more of the same

If you liked random thoughts, you'll love more random thoughts!

I love reading about being a waiter. Today, I read about a food critic who went undercover as a waiter for a week. It sounds like he has a little more empathy for the servers now.

I hate hate hate cheap tippers. I hate dining with cheap tippers, the ones who try to take back a few dollars if we are over 15% or think that 10% is the norm or think that a tip is optional. It wasn't optional for them to take my order and bring me my food, so why is the tip optional? Anyway, I don't think I dine with anyone like this anymore. I am a good tipper (my baseline is fairly high and I tip on the post-tax total), but if we got freebies or if they made substitutions for us or some other sort of special service (anything that is not the default is special service), then I try to tip even more, to account for the extra time and/or hassle (like dealing with chef who gets mad at the server for a substitution request I made or the time taken to split a check or to slice and add an extra wedge of lime when there are other tables to serve). Usually, it's just a matter of a buck or two or three to bring up the percentage to something they will appreciate. And the server usually had been fetching and carrying for me for a full 1.5 hours or so by then. And I make how much per hour versus what they make? It would be different if I were pinching and scraping by. But I'm not. And my best friend is a server at a fancy restaurant, so I know it can be rough on them.

And I hate it when people treat servers like servants -- not that I would treat a servant badly either. Eating at a restaurant doesn't mean you'll be waited on hand and foot. It really doesn't. When I go to work, I interact with people who often require some output or a service from me. If any of them talked to me like I was their servant, I would punch them and quit. Yet waitstaff is talked down to and sneered at day in and day out. And many diners believe this is normal.

The flip side of that, of course, is to not treat me as though I were some pariah or you wish I were dead.

Anyway, end of rant.

I have mentioned this before, but I love the post office near my work. I just applied for a replacement for a lost passport, and the entire process took only 3 minutes. They are so well-organized there. I hope they get some sort of recognition for a well-run post office.

I am gonna stay away from American Idol until the semi-finals this year. I even missed the premier, which is quite a departure from my normally obsessed self. The semi-finals when they finish with the crappy singers and get to something interesting. I vaguely thought about stopping watching it entirely, but the draw of hearing someone like Paris Bennett for the firsh time is too big. Her audition was so stunning, so beautiful, especially when she broke out into Billie Holiday's "Take Five", I felt like I wanted to cry. Her voice was so rich and full. Man. Naysayers, please listen to her audition before commenting. :D Anyway, instead of watching the show during the auditions, I think I will just watch the best auditions on rickey.org. The TiVo helps though. I watched a 2-hour episode in something like 30 minutes last night.