Servers deserve a smile, too – especially during peak periods. Photo: Saltwater Cafe.
This New Year’s Eve we made an enormous mistake, well before midnight.
After ‘ooohing’ and ‘ahhhhing’ at the 9 pm Wollongong Basin fireworks, a small group of us decided a wander through town for an ice cream was in order.
First stop, Cold Rock. Packed. Fair enough. Next stop, Cow and Moon. Closed, fair enough.
Final stop, Maccas. Also packed, but by this point we’re happy to wait.
The (very young) staff behind the counter are working at a frantic pace, cooking up fries, making drinks and ice creams, handing bags to cars in drive through and calling out order numbers to the throng in store.
Poor buggers, our (somewhat less young) group of friends commiserates.
We pass some time reminiscing about how awful it was to work in hospitality, especially as a teen, extra especially on public holidays.
We indulge in some people watching, and try to guess how far away our food is.
We good-naturedly kick ourselves for being foolish enough to order anything, anywhere, on New Year’s Eve. What suckers we are.
A delightful pair of tween girls make their way to the counter and start to demand their drinks from the harassed server, barely older than them.
As we’re deciding whether to intervene, an older, well-dressed woman who looks like she’s probably mum marches up behind them.
Relieved, we assume she has a handle on the situation.
Please, don’t remind me of the old saying about what assumptions make of you and I.
Mum adds her voice to the tweens’, loudly demanding this poor kid expedite their order, or parts of it, ahead of everybody else’s.
He politely tries to explain their order is in a queue, it will be ready when it’s ready, and he can’t give them parts of it now and other parts later.
Instead of filling orders, he’s stuck explaining how the McDonald’s process works to someone at least twice his age with a chip on her shoulder.
Shockingly, no one got their food any faster.
Eventually we got our ice creams and left with plenty of time to get home and toast the New Year, but the whole experience left me with a sour taste in my mouth.
Surely we all remember what it’s like to have our first job? Surely we all remember just how much it sucks to work flat-out while everyone else is having a nice time with their loved ones?
Public holidays are busy. Hospitality staff are people. You might not be stoked about the service – there are plenty of times I haven’t been – but manners cost nothing.
Maybe courtesy is a New Year’s resolution we could all embrace.
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