The process comes so easily for you, the customer. You get to choose the restaurant you want to eat at. Decide which table best suits your needs and comfort requirements. Make the special requests so your food is prepared just the way you like it to be. You never have to stand up from your seat. Just sit, eat, relax, and leave. But let me introduce to you, the customer, of what the staff goes through when you decide to spend your evening here.
You walk into the fine establishment and instantly frown at how busy it is. The hostess greets you with a smile anyway and asks whether you would prefer a table or a booth. After responding with a booth for your table of four, two being young children, the hostess leads you to your booth, still maintaining that perfect smile even after you complain about the placement and demand to be sat somewhere else. Not only have you now set the mood for your evening, but you have made the hostess change her plans. When giving a waiter a new table, the servers take turns in the receiving process. The "floor" or dining area, is laid out into sections. The table the hostess was going to sit you at was for the waiter who was next in line, but now your table is going to the next server since your demand for a new booth was out of that server's section.
Next, you are greeted by your server, who welcomes you with an even bigger smile and recites the specials for you per request. Your order does not contain the specials but in fact is something from the menu that has three substitutes, two subtractions, and an extra something. By this point, your young children are shouting orders and demanding when their food will be served even though they haven't ordered. Not ten minutes after your food has been put into the system, you are already asking when the food will be done. Your server can hear the remarks about the service being terrible but still comes to your table with a smile every time. With the five other tables, one being a party of 14, your server is running around from one end of the building to the other. All the while checking on your food to make sure they can get it for you the second it is out of the oven. But you didn't know that part, did you?
With every heartwarming smile, your server brings, they hear a new remark about the kitchen being slow, the service being terrible, that you should have picked somewhere else, and the list goes on. Your server offers complimentary breadsticks, chips, anything they can, and you reject them all. The server coloring books for your children, refilling drinks as fast as possible, and finally, the food is ready.
After the meal is complete, your server smiles one last time, offers dessert, brings the ticket, and wishes you happy holidays and thanks for coming in. You make one last remark about the food being expensive, something you should have known before coming in, and leave a dime for a tip and walk out still grumpy.
Whether you are a high schooler trying to maintain a part-time job, or a college student trying to make ends meet as a server, remember not to let nights like these get you down. Not every customer behaves this way, however, if you are the customer in this position, remember all the workers that it takes just to give you a relaxed dinner and a good night. You chose to go out, and when someone treats you with nothing but respect and smiles, how hard could it be to do the same in return? So the next time you go out, remember, you could have cooked dinner yourself.
