‘Sweet November’ (2001) was not an especially good film. I got stuck watching it on a flight to Toronto the year it was released. And on the return flight. I know the film all too well. The primary mistake made by the film’s director and producer was the casting of Keanu Reeves. Enough said. Not to mention the fact that the film was a ‘cheap modern remake’ of a more tolerable original [more on that at a later date no doubt!]. The film did, however, feature a scene which is all too appropriate to the situation I found myself in today.
Reeves’ character, ‘Nelson’, is at a business lunch with his potential employer, a big-time ad executive. And I quote (with thanks to the ever-wonderous www.imdb.com):
[Waitress spills ice all over the table]
Waitress: Oh, my, I’m so sorry. Excuse me. Thanks, that’s okay.
Edgar Price: Stop it. You know sweetie, we are what we do in this world, and you’re a waitress. All that requires is that you bring the food to and from the table without making a mess. That’s it. So when you screw up somthing as incredibly simple as that, doesn’t say a whole hell of a lot about you does it.
While I disagree with the viscious sentiment I can appreciate the frustration in Edgar Price’s tone. And I’ll bet my proverbial bottom dollar that he was never a waitress himself. So he didn’t have a full and thorough appreciation of what was wrong with everything around him.
It’s my own fault for having waitressed for five years, and furthermore my own fault for eating out too often (actually, that may be someone else’s fault…). Mea culpa, etc.
Yesterday I went for lunch with a friend. We had an hour for lunch. Some people call this a ‘lunch hour’. I hear it’s quite a popular and widespread concept these days. We arrived, we sat, we looked at menus, we waited. For ten minutes. The place was unfull. I won’t say empty, but it was definitively unfull. Lots of eye contact, lots of all openly staring at the bizarrely oblivious staff. For ten minutes.
An aside seems appropriate. You have one hour for lunch. Take the first 3-5 minutes to gather your belongings, arrive at your chosen destination, and settle yourself. Then another five minutes to choose your food and be graced with the presence of the (hopefully) trained, efficient staff. You will have your food in ten minutes, or, unless you are a complete fool, they will lose your custom. We’ll allow twenty minutes to eat, unless it’s a big meal (or a big chat) in which case you can forget coffee. Then 3-5 minutes waiting to have your plates cleared, 3-5 minutes trying to and/or succeeding in ordering your coffee. Five minutes to get your coffee back, five minutes to drink it and hopefully a few minutes to rush back to your workplace while inevitably causing yourself indigestion…
So, an attempt at making a long story short. Ten minutes waiting to order. Ten minutes waiting for food. Ten minutes waiting for food to be cleared. Five minutes waiting for coffee, which is CRAP when it arrives.
Problem of knowing coffee - you know exactly what went wrong. Because they haven’t rinsed their machine through properly in a week. Because they boiled the milk. Because the milk is sour anyway. Because the coffee was cold before the milk went in it. And it all just tastes awful…
Problem of knowing waitressing - you know exactly what went wrong. They were bored. Or lazy. Or stupid. Or badly trained. Or not trained at all. They didn’t have a plan. They didn’t have a brain?!
I have no problem with bad service, or rather ‘pressurised service’ when that pressure is in evidence - a full house and at least two tables of complete assholes who have decided they are so important to the universe that everyone else pales in comparison (and their appetites and needs along with them). It’s when there are more staff than customers that my patience is severely tried.
Which brings me to tonight. Dinner with my other half in a delightful setting. The food, it has to be said, was good. The service… was not. Another side-effect of having been a waitress? I can’t not tip. My stomach churns when others fail to do so. But sometimes it is specifically necessary to avoid granting gratuities at all costs. Tonight was such a night.
The restaurant was mostly empty. It was 7:30pm on a Tuesday, and too nice an evening to spend indoors anyway. The Maitre D’ took my coat. Well done. The only contribution to my evening by the man in the overpriced suit with the overpriced smile. We were shown to our table, and given menus. All seemed to be in order. But god how long must you leave between serving us bread and water and checking us for signs of life?
Starters came. In two parts, which was not as intended and highly irritating. The mains were good. Watching their remains grow cold in front of us was not. The créme brulée was as it ought to be. It wasn’t too warm to begin with, so its process of growing cold should in theory have taken less time. But my didn’t we get to watch every tiny step in that process. I was tempted to stand up and walk out, but apparently I was feeling patient - either that or trying to stave off the embarassment of my dining companion. Most likely the latter.
For me the clincher was when the desserts were eventually cleared and we asked for the bill. Colm went out to the ATM to get cash for the parking machine while I paid. I need to stress at this point, the till etc. was a metre away if that. And yet, eight minutes later, my friend the thoroughly incompetent Maitre D’ hadn’t managed to make it back from the Bermuda Triangle that was “the doorway”. He had found his friend the barman, and they were having far too much fun comparing tie pins to bother with any of us.
Moments like that make you wonder, would anyone really blame me if I just walked out? I’d be fully in favour or creating a law whereby if your bill isn’t brought promptly you have the right to walk out without paying it at all. Or at the very least be given a bag of potato skins and mouldy fish heads to throw at your choice of staff members.
I wouldn’t mind but the whole process of getting me my bill took less than 30 seconds when the only vaguely competent staff member (the random foreign waitress, typically) was eventually summoned by my ever-increasing state of unrest.
What was really impressive about this whole evening - nay, this whole day - was that a civillian added the cherry to the icing on the cake even after the glorious debácle that was ”my dinner’. As we were leaving, a stupid, stupid man in a stupid, stupid blazer, was smoking in the porch (very specifically indoors, under a roof), and turned just in time to blow a mouthful of smoke in my face as I attempted to storm out of the establishment. I will refer you back to the aforementioned desire not to embarass my companion as an explanation for my current freedom from incarceration…
