A Comment on Comments

In a recent post called "10 Ways Being a Waiter Has Made Me a Better Person," I outlined things that I have learned while waiting tables that have carried over into my real life. Number five read as follows:

Multi-tasking. This goes right along with time management. If you ring in the drinks and then grab the water pitcher on your way to the side stand to get spoons, you can then drop the spoons at table 3, fill the waters at table 2 and then breeze by table 1 to tell them their drinks are on the way. This is handy in the real world at places like grocery stores, malls and while cleaning your apartment.

Someone took umbrage with that point and made their opinion explicitly clear in comment after comment after everlasting freakin' comment; eighteen of them to be exact. Well, now it's my turn in this comment on comments.

Said the person who has way too much time on their hands and an inability to turn off their CAPS LOCK KEY:

"That's only fair if you are putting in bar drinks. If you are putting in drinks you can get yourself like soft drinks, tea, water that type of thing, you are in the morally WRONG for letting CUTTING happen. What I mean is if table 1 actually asked for let's say a coke and an iced tea, you should be going to get that and not doing anything else, it's only *FAIR* and *MORALLY RIGHT* if you expect a good tip, understand?
It all has to do with WHO ASKED FOR WHAT FIRST.

If the waters would have been asked first, you should have not been putting drinks into the computer first. Understand what I am trying to say? BE FAIR and then your tip should show it is all I am sayin

Clearly NEVER been CUT in front of, have you? Like you have never had to wait 5 minutes for your check when you saw your server without being called over or had any previously ordered things go to other tables making *YOU* wait for what *YOU* asked for *FIRST*? I don't believe you that you aren't pissed, because NOBODY LOVES WAITING, NOBODY when they aren't supposed to wait, because it's their turn, not someone else's." 

Wow. Umm, okay, sir. I never thought about morals and ethics coming into play whilst serving tap water and frozen margaritas but I will now consider it. Okay I have considered it: fuck that. Waiting tables and serving customers has nothing to do with cutting in line and who deserves what first. Sure, if you came in first, then you should be sat before someone who came in after you. And for the most part, things are taken care of in the order they were asked for. However, not always. We don't keep mental track of who's turn it is. And how is a customer supposed to know if it's "their turn" or not? For example, a lady asks for more Ranch dressing because her arteries aren't clogged enough. I go to get that Ranch but on the way to the kitchen another tables asks for an extra napkin. Napkin-needer is right next to the side stand and it's easy to get that task taken care of and then carry on all the way to the kitchen to get the Ranch. Besides, the lady already had three sides of ranch. Does she really need a fourth? Another example: Table 1 orders a well done steak and a Frozen Mudslide. Three minutes later, table 2 is sat and they ask for tap water and a side salad. Am I supposed to let that side salad sit in the kitchen for twenty minutes while the steak is being cooked simply because the steak was ordered first and I should therefore serve it first? No. Am I supposed to wait the four minutes for the Frozen Mudslide to be made before I get a glass of water for table 2? Again, no. Am I supposed to be taking the extra Frozen Mudslide into the storage closet and downing it while cramming some french fries into my mouth? Yet again, the answer is no.

It's not about being MORALLY RIGHT or CUTTING IN LINE. It's about the greater good and how I can best take care of the needs of twenty-five different people all at the same time. Someone who has already had their appetizer and entree and is now waiting on dessert is going to come in second to the table who just ordered some calamari. The people who have already eaten are fine to wait two extra minutes for dessert while the people who have had no food at all need their food sooner. Here is another example: when I set down a burger and they ask for mayo, their request takes top priority because they can't eat their food until I get the condiment. If someone at the table next to them asked for more bread right before that, I'm gonna do the mayo first. Call me an IMMORAL WAITER, but that's how it's gonna roll. Besides, that lady does not need more bread. She's just had like four sides of Ranch. Enough already.

The person who made the comments is probably the same person who gets in the express line at the grocery store and calls out someone who has eleven items instead of ten. Or it's the person who demands a discount on their Greyhound bus ticket because there was traffic. Or he's the guy who gets a rain check coupon at Bed, Bath and Beyond when an advertised special has run out even though they didn't really want the item until they saw it was gone. "But it's MORALLY RIGHT for me to be able to buy that *FIVE PIECE CHEESE BOARD SET*  because it was ADVERTISED *IN THE PAPER* and NO, IT DOES NOT MATTER that I am LACTOSE INTOLERANT, but I"M JUST SAYIN'."


Oh comments. I love 'em. Keep 'em comin'.



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