Tag Archives: Restaurants

I should start a blog where I only write stuff about waiting tables. But what would I call it?

I work in a restaurant, so naturally every time I sit down to write something, the first thing that pops in my mind is something about the business, something about waiting tables. But I don’t want to be that guy. There’s a really talented guy who writes about waiting tables, and he did it already, he wrote all about it. I’m pretty sure I don’t have anything novel to add to the conversation. But still, I spend a good chunk of my waking day serving food, and sometimes it just begs to leak out onto the page.

So I’m thinking about maybe, just this once, letting myself write some restaurant stuff. But everything that’s coming to mind immediately sounds so boring, so tired. I’d say trite, but that word is really trite. Everything is just going to come off as whiny. It’s one thing to write about stuff in a funny way, but I’m worried that once I get started on the little things I feel I need to get off my chest, it’s going to snowball into this giant Death Star of bitterness.

How do I do it without sounding too angry? How do I do it without giving everybody a huge lecture on how to behave at a restaurant? Because nobody wants that. I get it, you don’t go out to eat for the benefit of the staff; you go out to eat for your own enjoyment. And so even after I complain to myself in my head about certain things that bug me, another voice in my head starts saying stuff like, “Well, it’s your job. If you hate it that much quit. Or stop complaining.” And I hate it when that side of me butts into my inner monologue, and I get even angrier.

But a lot of my troubles all boil down to the fact that there really isn’t a cohesively American restaurant etiquette. Everything, little things, big things, they might all be done differently at different restaurants. Don’t pay your waiter, pay at the register. Don’t pay at the register, pay your waiter. You have to ask for extra here. Over here you don’t ask, it’s automatic. I recently switched restaurants, and I’m just shocked at some of these differences in the way service is carried out. At my old restaurant, I had my section, my tables, everybody had to go through me. And there were benefits to this, like I knew exactly what I had to do and I could figure out how to prioritize my actions in the short term. All while keeping my head above water and trying to make some money. I mean, that’s the idea.

But at this new restaurant everybody is supposed to be available to anybody. So a random customer asks me for a Coke and now I have to get it. At my old restaurant I would have just pretended not to see him waving. I’m only kidding. Sort of. I joke around about how I can be this huge dick, but really I had my own little tasks that I had to take care of, and so pretending not to see him was actually nicer than the alternative, me just kind of saying to this guy who wanted a Coke, “Your waiter’s coming right over.”

But customers don’t know how the staff operates from restaurant to restaurant. And the guy just wanted a Coke. Maybe he was really thirsty. I hate that whole, “I’m not your waiter,” business, even when I was working at that old restaurant and I had to do it every ten seconds. Who hasn’t ever found themselves sitting at a table for way too long without a drink? It happens. But customers get cranky and the staff gets upset for the customer getting pushy and, ultimately, if he or she is pissed off enough, they won’t get a good tip.

Tipping. It’s a pretty crazy way for people to make a living. It’s all so arbitrary. What do you do about that table that received great service but still only left fifteen percent, or less? And why? Why did they cheap out on the tip? Because they’re allowed to. Because restaurants don’t have to pay their staff a decent wage, they can leave it to the discretion of the customer. And a lot of the time customers are jerks. Why pay more when I can pay less? I’m giving myself a discount on the dinner, and in life, by being a bad tipper.

What’s the theory behind this, that without the expectation of a tip, the waiter or waitress wouldn’t work as hard, right? Let me tell you, it’s total bullshit. If I knew that I were to receive an automatic twenty percent from every check, everybody would be having a more pleasant dining experience. Because I wouldn’t be stressed out over a tip. I wouldn’t be trying way too hard to be fake nice or running around the floor like a crazy person, trying to show all of the customers how hard I’m working. I would just be chill, relaxed, and I’d perform my duties with a lot less nervous energy.

And another reason why tipping is detrimental. I don’t know about other servers, but I can only take so much disappointment in one shift. After three or four shitty tips, I basically just lower the level of work that I’m putting in for the rest of the night. Because I’ve worked hard already for money that just wasn’t coming in. Why bother? Just shift into autopilot and keep that mediocre money flowing in.

But nobody wants to hear this stuff. That’s why I’m not going to write about it. Except this one anecdote. Really quick. The other night I had these two women who refused to leave the restaurant. It was like an hour and a half past closing and I was the only waiter left, because I had to wait for them to leave so I could clean the table. Finally I begged the manager to kick them out and he eventually approached the table. They knew right away, they were like, “Yeah, yeah, we know …” and got their coats on and left. And I was just standing there, holding back the explosive rage inside, wanting them to turn around and see the look on my face as I wiped down their table, tell them thanks a lot for their shitty twelve percent tip. But I can’t do that. Waiters are strictly prohibited from being rude to a customer, even if they were rude to you by not paying you what you were owed. “Don’t you dare talk that way to a customer! Or look at them funny! Smile! Now! We’ll fire you! We pay you a special minimum wage, special in the fact that it’s comically lower than regular minimum wage, which is already comically low in and of itself, to be nice and friendly and subservient and obedient!”

And they didn’t look back anyway. They were just oblivious to my existence, not a care in the world regarding the fact that, not only did they waste my time, but they didn’t even pay me enough for the job I did for them. That’s how this works. You don’t get table service at McDonald’s so you don’t have to tip. In any other profession you complain if your employer doesn’t give you all of your money. But waiters have to stand there and smile. “See you next time! Get home safe! You forgot your doggy bag miss! Wouldn’t want to forget those two shrimp!” Come on. Who sits in a restaurant that long? Get a life. Go out to a bar. You’re just going to sit? Can’t you sit somewhere else? Like at home? Don’t they realize that other people want to get to their homes, get some sleep? Just completely inconsiderate of other human beings. It’s unimaginable.

See? That was way too bitter. I’m scowling right now. I think I’ve aged a whole month in like half an hour. I could never do this, the whole writing about being a waiter gig, because I can’t even make it funny. It just gets dark. And I don’t want to be dark. I don’t want to complain. Nobody wants to read it. Everybody’s got to work. I wouldn’t want to read somebody writing about how much it sucks to be an accountant, how these idiots come in at tax time and have no idea how to manage their own numbers, these jokes of human beings who didn’t save any receipts or bring any of the papers they were told to bring in order to have their returns processed properly. That would be super lame. And I would get pissed, thinking, hey, that accountant is talking about me. I’m not stupid. And so I’d stop reading. And I’d probably stop going to him for my taxes.

Go ahead and try not to laugh

I love it when I make a bad joke but somebody laughs anyway. It’s like when you go to a restaurant and you don’t enjoy your meal at all, but you don’t say anything, because that’s not something that you normally do, but the waiter can totally tell, he can see just by the look on your face, he knows because he knows the menu, and he knew that you probably shouldn’t have ordered that dish in the first place, but he didn’t object, and why would he? It’s not in his job description to discourage people from ordering food. But still, he feels bad, and he wants a tip, so he knocks it off the bill. The food sucked, but you still ate, so you’re not hungry anymore, and it was free.

All the time I’m thinking of stupid jokes to say, especially when I’m around other people, but a lot of the time I get so excited by the idea of me telling a joke or trying to be funny that I’ll start laughing to myself even before I’ve opened my mouth. It’s terrible, because I’ve drawn attention to myself. And I’ll calm myself down to the point where I think I can give it another try, but usually, especially if it’s a really funny joke, maybe twenty-five percent of the way through I’ll start laughing again. At this point I have no choice but to try to finish, so I press on, and somebody else will eventually start laughing, and they’ll say, “Rob, I can’t understand a word you’re saying.” And that’s kind of like that free meal. I was looking for a laugh and I got one.

Or sometimes I’ll just fire off joke after joke, none of them funny at all, and finally after like the sixth or seventh try, somebody will laugh. And it won’t be a fake laugh, either. It’ll be like a, “I can’t believe he’s still talking, still making bad jokes,” kind of laugh. Which I’ll still take. It’s even better if I’m laughing to myself throughout all of these bad jokes, because then I’m not just getting laughs for telling bad jokes, but it’s more of a performance, a funny little show that I’m imagining I’m putting on for everybody else.

It’s kind of like this one time when I went golfing with my friends and after the third hole it started to rain. So we went back to the clubhouse and the guy gave us most of our money back. And then we sat at the clubhouse bar and drank beer for like three hours. It wasn’t exactly what we were going for, but we still had a great time.

Would you believe me if I told you that one time I golfed a hole-in-one? Of course you wouldn’t. And it didn’t happen. But imagine you were golfing with me and I was loudly insisting on shooting a hole-in-one all day. The first joke you’d probably try to ignore, maybe give me a polite smile. The second time you’d think to yourself that I can’t be serious, that I maybe I should just give it a rest. But halfway through the course I’d just find more and more blatant ways to throw them in there. You’d eventually cave. You’d have to laugh. We’d drive up to the green and I’d say, “Hey, did anybody see where my ball went?” and everyone would pretend not to pay attention. And then I’d move closer to the green and start saying stuff like, “No. It can’t be. I don’t believe it. Guys!” and then I’d rush over to the hole and I’d bend down and I’d slip my hand in my pocket to take out a ball and I’d put my hand in the hole, pretending to pull it out, and I’d look around to everyone else with a face of mock surprise. But I’d have a stupid smirk on my face the whole time, so clearly full of shit, and everyone else would be trying not to laugh, because I’d already done the same exact joke on every single hole, and nobody thought it was funny the third or fourth time, so why laugh now? But eventually someone would laugh. We’d be riding from one hole to the next and I’d make a big deal out of taking out the scorecard, asking everybody how they shot, and then finally saying, “And Rob … one.” And I’d mark down a big number one, every hole a number one. And I’d say something like, “Wow, I’m really golfing well today. I hope I can keep it up.” But I’d probably start laughing in between those sentences, and I’d have been drinking, so my laughter would be just out of control, just way too hard.

But like I said, someone would break and eventually start to laugh, if even just in admiration of how far I’ll see through a joke. It’s kind of like when you go to a bakery and order a cupcake and right before you take the last bite you find a big roach baked right in there, and it’s not even a whole roach, it’s just the end part, with little bite marks and everything, but you’ve been eating too fast, so there’s nothing to spit out, because you just thought that crunchy part was like coconut or something, so you complain to the clerk and he gives you your money back, and he throws in a free cupcake, and so you think it’s not all that bad, because you got two free cupcakes, but as you’re eating the second cupcake, you find the same thing, another roach, and you’ve already eaten the majority of this one also, and so you complain again, and the clerk gives you a free dozen, and then you take the dozen back home, and your mom or your wife or whoever you happen to live with goes, “Cupcakes? What’s the occasion?” And you say something like, “Oh, you know. Just wanted to do something nice for you.” And that person goes, “That’s so sweet!”

And it is sweet, because you didn’t have to spend a cent. But then when that other person takes a bite you start laughing really hard, because you’re thinking about how funny the whole situation is, and you’re trying not to laugh, but you’re practically choking because you’re laughing so hard, and so you have to say something, anything, so you try to explain that hole-in-one joke, but that makes you laugh even harder, and now this other person is just staring at you like you’re crazy, and so you just say something like, “You had to be there. Another cupcake? Eat up!”

I’m kind of pressed for time here

Every once in a while I’ll be really out of ideas for stuff to write about. Like right now. But at the same time, I know that I have to write something, otherwise I won’t be able to put something up everyday. People always say “quality over quantity,” but I disagree, I think quantity is clearly superior to quality. How else can our most popular TV shows make it all the way to seasons nine and ten without eventually just forgetting about quality and focusing strictly on the quantity?

But right now, unfortunately, I don’t think I have the luxury of neither quantity nor quality. I’m working a morning shift and for some reason I can never get out of bed early enough to get my writing done during the day. Today was supposed to be different. And it was, but only marginally different, because I only got up slightly earlier and gained like fifteen minutes of time. What am I supposed to do with fifteen minutes? Usually these things take me much longer to write. I’m not at all suggesting that I put a ton of thought into them, but generally I like to at least read the sentences back to myself to make sure everything’s legible.

But not today. I only have fifteen, well I guess now it’s more like ten minutes, to write about something. But I can’t think of anything. It doesn’t really matter, because I’m already three paragraphs deep and I think I’ve sufficiently wasted enough of everyone’s time already. The only thing I have here is me trying to beat the clock, to get a full blog post on the page before I really have to get out the door.

Getting out the door in the morning is the worst. I just switched jobs like two months ago. It’s the same gig, I’m still waiting tables at a restaurant, but whereas at my old job I could show up to work basically any time right down to the second before we opened, here I have to be responsible and show up forty-five minutes before service starts, making a good impression, looking people in the eye and saying stuff like, “You got it boss,” when the manager points to a stack of plates and makes me move it across the restaurant.

And so my morning routine just feels a lot more forced. Like I have to really be out the door at the same minute, which is probably the hardest part of the day, that conscious decision where you say to yourself, OK, my time is over, I’m now willingly giving myself up, walking out the door, to work for somebody else, at your service, you got it boss, how about another Diet Coke sir?

It’s not that bad. I read that back, OK, I didn’t read it back, but only because I don’t have any time, like I said, but I’m imagining reading it back, and it may or may not have sounded a little bitter. I’m not bitter. I don’t mind working in a restaurant. I like moving around. I like grabbing handfuls of food when I think that nobody’s looking and shoving them into my mouth. I’m sure the bosses have caught me, because it started out as just a piece of food here or there, but nobody ever said anything to me, and so I just upped the frequency, to the point where there are hardly any spaces in between bites. My whole shift is just one giant snack.

And then the chefs put out a staff meal before every shift. And I used to approach it with caution. Being the new guy, I didn’t want to just dive in, out of my way, here’s my elbow, I’m getting food. But that only lasted like a week, because I was being so timid with my regular snacking, I’d be famished by the time staff meal dropped at four in the afternoon. Can you imagine, like six hours without a bite to eat? If you’re reading this from a developing country, I’m sorry, that must have sounded completely insensitive. But if you’re reading this from America, am I right or what? Six hours without food? Please.

So now it’s like I’m constantly in and out of the kitchen, I always go in pretending that I’m looking for a stack of plates to move, but what I’m really doing is checking out the chef’s progress with the staff meal. As soon as it hits the window, I want to be the first person to throw an elbow to that other person who thinks he or she is going to be first. The first time I went for it, some other employee was all like, “Hey Rob, you’re supposed to let the night crew eat first.” And so I put down my utensils and waited for the night crew to eat. And then there was nothing left. You think I’m ever going to make that mistake again? Listen, there’s one thing I want in life. Snacks. That’s it.

Well, are you happy with what you just read? I did it. I wrote the whole thing in about twenty minutes. I’m not exactly proud of what I’ve produced, well, scratch that, I am proud, you know why? Quantity. Quantitatively speaking, it’s all there. And really, centuries from now, English will have evolved as a language to the point where anything written today is all meaningless gibberish. You ever try to read Shakespeare? No way that’s English. And so I would argue that quality is all relative. Or something like that. I really have to get to work.

I insist

If you really want the best in life, you have to demand it. You have to insist. People always get timid and make these faces with worried expressions, and they start whining, saying stuff like, “Well … you see … it’s … it’s just that … it’s just that I don’t want to come across as pushy. I don’t want to impose.” And I’m glad that a lot of people are like this, because it leaves more room for people like me to make our demands even louder, to start insisting stronger than ever. And those other people’s worried expressions will crinkle up even more, because they really don’t like to impose, but they don’t like being imposed upon either, nobody does, but being too much of a wimp to do anything about it, they’ll cave just to get you off of their backs.

You’re not going to go anywhere in life without insisting. Whenever I go out to eat, I order my meal like a normal person. But when I see the waiter coming over with my meal, I automatically start shaking my head in disappointment, before I even get a chance to see the dish. It doesn’t matter if it’s a good dish. Everything can be better. Every chef could take just a little bit more time preparing every plate to a higher standard. And that’s what I want. I want the head chef to personally remake me my meal better than ever. Much better. And the chef’s not going to do that unless you reject the first attempt. Unless you mean business. Unless you insist.

I’m not even just talking about sit-down restaurants. I’m talking about any place you can get food. Fast food places. McDonald’s. I’ll order a Big Mac meal and when the cashier hands me the bag, I don’t step to the side, even if there’s a long line of people behind me. Even if the person who is in line behind me automatically starts ordering, assumes that I’m done, just because I have my food. I hold my hand up to that person without even acknowledging them. I tell them to wait a second. I insist.

And then in front of the cashier I start going through the bag of food. I take out the Big Mac, the fries, all of the napkins. Everything that’s inside the bag. And then I open up the Big Mac box. I take the top bun off. I start running my finger through the shredded lettuce, poking around at everything inside. Then I do the same thing with the middle bun. I turn the fry box upside town and start going through all of the fries. I even take the lid off of the Coke and spin my fingers around once or twice.

“Not so fast,” I tell the cashier. At this point, the people behind me switch to other lines, because they know I mean business. And I like it better this way. I hate feeling rushed. The cashier asks me what the problem is. In all honesty, there’s probably nothing wrong. But throughout my whole life, everybody’s always told me that there’s always room for improvement. And when I spend money somewhere, I like to think I’m getting the very best for my dollar. I like to imagine that I’m insisting on the best.

So I complain that the burger isn’t hot enough, that the lettuce isn’t crisp enough, that they sauce isn’t secret enough. I point at the fries. There are usually at least one or two burnt little pieces of potato in there somewhere. If there aren’t, I’ll complain that the fries look too greasy. Or there’s not enough salt. And this Coke, when was the last time the syrup’s been changed? Today? Really? Well did they clean out the syrup hose or did they just change the bag of syrup? What do you mean you don’t know?

And when they finally redo my meal, I insist that they put those “made fresh” stickers on all of my items, indicating to me, to the whole world, that I’m getting the very freshest, that I’ve demanded quality. If they don’t put that sticker on, I make them start all over again. Because, how do I know they didn’t just repackage the same sandwich? Of course they didn’t, my dissection was so thorough they wouldn’t have been able to. But that’s what I’ll say.

Car washes are the best. First of all, I refuse to get out of the car when it goes through the machine. I remember when I was a little kid, you always got to stay in the car. But lately I feel like they always make you get out. So I insist on staying in. Usually nobody’s up for an argument, so they just say whatever and let me go through. It’s so cool. The stuff sprays out onto the windows. And then the big strips of cleaning stuff start going up and down on the windshield. It’s exciting.

And then afterwards those guys at the end start polishing the whole thing down with towels. And then when they finish they stand around with their hands out for a tip. And that’s when I start insisting. I insist that the machine isn’t running properly, that my car usually comes out much cleaner. I start demanding to speak to the manager, to see the machine’s permits, asking when the last time this whole place has been serviced. I always get another run through. Every time. These guys don’t want you hanging around complaining all day, insisting. They’ve got a long line of cars waiting to go through. You just insist long enough and you get another ride. It’s great.

I like to go in the backseat this time and pretend like I’m prisoner on a pirate ship, and there’s a storm, but I have this plan to take control of the ship while the crew is busy battling the storm, and then right as the car emerges from the carwash, I like to fight my way to the driver’s seat and pretend like I steered the pirate ship straight out of the storm. And I get out of the car and I imagine that all of the people wiping down the car are the pirates, and that they’ve accepted me as their new captain, and I start insisting that they check for barnacles under the hood. And they look at me funny, because it’s really just an imaginary story, all in my head, but whatever, I don’t care if anybody’s looking at me funny, I’m having a great time, this pirate ship scenario is so much fun, and I’m serious here, pop open the hood and scrub. I’m serious here matey. I insist.

My authentic Chinatown experience

We went to Chinatown last night because we wanted some really authentic Chinese food. This one place came highly recommended by coworkers and by the Internet. It’s just really popular for whatever reason. Finding it was pretty easy. It looked just like all of the other Chinese places densely packed on this tiny street, but it was the only one with a line out the door. It was so hot out that we really considered just going somewhere else, but how would we pick which one? There were too many choices, and all of the signs were in Chinese. Even if we picked one at random, my subconscious would have been making all of these subtle calculations, so it wouldn’t really have been random at all. It would have been a controlled randomness, a fake-decision cloaked in chance.

Anyway, we waited, and while we waited, outside, because the place was too packed to wait inside, we read all of these newspaper articles from major newspapers raving about this place’s Chinese food. “Ask the servers for recommendations!” these articles told us, “They’re really passionate about the food!” So I’m thinking, OK, I’ll ask for something cool to eat, something special. Because surely this newspaper article written in 1996 won’t steer me in the wrong direction.

We sat down at a giant communal table with a bunch of other people already eating. Fine, that’s cool. I’m a friendly guy. I’m not going to get weirded out sitting next to strangers. But I’m not going to talk to them. I’m just going to act cool. I’m just going to act like I don’t even know I’m sitting with anyone else. The waiter showed up immediately and asked us if we want soup dumplings, one of the specialties of the house. Everyone talks about the soup dumplings. They have these comic strips posted at each table showing the correct way to eat them and the perils of going about it in any other unapproved way. He asked if we wanted pork or crab. We said crab. He brought us pork. Whatever, we didn’t find out until we made it past the first scalding hot bite, so it was way too late to complain, and we were hungry, and the pork was fine.

Then the waiter showed up again and asked us what we wanted. “What do you recommend?” I asked him, like an idiot. I’m a waiter, and I know the I-don’t-give-a-shit-what-you-order look, and that’s what he gave us as he pointed to the “house specialty” dishes written on a menu insert in English. Fine man, I wasn’t asking for that, so I tried again, this time telling him to bring us out two dishes of whatever he thinks is the best, if he were eating. He shrugged and walked away. He came back in ten minutes with a fancy plate of beef-and-broccoli and another fancy plate of shrimp-and-broccoli. Fine. Thanks man.

The food was, like I said, it was fine. It was nice. It was definitely better than the whatever-and-broccoli you get at your neighborhood Chinese place, but only marginally better. I probably could have sucked it up and enjoyed my meal, but the Chinese family sitting right next to us started an actual round of applause as their food came out. And it looked awesome. There were crab legs sticking out of dishes that I don’t even know how to begin to describe. They were eating all of the stuff that I wanted to be eating: exotic Chinese foods that I would never be able to order in my own neighborhood. And they were loving it. It just made our dinner seem so, well, come on, it was beef-and-broccoli.

One time I went to a really cool Chinese place in a different Chinatown with a big group of people, and this one guy in the group totally knew how to order. I don’t know how he did it. He called the waiter over and they had like a private discussion for maybe ten minutes. The next thing I know, servers are carrying out trays of fried jellyfish and seared duck tongues. It was the coolest Chinese food dinner I’ve ever had. And here I was, trying to do the same exact thing, talking to the waiter, trying to convince him to sell me something good, and he’s just not into it at all. Was it me? Was it him?

I lost my appetite. Check please. Thanks dude. Thanks for already adding the fifteen percent gratuity. You totally earned it. Come on, I’m not even close to being a great waiter, but if a group of foreigners come in and ask for recommendations, I’m not just like, “Hamburger. Chicken. Check.” And as we left the restaurant, I looked around at all the other white people scattered amongst the giant round communal tables and I saw plates of broccoli, large bowls of plain lo mein. Am I reading a little too much into what was going on here?

On our way home, I stopped at a Chinese bakery to buy some steamed pork buns. I asked for my buns, paid the money, and left. The whole interaction took maybe ten seconds, no pleasantries. I don’t think the cashier said one word to me. And the person I was with commented on why everyone working in these places seems to be in such a bad mood. And I’m thinking to myself, it’s probably because they work in Chinatown, and they have to deal with groups of annoying tourists all day long.

The restaurant I work at gets its fair share of tourists, and I’ve noticed that certain groups of people act in certain ways. I’m not saying anything bad about how any groups act, but I’m making a judgment, inferring through a noticeable set of patterns, that restaurants etiquette is different in different cultures. I lived in Ecuador for two and half years, and I can definitely tell you that it took a couple of months to really get how to act in a restaurant. But it takes time. You’re just programmed your whole life to behave a certain way in a certain environment. And just because you’re on vacation, even if you have an open mind, even if you’re a nice person, it doesn’t mean that you’re automatically going to know how to act on the spot in a foreign restaurant. And even if you do know, even somebody warned you in advance, that knowledge isn’t going to make much sense out of context, it’s not going to translate into you acting as if you weren’t a foreigner. If someone tells you to grab the waiter’s arm in a different country, that, go ahead, it’s not rude, it’s how they do it here, there’s still going to be a huge amount of resistance on your part. There’s still going to be that fear that you’ll grab his arm and he’ll stop and stare at you and say, “Did you just grab my arm?” You just won’t get it.

But people who work in restaurants don’t get that either. They don’t get how different cultures and etiquettes and norms can be. So a different group of people comes in and they act differently and we take it as rudeness, condescension. We’re just annoyed. We have to work outside of our own routines to accommodate their not knowing what’s going on. And I’ve noticed a lot of my coworkers, how they get annoyed as certain people sit down, even before they have any interaction with them. They see them and they just already know it’s going to be annoying. So when you start out any exchange with that attitude, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Chances are they will be annoying and now you’re already annoyed. So it’s going to be even more annoying.

So then I look at it from the Chinese Chinatown worker’s point of view. All day they have to deal with American tourists coming in and behaving differently and asking stupid questions and wasting so much time and just being really annoying, disrupting the flow of normal everyday life. I can totally understand how by the end of the day you want as little interaction with someone else as possible.

I don’t know. It’s really hard putting myself on the other end of any situation that I’m normally used to being the other way around. I wanted some authentic Chinese food. Maybe I should have looked up the menu online and done some research in advance instead of placing the whole burden of the success of the meal on whatever waiter I happened to get. All I’m saying is that all the time I think I’m this progressive open-minded guy, but I still find myself getting annoyed at a Chinese restaurant, just like everyone else. Maybe we’re all just collectively really annoying as a species. Like it’s built into our DNA to wander around finding other human beings and unintentionally wasting their time by asking them stupid questions. I think that, with restaurants, it’s always going to be worse, because hungry people are really annoying, and picky eaters are even more annoying, and then you throw in miscommunication and preconceived notions and overcooked food and, didn’t I tell you I wanted this burger medium rare? You know what? Just go get the manager. Just let me speak to somebody in charge here.