The waiter

It is such an education to watch well-heeled people interact with “lowly” waiters. Condescending, arrogant, self-righteous are some terms that come to mind. And lest you smirk at this finger pointing, it might be sobering to note that a vast majority of us are condescending, arrogant and self-righteous towards waiters, or for that matter, any member of the working class.

Let me explain this with a real incident. At a 5-star restaurant once, a rather well-educated gentleman, entourage in tow, sat himself down pompously. A rather garrulous and loud account, punctuated by louder ha ha ho ho’s of his visit to Ho Chi Minh City was on all the time in complete disregard of the other patrons’ desire for privacy.

Before any waiter could approach him, the gentleman in our story turned himself in the general direction of the nearest waiter, who, at that moment was serving an NRI family at the next table, and did “Shhhhh! Waiter!” in his loudest hiss and voice. Now, that really got everybody in the dining area bristling. Some (like me) wished the fellow would just fall to the ground and spare us. The waiter, trained by manners and chained by his need for a job, arrived at the said gentleman’s table in complete submission. His smile seemed to say, “I would love to get my hands on your thick neck and choke the air out of you, you @#$%#.”

Armed with the menu card, the gentleman in our story fired out his selection of dishes too fast for the waiter to jot it down in his pink order-pad. At this, our “hero” got furious and started abusing him. After listening to his tirade patiently, the waiter got it all down finally and then proceeded to the kitchen. The loud conversation from the said gentleman’s table continued to assail everybody’s senses for some more time. And I for one was fervently hoping for the food to be delivered to his table so that his mouth would shut up and give other patrons some time to pursue their conversations without having to shout their respective lungs out.

Finally, the food was served and horror of horrors, the waiter committed the crime of mixing up one dish. The gentleman flew off his handle and yelled at the waiter and called for the manager. Not satisfied with that he yelled for the GM of the hotel and loudly complained to him as well, all the while making sure that the waiter got it left, right and centre. The waiter now was on the verge of tears, unable to say anything save apologize profusely. The GM massaged the gentleman’s ego long enough to quiet him down.

At the time of paying the bill the GM came to the gentleman and said something to him in a voice loud enough for those of us seated near him to overhear, “Sir, my sincerest apologies for what happened. You see, the waiter just lost his wife yesterday. Since we are short of staff we had no option but to ask him to report for duty today. Please excuse him.”

The gentleman fell silent and looked at his plate in utter embarrassment. The point was driven home deep.

Moral of the story: We must remember that the lowly, bumbling waiter, is also a human being with emotions and a sense of loss at times.

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Jones Mathew offers marketing consultancy besides running a soft skills training company Keystone Training Solution. Visit his website at www.keystonetraining.net.