Day seventy nine: it's not what you say, it's how you say it.

It still astounds me that some people who come into restaurants can act the way they do and treat their servers like they are second-class citizens.

Take for example one table I had this evening. It started out as a group of three. They informed me they were waiting on a fourth to show up and would wait 15 minutes until ordering. In the meantime they ordered a half litre of wine (2 glasses) and a diet Pepsi for the wait. 

Lo and behold these self-proclaimed seasoned wine drinkers informed me that there was something off about their wine and that it tasted awful. So I got them a different half-litre of a different wine -- no harm, no foul. There are two different kinds of people in this world: those who go to (insert real name here), drink one of four red wines and raise a stink about it and those who realize it's (insert real name here). As I've been implying throughout this blog, (insert real name here) is not a fine dining establishment and when the "house wine" is Carlo Rossi Red -- no specific variety indicated, you're probably no going to like it if you, like these people told me adamantly three times "know a lot about wine."

That's not what put me in a mood. 


What put me in a mood was while I was taking food to another table, the wine connoisseur decided to snap his fingers and yell out for me half way across the restaurant as if to let me know the joiner had arrived. 


He snapped his fingers and beckoned me over like a dog. 


Are you effing kidding me? 


Rule number one, if you need to get your server's attention, which was unnecessary because I saw the addition to the table when I walked by with hot plates in my hands en route to some hungry and more appreciative diners, DON'T SNAP YOUR FINGERS. 


I took comfort in the fact that when I dropped off the food the woman at the table looked at me and said "what an asshole" as if she was reading my mind. 


Situations like this happen all too often. I generally have a pretty thick skin and get over it pretty quickly. 


It's the times when people I work with treat me like a lesser person that really grinds my gears. A couple days ago it was the straw that broke the camel's back. One of the other servers snapped at me and while I would normally let it roll off me like water down a duck's back, I felt my eyes welling up. 


I had to give myself a time out and remember that it's (insert real name here). Who cares if someone is being a bitch? I'm not going to let it get the best of me but rather remember that it's not what you say, it's how you say it and continue to be pleasant to the people I work with. 


Now the trick is to do the same outside of work.