nilly, without placing all the cutlery on top and without scraping leftover food onto a single plate. So the waiter arrives at the table to find an eight inch high, lopsided pile of plates that shows every sign of toppling onto the floor at the slightest touch and that will probably shed cutlery all over the floor as soon as the waiter pick it up.
Featherlou,
it would appear we have a great deal in common. I, too have a sister who is deficient in manners.
It bothers me.
I say thank you all the time. From the waiter who refills my coke to the person who holds the door for me. It just seems like the right thing to do. It takes no time at all, and hopefully makes someone’s day just a little bit nicer.
I know you’re addressing Featherlou…but trust me; that doesn’t always work.
The relations between the baby sis and I haven’t been so good ever since I theorized that the reason she didn’t have a boyfriend was because she was such a bitch. (seeing as how at the time she was screaming obscenities at my mother for the horrific crime of asking her to help set up the Christmas tree, it seemed a reasonable assessment.)
Regarding Ashkicker’s story on making up the tip, I have cheap relatives, and I always surreptitiously pay attention to their tip calculation when they’re picking up the check.
For example: One time, my grandfather got the bill. It was for almost exactly ninety dollars. He whipped out a hundred and poked it at the server, saying, “Keep the change.” Yeah, a ten percent tip. For a split-second, the server’s face looked like he was being handed a used Kleenex, but he covered really well.
Similarly, I wince when my wife’s grandmother pulls out her battered old “tip calculation” laminated card. It was printed shortly before Napoleon marched across Europe, so it’s based on the old twelve-percent standard.
Anyway, the point is, more than once, after we’ve finished eating, gathered our coats and moved toward the exit, I’ve claimed a need to visit the bathroom, so I can go back to the table (or find the server if the table’s been cleared already) and make up the difference on the shorted tip. I hate the deception, but I’d rather do that than resent my family. I haven’t been caught yet.
Oh, and yes, re the OP, I also say “thank you very much” and the like when the server brings a drink refill or delivers things quickly and efficiently or otherwise provides good service.
Just out of interest, Cervaise, are your relatives cheap because they’re cheap, or are they cheap because they really don’t know how much constitutes a reasonable tip?
If the latter, surely you could enlighten then rather than playing the whole “run back inside” game every time you go to dinner.
My grandfather financed a holiday for a dozen family members to Mexico a few years back. Sounds generous, but: All of us were crammed into two condo units, distributed over couches and whatever. Plus they brought all their food with them in two ice chests and a cardboard box (minus the quick expirables like milk and eggs, which they picked up at the local discount mart), and they cooked all their meals, breakfast lunch and dinner, in the condo. In the six nights we were all there, they had one meal, a dinner, at a restaurant. It didn’t strike me as very vacation-oriented, so, after it became obvious this would be the pattern, my wife and I quietly abandoned them for some evening meals.
Believe me, trying to get them to budge on this would be an ugly and pointless battle.
Fair enough. Although i’m a pretty tactless bastard myself, i concede that you have to pick and choose the battles you are prepared to fight in families.
At least you have the heart to make up for their deficiencies when it comes to tipping waiters.
In my time dealing with the public in a service career I didn’t care if they said please or thank you as long as they were pleasant in general. I’ve been sworn at and screamed at … and they wonder why people pee in the coffee
As a server, I appreciate polite customers but I’m not bothered if someone says “thank you” each time I come to the table. I know that people are out to spend time with their dining companions and not with me. As mhendo says, sometimes it is even easier if you are allowed to unobtrusively refill drinks or clear the table.
To echo mhendo once again, I found it much more rude to be ignored when trying to address the table to initiate / continue service (i.e. get the initial drink order, recite the special, ask if anyone wants dessert).
Oh! I forgot to add that it is always appreciated when a customer who has received good service puts in a word to the manager. The management at my workplace rewards servers who receive positive customer comments.
Also, the first sentence in my last post should read: “…but I’m not bothered if someone doesn’t say “thank you”…”
I’m a firm believer in being courteous to the wait staff, from responding to “Hello, how are you?” to “please” and “thank you,” and mentioning how good the service was (when it’s good) to the manager on my way out. It doesn’t take any effort, and makes us all feel better.
(And, from the paranoid view, they are getting to my food before I do; being nice to them is practical as well as ethical.)
I don’t have kids, but I explained to my sister’s kids that I’d take them to restaurants if they followed the same set of rules I did (no screaming, no pouting, say “please” and “thank you,” no running around the restaurant, no throwing things, if you hate the food, you don’t have to eat it all, but you should try it, etc.), I’d take them out to restaurants with me (we live in NYC), and they agreed, and abided by those rules from the age of about six up (they’re 19 and 21 now). I always got compliments from restaurant staff on how well-behaved they were.
(Of course, they also knew that days out with their crazy aunt not only involved restaurants, but at least $50 spent on each of them in bookstores, plus the $20 given to them for whatever they wanted to spend it on – which was usually more books. I trained them well.)
