If you get up and head for the door the waitress usually manages to find your bill, I have found.
Was just going to say the same thing.
Middle aged women who eat alone tend to be ignored as well.
A couple of weeks ago an older, wheelchair bound friend and I ate at a new restaurant that opened in the place of one that had closed after being in the same location for almost 80 years.
Yes, we had a helluva time getting our check. Our waitress was at the opposite end of the place messing around with something behind the bar for the longest time. We finally lost patience and started flagging down pretty much every other server in the place demanding our checks before she woke up and came running over with it.
I’m done eating does not mean you’re done dealing with me. The most important part still remains. Most important for YOU, that is. As far as I’m concerned, my usually generous 20%+ tip drops to roughly 15% when you keep me waiting for the damned check. It’s going to drop under 15% if you give me the check, then make me chase you down to pay the fucking thing.
I have been known to grab a busboy and ask for the manager by passing the message that if I don’t get either the manager or the bill within the next 5 minutes I am going to walk out. Typically gets the bill pretty much instantly.
Major secret from back when I worked [albeit as kitchen staff] is that if your table has dessert, especially if it is a nonalco drinking table, halfway through dessert total up the bill and get it ready to drop. Unless it is a romantic type 2 adult wine with dinner, coffee and brandy there isn’t going to be any prolonged hanging out gazing soulfully post dessertfest going on. People with kids especially tend to hork down dessert and want to pay pretty immediately.
If you’re a middle aged woman or a small group of well-behaved (i.e., not in obnoxious “British hen party” mode) middle-aged women, just getting seated counts as a quest worthy of the Knights of the Round Table.
I’ve learned to be rude. Very rude. If I’m waiting in line and you cut in front of me because I’m invisible, you will suddenly find 70mumble kilos worth of invisible between you and the cashier / receptionist / vending machine :mad:
A hearty posthumous kick in the butt to whatever geniuses in the U.S. Soil Conservation Service decided it would be great to promote growing multiflora rose in this country.* Maybe this thing is under control in its native Asia, but here it spreads like wildfire, with birds eating the fruit and crapping out seeds all over the place, including our property, where I just spent several hours trimming its horrifically thorny branches away from my fence line and getting a nice collection of scrapes and scratches to go with the poison ivy I can feel creeping up my hands and arms.
*they thought it’d be great for preventing soil erosion and as a “living fence” to control livestock. “Living fence” is right - if I don’t keep at it, eventually I won’t be able to get into the house.
This is something we’re noticing more and more; the service is great until the plates are cleared, then our waitperson disappears, not to be seen again for 20 minutes (or the bill comes, and then they disappear for 20 minutes). Your job isn’t done until we’ve paid; the tip keeps going down the whole time we’re sitting, twiddling our thumbs, waiting on you.
What really annoyed me one time was the waiter who was effectively invisible (buffet place, but would have been nice to have used plates cleared off once in a while and beverages at least checked on) until we finally got his attention to pay, then he was outright hovering over my shoulder while I was doing the card slip. The hovering at that point was obnoxious enough to me that it cost him at least as much in tip as the invisibility routine. Sorry, buddy, I DID notice that the ONLY time you bothered to notice you HAD customers at that table was when you wanted to stick your hand in my face for money.
When my husband is out of town on the weekends, I go out to breakfast by myself and I take a book. I used to try out various places, until I went into a local mom and pop place. The server put me in the back of the room and the waitress scolded her for it because I had a book and wanted to sit by the window.
The food is OK and the place is a bit of a dive, but the wait staff actually see me. Its amazing and wonderful, so I keep going back. (Of course, now that I’m a regular, they know that I tip 3 bucks on a 9 dollar check but it took that one waitress to get my regular business.)
My rant: my husband is out of town. Again. I knew this going in, but I still get lonesome and sad. To distract myself, I do things like clean out closets and storage areas. Today I found 3 boxes full of VCR tapes. Out they went! Now I’m feeling guilty because I tossed them in the trash instead of trying to find a place to recycle them.
Homeowners insurance is picking up the tab for all the flooring. whew
I’ve got a beef with the city’s public works dept. for planting a carrot wood tree with invasive roots right on the edge of the front curb and just a few feet away from the sewer pipe. They told me years ago it was going to be MY problem if anything like this ever happened because they put the tree on my property. They’ve done this all over the city.
I don’t get the logic of that at all. If I dump my trash into your bedroom, why should you have to clean up a mess that someone else made?
I wonder if I can fight City Hall…
I found out today that my younger cousin is pretty heavily into pot. I have no problems with pot, but this is to the point of not working and just sitting in his room smoking it. We think he might be dealing, as well. He’s not rolling in money or anything, but when he needs it he has it. He has no job, his unemployment ran out so…? His Mom might enable him some, but I don’t think enough to support him.
Fuck. He’s a good guy.
Don’t feel too bad; last time we took a load to our local charity that we’re donating all our cast-offs to, they had a sign saying that they didn’t want any more VCR tapes. Doing a quick search online, it looks like there isn’t much available for recycling old VHS tapes.
An idiot in a black pickup truck is unaware that the person already in the traffic circle has right-of-way. After very nearly sideswiping me (which could have injured or even killed my wife, my son, or myself), he honked and honked at ME – apparently he though I had done something wrong.
Hey, world, for the last time - the electicity stuff in the sky, and the Tampa Bay hockey team, are called “lightning,” NOT “lightening.” “Lightening” is a different word with a different meaning.
I’m about to write a nastygram to the local free weekly rag because they don’t know the difference between “breath” and “breadth” or “conscience” and “conscious.” I need to go through an issue with a red pen and mark all the mistakes in their articles.
I really only get it for the movie reviews, anyway. That’s the only part of the paper with correct spelling and grammar outside of the crossword puzzle (which comes from the NY Times, so they can’t screw that up too badly).
From the militant wing of the Professional Organization of English Majors, the Special Weapons and Syntax squad! To Correct and To Serve!
One time the trashiest local free paper here had their main headline written across their front page in huge letters: “HERO’S.” It’s like they were purposely trying to troll or something.
I was told I may be a little irritable upon quitting my caffeine addiction.
Little? LITTLE?
I’m either raging or crying. I am only sleeping via the bliss of drugs.
I have had no caffeine since Thursday (I broke down and had a Mountain Dew Code Red that day). I cannot concentrate. I signed into work this morning, and became upset. Why do I even friggin bother - I ask for responses, and no one does. I’m TRYING to help you, you idiot. I just want to sew all day.
Why do I get a cold EVERY TIME I’m scheduled to fly somewhere?? Congestion is miserable when flying! Here come the heavy doses of Sudafed, Flonase and Advil.
MissTake: I usually get a 3 day headache when I quit caffeine. Then I come back to it like the junkie I am.
That would be even more awesome if the acronym spelled out “POEM SWAT” or something. 