tales from hell's kitchen

And by Hell's Kitchen I mean any place where servers attempt to satisfy asshole customers who are more anal and choosy about their food than they are about the people they fuck.

And let me say here that my fellow intelligentsia-my academic peers-those who've studied with me in the halls of undergrad and graduate school are often some of the worse offenders.

Last night I waited on a table of lawyers and MA type folk. Night starts off ok. They order rounds of drinks and apps. Then another table offers to buy them a round because he knows them. They happily accept. I tell the other server so he can ring up their order on the other guy's check. Meantime as I'm back in the kitchen making a cappuchino for another table the magnanimous guy's table leaves without paying for the round for the other table. I explain this to the table and tell them I haven't had a chance to speak to my manager to see what he'd like to do. I don't want to force the drinks on them. They giggle and say oh that's funny bring the drinks we'll pay for them. Drinks come to table. Suddenly the passionate overly educated chick in seat two lets me know that her lawyer boyfriend and she think this is the restaurant's fault and that they want the drinks but don't want to pay.

(OK so obviously not successful lawyers if they can't afford a round of Jack and Cokes. But whatever.)

End result manager buys them the drinks. Table sits and argues with one another all night about the injustice of how "american's" tread the lower classes and african american's and other unfortunates.

The girl is so passionate about helping the "other-lower class folk" that she winds up leaving the table with her crying boyfriend.

Meanwhile she had absolutely no qualms about throwing the single mother server who was waiting on her under the bus so she could get a free raspberry martini.

Frankly, I'm embarrassed by my fellow middle class peers.

At our establishment most servers have BA's with a sprinkling of MA's. We are waiting tables for a variety of reasons and all are astonished at the way we are treated.

It's not the super rich that tend to treat us like shit but that educated snotty middle class that think they have to prove something. It's sick. It's humbling. It makes me not want to associate.

I've seen women make servers cry as they sneer over their cosmo's.

I've seen men call waitress' dumb servers.

Where is the class?

Where is the decency?

Charity begins at home. How do you treat the people who serve you in any capacity?