Why do people go to restaurants? To eat, drink, and socialize. Or to do business, if it's a business lunch or dinner. To not cook at home, could be another reason. To have a wide variety of choices, well done by a professional cook or a... chef. To not deal with dishes before or afterwards. And to pay accordingly, let's not forget that.
Today I was in town with things to do. In my path through town, I also went by my sister's office. She is usually very busy during work hours, but today she was unexpectedly free.
So. we thought to do something we haven't had time to do either of us for quite a while: eat lunch at a restaurant during "work hours" (hers in particular, since she has a regular schedule) and catch up a bit.
I'm not sure if this is just my impression over time or if there is some truth to it, but I seem to attract some sort of bad luck when it comes to employees I need to deal with at various businesses. They're very often the new guys, who don't know anything and need to be handheld.
When I went into banks (since there are online services I rarely do), I was the lucky one who got the new girl who didn't know the system yet and I had to wait for at least half an hour until usually someone more experienced came over to help.
Same thing in other offices...
In restaurants... you guessed. The new guys. But in this case, I kind of understand, jobs are often on a temporary basis, and employees rarely stick around.
What I don't understand is screwing up time and time again and never seeming to care you do it. Or apologize!
So, the establishment we went to is not a cheap one, quite the opposite because it is in the center of the town (closer to my sister's office). And more expensive than the one next to it because my sister wanted something the other one didn't have on menu (in the end, she didn't order that at this place either).
So, we had a young boy as our waiter. Probably in high school working over summer, which is a great thing, I'd say.
Given that he probably works over summer when others take life the easy way, I may be too harsh on him.
Some of these things probably would have been more useful if they were told to his face, but I wasn't in a mood to teach, and he certainly didn't seem very... receptive.
I don't know the inner workings of their job and what they should learn first when they get hired, but when they interact with the customers, they'd better know the menu offered. He didn't. Or not entirely. When we ordered, he had to check the menu to understand what we were ordering and the type of food it was so that he entered it into the tablet... You'll see that didn't work out quite as expected...
You might think that's a minor thing, but you will see it's not. He ended messing up both the drinks and the food in our order. We looked away at his screw up on the drinks part and accepted it, even if it was an awful drink (I only tasted it), and I don't know how people can drink these artificial very sweet drinks.
He also spilled them over when he brought them. Not much, but enough... If I hadn't moved my leg, I'd probably have to wash my trousers now.
But when the food order came in and one of the dishes was totally wrong, we didn't accept it anymore and wanted what we ordered. This will probably be imputed on him when the payday comes, but he has to be more attentive next time.
There were others things we noticed where he seemed with his head in the clouds, something that won't help him with this (probably temporary) job.
Maybe he'll learn. The way he is now, he sucks... at waiting! Maybe he doesn't want to learn and this is just something he has to do until he can do something he really wants to do. I doubt many want to be waiters for their entire lives. But some are good at it, others suck. And customers have an immediate perspective which most likely diverge from the long term perspective of a temporary waiter, if he or she has one.
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