Why Bother? A Grim Look at America's Food Service Employees

It is my personal belief that everyone should work in food service, if only for a few months. If everyone spent some time waiting on jerk-faces, er, esteemed customers, the experience would be so much better. There would be more tips, making the insufferable wages paid to our waiters a little less bottom-of-the-welfare-slop-bucket and a little more like they're working hard at a job without which society would almost certainly slide apart like an unbound bale of hay. No, don't tell me I'm overreacting. You know how important it is to those of "class" to be "served" every once in a while. (Bonus points if the server is of the same ethnicity that the customer's ancestors might once have enslaved, er, employed.)

That being said, the wait staff at my local classic-american-food-cafe really screwed the pooch last week. My folks were in town, and we were having a remarkably nice time with them. After examining a full dozen options for dinner, we settled on classic-american-food-cafe because of our familiarity with the menu as well as their accepting attitude towards children, two of which were currently in tow.

Red flag number one was when the couple that entered the restaurant seconds after us were seated first. We let it slide, since we realized that seating six people can take a little preparation. But red flag number two soon reared its ugly banner as we were seated without high chair or booster seat. Now, my children are two and four. Clearly, neither of them is capable of sitting right in the booth. Waiters milled about aimlessly, but none of them responded to our request that a high chair and booster seat be fetched. Undeterred from our hunger by this minor setback, my husband slipped behind the host stand in the front of the restaurant to retrieve the necessary items himself.

Our waiter approached - some ten minutes later - to take our drink orders, and another ten minutes elapsed before said drinks arrived. My dad and I noted with displeasure that no cream accompanied our coffee. My husband smirked with disappointment when he discovered that his margarita appeared to have not a drop of alcohol in it, and my daughter's drink was MIA. It all went downhill from there.

Every request (of which there were at least 1,000, since apparently our waiter wrote whatever he wanted in lieu of our orders) took almost exactly ten minutes, except, of course, the food (which took over 30) and, surprisingly, the check, which took a solid 25 minutes to arrive, at which point, my father threw his hands in the air and cried, "Why bother?" He then let loose on the waiter and the floor manager with abandon, flying off the handle in a way that I've never seen. When an uninvolved waiter (a scrawny little goateed punk) gave my dad the "python eyes" and called him a particularly nasty name, my father's reaction was swift and terrible to behold. In truth, he made a jerk of himself, and rather disappointingly we can no longer return to that restaurant.

But here's the rub: the only people in the restaurant that night were us, the couple seated before us, and at least 11 staff members all meandering about with their heads in the clouds. It was as though nobody on duty that night had any desire to do their jobs whatsoever. And even though my dad felt bad about his reaction later, we thanked him for a free meal and a good show.

Requiring all people to be waiters for a while might be a good idea, but it's unrealistic. Therefore, it's up to waiters themselves to make sure that their time spent working is worthwhile. Your job is difficult, yes, but do you think that moping around not paying attention is going to make it any easier? I'll miss classic-american-food-cafe, but good grief...if people can't throw a little weight into what they do, then why should anyone else bother?