COLUMN: If I May Suggest

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By Tobin Barnes
This is a touchy subject.

It’s about advice for waiters and waitresses. Yeah, advice like, “Do not interrupt a conversation for any reason, especially not to recite specials. Wait for the right moment.”

As much as I’d have to agree with this tidbit, I didn’t come up with it, and I admit feeling a little sheepish spouting it.

See, The New York Times ran this article recently: “100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do (Part 1),” which, as indicated, contained just the first 50. The second 50 came in a later article. Evidently, no one has the patience for 100 of anything in one sitting. Actually, though interested, I found even 50 a little daunting.

I say it’s a touchy subject because service people already have their hands full dealing with the public every day without me getting on some bandwagon with The New York Times. Even the suggestion makes me sound kind of elitist and hoity-toity. After all, I’m just some hick who is proud but realistic about living in South Dakota his whole life—not exactly sterling credentials for discussing high class manners and etiquette.

When I was a kid, the only “restaurants” we ever went to were the Zesto or the A&W for maybe an ice cream cone, a nickel root beer, or a foot-long hotdog, but only if the old man was feeling flush. Our dining was almost exclusively done at home or at the relatives, and, yes, our elbows were usually on the table.

Sometimes if we were on a road trip, we’d stop at a more traditional restaurant, but it was always some low-rent greasy spoon. The only tablecloths I ever saw as a kid were on the Cleaver’s dinner table on TV.

The first restaurant I spent much time in was the place I worked the summer after my senior year in high school. I was a bus boy. Uh huh, a great way to quash a cocky teenager’s dreamy delusions of grandeur.

Yeah, I can’t say I really enjoyed the job. For one thing, I worked for a skinflint manager who would have me come in early for the breakfast service, send me home when things slowed down, and had me come back for the busy lunch service. Can you believe it? Unfortunately, I did the whole summer.

Anyway by the end, I knew food service wasn’t for me, although the manager wanted me back the next summer. (And sure, who doesn’t want to hire a fairly hard-working, naive chump? Heck, that’s Business Management 101.)

But one thing I did get out of the experience was an appreciation for the hard work put in by the waitresses. As we all know, some of the hardest physical labor in this country is done by the lowest paid.

Ever since, I’ve tried to be a responsible tipper. I highly respect conscientious service, having seen where it comes from.

And nowadays, in our ever-growing “service” economy, most of us, high or low, are regular consumers of other people’s attention to our needs. Thus, we’ve developed opinions as to how that attention should be served. We’ve all become snooty dukes and duchesses in a way, wondering why there isn’t any good help anymore, as though we were to the manor deservedly born.

Therefore, I richly see the irony of having people serve me as part of their jobs. That being said, I’m sure we’ve all seen service done poorly and have presumed to know how it could have been done better. That’s why I was attracted to this New York Times “100 Things…” article by Bruce Buschel, a guy who writes about running small businesses. Buschel is currently building and starting a seafood restaurant and claims that his staff will be well aware of those 100 things.

I decided to humbly mine some of those “things” from his seemingly exhaustive list, such as, “Never serve anything that looks creepy or runny or wrong.”

Yeah, as David Letterman says, “I’ll take a slice of that.”

But, alas, I’ve already run out of space for more do’s and don’t’s, so I’ll continue this discussion next time (Part 2, in other words).

In the meantime, you can always google that Times title and check some of the tips for your own local waiters or waitresses. But better leave one other good tip, too.