I’ve just got more important things to do than to complain because people are nice to me. Particluarly when I’m the one who invited them to DO so! That’s all. As long as the exchange is pleasant, I don’t have a legitimate bitch and either do you. So fucking what if you’ve heard it a hundred times that week. You’ve also heard “please” and “thank you” a hundred times, and I don’t hear you bitching about that. Get over yourself or find another job.
Went to a restaurant just last week where the server did exactly that. It’s a Chinese place that serves divine, delicious and health-conscious food. We’ve been patronizing it for years based on the impeccable service and yumminess, but seeing our server with a touch-screen order pad was new.
Same way they do at the gas pump “Would you like a car wash with your macaroni and cheese? Y/N”.
-Joe
I don’t understand. You know that your server has heard your joke or quip hundreds of times before, so why would you say it again, then expect him to genuinely laugh or smile? I mean, do you laugh at a joke you’ve heard a hundred times already?
And, if your goal is to not invoke a genuine laugh or smile, but rather, a feigned laugh or smile, then why even bother? You’re basically forcing your server into a social courtesy because, although the joke’s been said a hundred times already, you feel the need to be the 101st.
Yeah, I agree. Guess I’m going to stop trying to be friendly and just go for the stone face and grunted one-word replies to all the waitstaff’s pseudo-charming sallies. I never thought I was being original or especially witty with my chatter, but I didn’t realize that everyone thought I was being an asshole, someone to barely tolerate and pretend to like so that I would fork over big bucks to them.
Because there is no ill intent. It’s a friendly response to a friendly overture. Why would you possibly be annoyed by that? And why would some pissed off waitperson who started the exchange expect anything else? Are their lives so meaningless and empty that they actually have to bitch about pleasant social exchanges?
I realize there is no ill intent. And, I’m not annoyed that you’re trying to be friendly with me. What’s annoying is the line that you choose to bring a smile to my face has been uttered, ad nauseum, since before I was born, and yet, you still feel the need to bring it up.
Let me put it to you another way. There’s a guy I work with whose last name is Butkus (pronounced butt-kiss). I’m sure this guy has heard every joke there is about his last name. Despite that though, there are still people who feel the need to make a quip about it.
The other day, I heard someone say to him, “Hey Bill, anyone been kissing your ass lately?” Sure, he means no ill intent and he’s just trying to be friendly, and Bill even realizes this, but is it still annoying as fuck for Bill? Of course.
My point is that there are many ways to be friendly without having to use the cliche, lame, and boring lines that have been said countless times before.
Um… exactly. So why is the waiter’s irritation somehow less valid than anyone else’s?
Sounds like the food-service industry’s version of the GFE.
Kalhoun: I don’t work in a customer-contact any more, but I didn’t leave retail because the customers annoyed me. I left because the pay was the pits. I’ve worked a lot of retail jobs, and have almost always genuinely enjoyed interacting with my customers, even the ones who made corny jokes. I would have enjoyed interacting with my customers just that much more if they didn’t make the same old jokes, though.
Since when does waiting tables force you to feign a “real relationship?” Unless you think that people are only pleasant to each other if they’re in a “real relationship.”
No. Most people are have the social skills and the common sense to realize that the “chatty” waitress that you’ve never met before doesn’t really want to have a heart-to-heart while the guy at table 4 is waiting for a fork.
Sheesh. You’re like the guy who thinks you’re a couple because you lent him a pencil in math class.
Yeah. What the chick with the weird-colored hair said.
What’s your interest in defending this? What is the payoff for you in making tired jokes? Why can’t you just say, “I didn’t realize it was annoying. I’ll stop doing this.”
Yep. “Hi, how are you?” works.
Because the waiters on this thread are the only ones going around complaining about other people’s attempts cheerfully to engage them. Everyone else has to put up with irritants at their jobs too, but they don’t deduce from that fact a right to be pissy with others trying to be pleasant.
Waiters should act like real people, and customers should treat them like real people.
I don’t want a waiter that puts a big stupid phony smile on their face and acts like my coming to sit at their table is the best thing that’s ever happened to them. Nor should they be soulless extensions of the restaurant they’re in, so that I’m appalled at the intrusion if they momentarily become sentient, and make a little small talk, or, God forbid, tell me their name.
I just want to add that I’ve had to go from condemning a restaurant patron earlier in this thread who boasted about ignoring waitstaff’s attempts at friendliness (e.g., actually ignoring their scripted banter-questions – Q. Have you been here before? A. [No response]) to explaining why you don’t get to fume over customers who say “I’m Mike and I’ll be your customer.”
This is why Americans can’t have nice restaurants and why, in the future, we’ll just stick to screaming obscenities and eating McDonald’s.
Agreed!
I went into a Waffle House the other day and of the 5 employees visible, four of them were about 5 ft tall, blond hair, angry-looking, and a little overweight. They were like clones of each other. The fifth employee was a tall black girl, and thank God she was our waitress. There’s always an urgent need to get the waitress’s attention at a Waffle House several times during the meal…those little Waffle House emergencies, especially when there’s kids at the table…and I wouldn’t have known what to do if one of the blondes was our waitress.
This usually happens when you’ve forgotten to take your dried frog pills, isn’t it? 
As a sort of side rant, I hate retail workers with prepared speeches. I had to go to The Body Shop this weekend to restock on body butter, and I felt like I was on a covert ops mission.
Approaching the entrance of the store…lurk nonchalantly outside to gauge how many customers are already inside to distract the bouncy-haired clerk. None! Abort mission? No, no other Body Shops for 10 miles, mission must be completed.
Wait until the clerk is on the other side of the store…silently slip inside, using retail displays for cover. Stealthily approach body butter, careful to remain out of line of direct sight. Let’s see…coconut, mango, brazil nut…what’s this? A new scent? Pause to open sample jar and sniff…Oh, God, she’s caught me!
No, I don’t need help, I’m just browsing! yes, I’ve been here before. No, I don’t want “calming tea!” Yes, sale, sale, sale…no, not the “fair trade” speech!
Quick, evasive maneuvers! Grab a body butter and make for the cash register! No, I don’t want to sign up for any cards. No, I don’t want a “treatment” before I go. (What sort of treatment? I shudder to think.)
A receipt! Grab it! Go, go, go! Mission accomplished, but not without severe damage to sanity.
I found the preview offensive…
I hate the long speels and the annoying ones at fast food restaurants are the worst.
I worked at a McDonalds for a long time (throughout highschool and College) and we were supposed to say “Thankyou for choosing McDonalds how many I help you?” But I liked to add things in at times if I was bored such as “Thankyou for choosing McDonalds the worlds finest eating establishment how may I help you?” or “Welcome to McDonalds My name is Ronald how may I help you?” (this of course only worked in Drive Through) But when I worked till close I would start getting really strange and since everyone is drunk or high they did not notice. My favorite thing to say over the headset was “Tell me what you want what you really really want” I only had one negative response who spoke to my manager and told the manager that I was saying sexual things to people over the headset. Some people dont have a sense of humor.
You is weird.
I first saw them quite some years ago but they have not become popular like I expected.
Except that they *haven’t *said that they get visibly pissy. They said they smile and laugh, but they don’t mean it. Which is different from the rest of us how?