Be Nice To The Waiter—Better Yet, Let's Be Kinder To Each Other

(SPOT.ph) There are few things we who live on the internet love more than someone else’s steaming hot mess, and don’t you deny it. Even for those among us who claim to—and to some people’s credit, try to—be above the drama, there’s at least a tiny amount of sordid, private satisfaction that it wasn’t you put on blast. And, to be fair, there is an evolutionary benefit to this behavior; we see very clearly what it is we shouldn't be doing.

Although this may be common, perhaps even natural, it is behavior that’s still worth examining from the very top of things.

We’ve all been in that awkward scenario, in any one of three positions; you may be the person who ‘done goofed’, the person on the receiving end of the goof, or one of the other patrons at the restaurant, watching the shit hit the fan. I’m someone who’s been all three at one point or another—and here’s what I’ve learned.

My (brief) life as a waitstaff

The summer I turned 18, I found myself freelancing as waitstaff. A friend of the family needed an extra pair of hands at events within a couple of weeks of each other and would happily pay me the regular day rate. The work was hectic, but the events were only a full day apiece, and it was kind of exhilarating—keeping upwards of a hundred people fed and watered, directing them any which way, and taking their pictures while staying out of their path is not for the faint of heart, whatever anyone might tell you. I was young and could stay on my feet for hours; after a while, though, you’re running on a small dose of adrenaline and just trying to make it to the end of the night.

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That is until someone hit you with a curt “Do you know who I am?” and the damning truth is that you really, really don’t. It’s the CEO tito of the bride who arrived 45 minutes late and expects you to know his blood type. It's the tita of the groom who thinks “that girl” isn’t good enough for her nephew (as though she even gets a say) and is mad I wasn't nodding enthusiastically. You stood there thinking, ‘Please take a canapé, ma’am/sir/mamser, I needed to pee two hours ago.’

And that’s me talking, at the time an incoming sophomore at one of the country’s top colleges, deciding what I should possibly minor in; I was speaking from a place of privilege even back then. If I wasn’t lucky enough, the friend who had hired me for those events was quick to get me out of harm’s way—I understand now, at the ripe old age of [redacted, REDACTED, shut up], that not everyone has such a good boss, even at a white-collar job.

'But did you die?'

Fast-forward to today, when about a quarter of my career revolves around visiting restaurants. I’ve been writing about food, travel, and culture for almost a decade; if you’ve trusted what I’ve had to say before, I hope you can listen to me now. The food and beverage industry is cutthroat; sometimes all even a renowned chef has time to do is make sure that the new servers are nice enough and are good about washing their hands. Yes, we should expect certain establishments to meet certain standards, but I think what we on the dining end often forget is that even if they screw up, it doesn’t herald the apocalypse. In the immortal words of Leslie Chow in The Hangover, “But did you die?”

That’s not to say I haven’t fallen victim to memorably bad service. Wet tables and flatware, poorly prepared food, a near-rotten tomato slice here and there—regardless, I try to live by the philosophy of the late Jonathan Gold, LA Times and LA Weekly food critic, and one of the greatest to ever do it: Don’t rag on a restaurant that’s clearly trying. And if he can say that, I think we’re all at a loss—unless, of course, the staff are just straight-up rude.

That’s the thing, though, isn’t it? Servers often need that job very badly. They literally cannot afford to be rude, so they’re not going to go about it on purpose, even though it can feel like a personal affront in the heat of the moment. The attitude our culture has about the work is so strange, too: Our system has turned a perfectly respectable job into a necessity that’s ‘beneath us,’ and then wonder why no one wants to do it. 

But there’s a reason that so many people list ‘nice to the waiter’ as a must-have on their dating profiles. Somehow, we have this collective understanding that they’re generally doing the best with what they’ve got, and that we shouldn’t expect them to have taken three courses of gender studies or gone to finishing school or what have you. Maybe we even know, somewhere deep down, that all it takes is one especially unfortunate day to throw us into a similar situation.

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The unlucky spectator

More often, however, I’m the unlucky—or very lucky, however you want to look at it—audience member. I’ve watched full-on fights go down in transit, in fast-food restaurants, and even in hotels. And I’m no saint; I didn’t do a blessed thing about some of them because I wanted to see who’d win, and to steer clear from a plate to the face. But a majority of the incidents I’ve borne witness to both online and off are not free MMA matches; mostly, it’s a disgruntled customer with concerns of varying degrees of validity, but generally the same levels of unrelenting snark that shouldn’t be deployed as early as they have been. 

It’s easy to sit back and tsk tsk tsk at these people—so easy, in fact, that we frequently take it a step further than we have to, particularly when social media is involved. Just a few clicks and taps, and you’ve found the person you’ve decided needs to atone for their sins immediately.

As a person who’s been on all sides but largely in the bleachers, I have to wonder: When did we all decide that a minute-long video told us everything we needed to know? Haven’t we all behaved irrationally because someone struck a nerve, intentionally or otherwise? Don’t we all look back and wish someone had been there to tell us what we needed to hear? How often have we been so sure that someone deserves what they get without questioning the weight of the word ‘deserve’? And when did life become the school playground, or freaking Gotham, where we seem to eagerly await our turn at being either a bully or a self-appointed vigilante? Sure, you’ve gone viral, but that fifteen minutes of social capital isn’t exactly going to be a warm, fond memory for you, or for anybody.

Somewhere along the way, I think that we’ve forgotten the basic truth that we’re dealing with actual people here. We aren’t each other’s background actors; neither are we merely online reaction fodder. When you leave the restaurant in a huff or drop a hateful comment, someone else’s real life continues without you, and they have to pick up the pieces. And these days, what goes around comes around a lot faster than it used to.

Being able to take the time to reflect on your actions is itself a privilege—others are running themselves into the ground to make ends meet. No one’s asking you to be perfect (I hope), but as the 1992 Ice Cube-ian proverb goes, “Check yourself before you wreck yourself.”