| Nobody likes getting good service when they dine out. Here’s a guide to guaranteeing lousy service at even the best restaurants in Calgary:
· Rather than tailoring your dinner in your own kitchen, visit a restaurant and order a menu item that doesn’t exist. Find the closest item to it, and then modify the living hell out of it. This is both challenging and fun for servers and the kitchen. If it doesn’t arrive at your table looking and tasting like your own or your maternal grandmother’s cuisine, complain to the manager.
· When a server arrives at your table, continue conversing with your guests. It is the server’s responsibility to intuit those fleeting lulls in the conversation and make his or her approach at precisely those moments.
· Be sure to order your drinks one at a time; if you order in rounds you risk freeing up time for your server.
· Never look service staff directly in the eye – this frightens them, disrupts the hierarchy of power, and will cause them to remember what you ordered.
· If you’re struggling to make a menu selection, require your server to stand at your side while you and your guests meditate on the subtle differences between the Atkins and South Beach diets.
· When your server is within earshot at another table, feel free to whistle, holler "here boy!", snap your fingers, cluck, or generate any high-pitched sound most humans can’t hear.
· Feel free to lodge a legitimate complaint, such as forgetting you hate saffron, but do not under any circumstances let your server remedy the situation. Servers are specially trained for and expect the passive-aggression of martyrdom.
· When the bill is brought to your table, offer one of the following two knee-slappers: "I didn’t order that," or, "Oh, my mother/father is getting this today," gesturing to your same-age colleague. Predictable humour is preferred over originality – this makes it easier for your server to laugh on cue.
· It is perfectly acceptable to ask for separate bills at the end of the meal. Your server will then vanish for at least 10 minutes of intense computer work, giving you, and the rest of the rubbernecking section, ample justification for a crappy tip. In fact, leave 13.5 per cent or less, so that the image of your face is seared into the memory of everyone on staff, ensuring terrible service on your next visit.
· Remember, it’s not your problem that servers must divvy up a hefty percentage of their tips to various support staff in the restaurant. Nor should you feel remorse for stiffing your server right into debt. Who cares if this is theft of service? It keeps servers keen and hungry, bordering on bitterness, right where you want them – this is the incentive component of capitalism at its best!
· It’s appropriate to clean out your change purse for the tip. Show your appreciation by including foreign coins, dog-eared bus transfers and lint. Canadian Tire money is not only wildly funny, it is also preferred over real currency.
Next week: a look at the unsung skills of restaurant servers. |
Copyright ©2005 FFWD. All rights reserved.