Hot Tea and other problems

It would be nice if restaurants paid waitstaff a living wage.

Used to be a waiter during college. Egg dishes are notoriously difficult to get right -- the most frequently-returned item from my experience. A good breakfast egg chef is one a restaurant keeps.

This waiter also complains bitterly about tea drinkers. As a tea lover, this attitude makes me very sad. I just want some hot water, a tea bag and milk OR lemon, dammit!

R3 that was hilarious

From other thread:

[quote]I hate servers who think the customer is there for THEIR comfort! … Well, honey, that's not how it works. A pot of Earl Grey for our table, and HURRY! —Jane Austen

[quote]Mizz Austen: We do not usually serve one big pot of tea to a table in the Americas. The rash of testy tea drinkers here has never reached such epidemic proportions (thank the Lord.) So if you waltz in and order Earl Grey for your entire party, that probably means rustling up 4 individual tea pots, their 4 lids, 4 small plates for the teapot to sit on, 4 doilies for those plates, 4 tea bags, 4 little milk pitchers which must be filled (as the ones pre prepared in the cooler hold cream for coffee), 8 slices of lemon divided into 4 small ramekins, 4 cups, 4 saucers, plenty of boiling water, and 4 spoons. (Plus some honey in extra ramekins if you’re the devil, which we all know you are.) I also have to find a big tray on which to carry this burdensome mess. This doesn’t mean I won’t do it, it just means I am spending extra time on you when in fact I have a full station of other diners who are essentially my CHILDREN for an hour. They are hungry, prickly, all on the verge of a tantrum, perhaps riot. They all need my attention and you have just sucked it all up for yourself with your precious, pretentious TEA ADDICTION. For shame. When you order your fucking tea you are advocating child abuse.

You forgot Jane's response, R5

R5, lol.

I've done most everything in a restaurant, at one point or another. Ask me to make a mojito on a busy night? I will fantasize about murdering your loved ones. Slowly.

Do you still have waiter nightmares, r8? I haven’t done that job for decades, but at least once a year I have some long, drawn out, horrible dream where I’m stuck wading through some slammed shift and can’t get the first thing accomplished.

I still have nightmares occasionally, from being a server 30 years ago. I keep getting seated and can’t get to my tables, and everyone is pissed off.

I liken the dreams to Vietnam flashbacks!

I worked in restaurant kitchens as a teen and young adult ( a couple of them VERY expensive, French), and yes, I still have occasional nightmares about having to go back and work in those places. The really disgusting feature of the dream, besides the oppressively hectic work, is the omnipresent greasiness of everything all around you, the floors, the surfaces, your own clothes, just everything being filthy, like those places actually are.

This thread might take a while. As I understand it, DataLounge is chock full of millionaires, few of whom likely have restaurant experience.

The problem is, once you discovered your best way how drinks and dishes should taste to be satisfied, you'll never be happy with some outsider preparing, cooking, and serving your dish or drink. And you start resenting people for having to pay mark-up prices for unsatisfying dishes and service not up to your standards.

That is why I no longer go out. I save the people around me the passive-aggressive drama for disappointing me. If I want to hang out with friends, I can do so at my, or their, home. Do they get it right? Probably not, but they don't expect me to pay restaurant or movie theater prices for food, snacks and beverages.

R14 wins the best W&W in the history of DL.

I prefer a hole in the wall or a Michelin starred restaurant. Nothing in between.

R16 = slumming aristocrat

R9, I don't. It's been 20 years. But you better bet that I will speak up if a patron is abusing staff.

Tea: the problem is that it's relatively cheap for all that you get when you order it (aside from the hot water and tea bag). If restaurants would just charge more for it, like $7, that might cut down on the fussy tea drinker and disgruntled servers.

Here are some drink orders I didn't like:

1. Beer in those tall, longneck bottles. Easy to tip on the tray and the drinkers of same were yahoos.

2. Champagne / sparkling wine (by the glass). Actually, not so bad because at least the tab got run up (due to it not being cheap. However, another hard thing to balance on the tray.

3. Blended drinks like pina coladas, daiquiris, esp. on a busy night. Mostly because the bartender will bitch about it.

4. Martini order with too many special instructions from the customer. I worked at a place that never used vermouth in martinis: nobody ever noticed the missing vermouth. I had a customer who specified that he needed to have vermouth but only some infinitesimal amount. I took his order, walked over to the bartender and told bartender: you gotta use vermouth on this one. Customer was watching like a hawk and went apoplectic watching the pour on the vermouth. Sigh. People can be so miserable.

5. Martinis: 2nd reason. People can try to show off and get shitfaced. Yes, I know I should be watching out for overserving, but I'm not a damn babysitter. I assume someone ordering a 4th martini knows his/her limits. Alas, no. I have had a woman throw up right at the table. She was drinking with 3 men, keeping up with them, round for round. Next thing you know, she turned her head away from the table and ... splat. It was a hardwood floor and it really did go "splat."

I worked at a friendly’s. Fatties would come in and order a five scoop sundae with EXTRA hot fudge, EXTRA everything - and a Diet Coke. And not leave a tip.

[quote] Egg dishes are notoriously difficult to get right -- the most frequently-returned item from my experience. A good breakfast egg chef is one a restaurant keeps.

R2, read this article about egg cooks. Supposedly, it's easier to train an egg cook for fine dining than vice-versa.

Anyway ... to avoid disappointment (overcooked eggs), I started ordering "soft scrambled" eggs. I never heard about "soft scrambled" until I was at Denny's one day and the waitress recommended that. Very good!

I’m naked and scared

[quote] tea bag

Shudder.

Give waitstaff a decent salary! Eliminate tipping!