Short essay on eating out
I do not enjoy eating in restaurants because I work in one and I cannot bear to participate in putting someone else through it.
When I do eat out, I tip extravagantly. I'm the friend who checks your credit card receipt and has zero qualms about calling you out for leaving less than twenty percent or who just leaves an extra five or ten dollars on the table just in case. I always try to tip in cash because I know anything left on a credit card is going to get reported and split three or four ways between three or four other staff members who also aren't getting any practical hourly wage.
When I'm working and people tell me I gave them excellent service it means nothing to me. All it means is that I fulfilled whatever haphazard, half-conceived idea they had about what their dining experience should be, which usually means modifying dishes until they are practically unrecognizable from a dinner they'd have made for themselves at home, only consumed in a setting where for an hour and half they get to confuse themselves for royalty and their servers for servants, apathetic to the messes they leave for others to clean up. The rest of what most people expect when they go out to eat they make up along the way, only deciding that the price of their meal entitles them to something at the point that they realize they don't have it. And often it is that one intangible, formerly unneeded thing down to which comes the server's entire night. So you enjoyed yourself. Good. So you were well-served. I'm glad for you. Can I go home now?