I think we can all agree that the only thing anyone expects in a waitress is the requisite number of pieces of flair.
-Joe
The first time I encountered this ridiculous little phenomenon, the waitress completely botched my order. I wanted to throw my wine in the manager’s face. “This does not make your stupid little restaurant look more important or upscale! It makes you look like a bunch of twits who can’t get my order right!”
Goodness gracious!! Someone has to put up with minor annoyances at their job! To the Batmobile! We simply cannot allow this outrage to go on even one moment longer!!
No, I can assure you, these people are all *very *proud of themselves, like they just constructed the fucking Taj Mahal.
In my case, the question was “Did you find everything you were looking for today?” which is a perfectly legitimate question to ask as a cashier at a grocery store. But half of the fuckers had to say some variation on “a winning lottery ticket.” And it’s not always in response to anything, either–if an item isn’t scanning properly, it’s a better than even bet that the asshole you’re checking out would say something like, “Hah hah, I guess it’s free!”
Any part of the spiel I used, it was because I thought it was part of good customer service. And you know what? It was a good thing I used it, because I got to be held up as a shining example of why it was okay to keep letting cashiers dye their hair weird colors, because a woman wrote a letter to us about a Genuine Learning Experience she had when the cashier with the blue hair and the safety pin in her ear gave her the best fucking customer service of her life.
Regardless, until you claim otherwise, your response has proven to me that you’ve never actually worked a service job, so you can take your uninformed opinion and shove it back up the nether corner of your ass from which you pulled it.
If they all know they’re not being original, why would they think it would make me smile? And trust me, from the way half of them say it, and laugh uproariously after, they do think they’re the first one to tell me that.
And I only started it because I have to. Trust me, if I stop doing it entirely, eventually my boss will find out. Either he’ll walk by and hear me not giving a spiel and talk to me later, or even worse I’ll get a mystery shopper and their report will mention I didn’t do it, and my boss’s boss will find out, and I’ll get reamed out (it’s happened before.)
It’s just really annoying for me, so why do you think it would be the opposite?
And for the record, I do make decent tips. I never let the annoyances or crummy tables affect my service to other people.
Like I said…you might want to find another gig if human interaction isn’t your thing.
Nor do we expect our waitpeople to be our friends. That’s just silly. You can drop the order pad on the table and pick it up in 10 minutes for all I care. People respond to friendliness (fake or otherwise) with friendliness, generally speaking.
There is rarely another waitperson, let alone a manager within earshot of the kid taking my order. I’ve waited tables. People are busy doing their jobs. If it bothers you to small-talk with customers, then don’t initiate it.
Yeah, there’s a lot in the exchange that will “suffice.” But here’s the thing. You don’t get to call the response you get to your canned friendliness. If someone, gawd forbid, should actually genuinely be cheerful back at you, why would you want to find fault with that? Just gotta bitch about something, huh?
Can’t we all just leer at each other in mutual faux esteem?
Man, this thread is a downer. I won’t even be able to open up a can of Chef Boyardee without wondering what that guy on the label really thinks. 
This whole thread is people who “just gotta bitch about something.” Even listening to a two-minute canned spiel is a minor annoyance at best. I don’t see any reason why the bitching should be limited to customers only.
Sorry, but I expect more than that. I mean sure, you can get by with just the bare minimum, but when my server has clearly gone above and beyond the call of duty, that impresses me.
He thinks those pants make you look fat, and you should probably go for a salad, instead.
That’s why I swear by Spaghetti-O’s.
Hell, if they had that I could just place my order myself. Good idea.
Well then how the hell are they supposed to upsell you?
I’ve worked plenty of service jobs, including retail and waiting tables. I’d take a cheerful heard-it-before customer over a whining bitch or chronic complainer any day of the week.
There are jobs that don’t require you to add “flair” to your customer’s experience. But you’ve chosen a field that includes feigning a Real Relationship with someone who really only wants you to bring them food. If you add that extra layer of intimacy, people will respond accordingly. Skip the line of bullshit half the time and you’ll be 50% happier with your job.
He hates you. He also thinks you’re a poor dresser.
Yeah, and I’d prefer getting punched in the arm to being stabbed in the eye with something pointy. That doesn’t mean I can’t also bitch about getting punched in the arm.
1.) I no longer have a job where I have to put up with that kind of shit, thanks.
2.) Not everyone is as lucky as you–some people don’t have a lot of choice about where they work, and they don’t have a lot of choice about the bullshit they have to spew to the customers.
3.) Just because you enjoyed eating shit doesn’t mean other people don’t have a legitimate complaint against it. You’ve yet to make a legitimate argument as to why it’s a bad thing to request that customers make simple responses instead of horrible, horrible jokes, which the employee will then have to pretend are deathly funny, thus reinforcing the customer’s tendency to do so.
I occasionally swear **at **Spaghetti-O’s. 
Going to try that, or a mod thereof,
hundreds of times per day in my job
thank you,
They are supposed to do that; it’s their job.
At nicer places all you usually get is a very short recitation of the the special.
You don’t like a big family restaurant-style speech, don’t go out to eat at places like Red Lobster.
My Spaghetti-O’s is talking to me! It says “OOOOOOOO”!