Your Waitress Can't Read Minds, Go Figure

I've worked in a restaurant and I have several friends who work in the industry as well and we've often exchanged horror stories about customers and managers in equal parts. As far as customers go though, there has always been one common recurring theme that repeats, over and over and over again, and I'm not talking about people who don't know how to tip.

There seems to be this terrible misconception by people that their waiter or waitress is a mind-reader, outside of the normal mind-reading we do each day, capable of gleaning all the little details you didn't mention about your entree that you should have while you were ordering. As much as we all wish it were true (I mean come on, how cool would that be?) it's simply not possible.

For instance, let's say you ordered a roast beef sandwich (which is pictured smothered in gravy and comes that way unless otherwise requested) and you order mashed potatoes to go with it. Your server asks you "Did you want brown gravy on the mashed potatoes?"

"No." You might say. Your server would note you wanted plain mashed potatoes, perhaps thinking in some remote part of their conscious that these instant potatoes almost require gravy to even begin to be palatable.

When the food arives you have on your plate plain mashed potatoes and a roast beef sandwich covered in gravy. "I said no gravy!" you start screaming, making a scene in front of everyone. You dinner guest is hopefully by now appalled at being seen with you because you did, in fact, say no gravy, but that was in reference to your mashed potatoes and not your sandwich. Believe it or not the two items are indeed two items existing sepparately of each other.

Another friend of mine once told me this gem after a fun day at work. They were taking care of this lady and her husband who both ordered drinks and started with an appetizer. The lady ordered a burger with the words mushroom and onion in its name. They enjoyed the appetizer thoroughly while waiting for their meals and when the burger was placed in front of her she lifts the top bun and says "I'm alergic to onions." She hadn't mentioned this at all while ordering. She's offered a new burger or another meal entirely if she'd like and her response is "No, I think I'm full." While this crazy lady was obviously lying about her onion allergy because she got full on the appetizer and didn't want to pay for the burger, it's still a good example showing that servers do not read minds. How was this server supposed to know she was allergic to onions if she never said anything?

Now, everyone makes mistakes, I make about 10 a day, and it's really no big deal. Most times if you make a mistake ordering and simply fess up to it, your food will be fixed, for free, because they want you to leave happy. Please though, don't make a scene and cause your server to take the fall for a simple mistake that you made. Besides, people will stare at you, employees will talk about you, and every time you come it after that they'll whisper in the back of the house "That's the crazy lady who claimed she was allergic to onions." If you're one of these people who expect your server to read your mind, please stop because you're single-handedly driving up the cost of my food and it's expensive enough to eat out as it is.

Yes, an Author Can Write Too Many Books

I love a good series, in fact I read series over "one-offs" almost exclusively. I think it may be because I become attached to the characters and the story and constantly crave more. The end of Harry Potter was a devastating moment, I experienced a minor period of depression while I searched for a new series to cling to. So yeah, I guess that makes me a stage 5 clinger.

For these reasons, it strikes me odd that when I'm reading a series, I eventually get bored with it. I'm not talking eventually as in 8 books, or 10 books, but there are some whoppers out there. Laurell K. Hamilton writes the Anita Blake series which now spans some 20 volumes (as of June '11). I stopped reading a few years ago and just can't seem to want to start reading again. I loved the series, I was enthralled by it for some time. However it seems toward the end where I'd stopped reading the series began to dry up, the plot seems to get tired. You can only fill so many pages with sex before it starts to feel repetitive and like it's there to fill space. Another author, Christine Feehan, has done the same with the Dark series, which I really enjoyed at one point, before it grew past 20 books and started to bore me.

I love these authors, and their stories, but as much as I hate to admit, I think book series do need to have some clearly defined end point where some major event happens or a bad guy is defeated and the series stops. Perhaps leave room to spin another series (like Tamora Pierce did with the Circle of Magic series, and even that came to a close, though she continues to work in that world), but I'm of the opinion that series do need to end, preferably before they're 30 books long and counting.

I know I say this now, and I do mean it, but I know, too, that when I'm about to finish the next series I'm invested in I'll be longing for more, wishing it didn't have to end. I think though, that's the magical part of a series, that they do usually end. It will take you on an adventure to unknown, faraway places where you can battle mythical creatures with magic and crazy weapons. When it's over the story gets to lay fallow, allowing us to recommend it, allowing it to gain a certain following, allowing the fans a chance to re-read and learn all the little details we missed the first time.

I think that's what I miss most about those incredibly long series, the inability to re-read. At 20 books, at a book a week (I do a book in a day when I have a full day, but that rarely happens anymore), it could take almost 6 months to re-read something that large. Further, after so many installments details and facts and names and places start to jumble, I have a great memory and yet I have a rough time remembering some details after the 10th book.

Since I can't stop authors and publishers from over-writing, I guess I'll have to simply enjoy a series for as long as it keeps my interest. If nothing else, they're great clingers between Paolini's long spans of time between books.

Taking On Cricket Communications

You've just enjoyed a great meal and a nice evening with the kids, you order desert and tuck in, the server drops the bill and you make your way up to the cashier and they say “$37.86 plus $5 convenience fee.” Absolutely absurd, no one would charge their customers to pay their bill, right? Wrong. This is where my battle with Cricket starts, on a sunny afternoon in the middle of Pittsburgh International Airport.

At one point in time I had a USB 3G wireless broadband modem from Cricket for when I traveled. Since I work mostly from home and charge clients extra for me to work on-location, I don't usually travel that much so I generally just pay the modem bill only if I know I'll need it in the next 30 days, and this works for me. On this particular occasion I forgot to pay the bill before I left, being in a hurry and needing to catch a flight and all, so I give Cricket a call.

They gladly pass me over to the billing department who kindly tell me I have to pay a $5 convenience fee in order to process my payment over the phone, to which I promptly say “No way in hell.” I'm already giving the company $50, so why should I pay them five dollars, merely so that I can hand over another fifty? The foreigner on the other line spits out the same line of crap time after time, a canned response showing up on his screen. Finally I've had enough, and ask for his supervisor.

When the supervisor gets on the line, I explain to him my situation and also explain how ludicrous it is that I should pay them in order to pay them. He spits out a slightly different line of crap that's shown by his computer screen again and again, and after another half hour of back-and-forth, me making valid points and him spitting out some flimsy excuse and apologizing again and again, I ask for his supervisor. Another half hour goes by before this guy finally gives in and takes my money without me paying a convenience fee. I'm happy (and I've effectively killed a ton of time waiting for a flight) and they can wash their hands of me, for now.

Normally I pay my bills online, that's how I pay all my bills, it's just easier, I'm always at my computer anyway and Cricket charges no fee to pay online because apparently that's, in their opinion, the least convenient method to pay and therefore requires no “convenience” fee. When I signed up with this company I was never told about these fees or many of their other policies which I'll get to in a second, because my run-in with this company is far from over.

I also have my cell phone with Cricket because they're fairly cheap and have a good "unlimited everything" plan which is what I need, given my call and text message volume, plus I spend a lot of time searching the Web when I'm away from my PC in my phone's browser, normally I pay my bill online, like I mentioned before, but on this particular day, I'd somehow procrastinated too long, and it's now the day the bill is due and I only have cash so I drive down the road to the Cricket store to pay my bill. They want me to give them a $3 convenience fee to pay my already $66 phone bill (I'm an Android user and they require special data plans at Cricket) so I have to give them money in order to give them more money. So I mention my phone incident and how they waived the fee and how I expect them to do the same. He basically laughs, and says (this is a direct quote) “If you don't fucking like it, go somewhere else and they can put up with your shit.”

I gave him the “Wow, really?” look and figured he'd just lost his job so with a self-knowing grin I gave him the money and left, pulling my phone out of my pocket on the way to my car. While I was still in the parking lot, I dialed the number to corporate, they took my complaint and all my details, the store location and the clerk's name. Not long after this I'm at my friend's house, enjoying a drink with him and his wife, and his wife Denae looks at me and says “What was that guys name who gave you so much crap the other day at the Cricket store?” I told her asked her why, she explained how she was there with her mom earlier while they were out shopping together and her mom had told her to be careful because she was Denae's ride home (I guess my friend had made sassy joke). The same guy who I had complained about had overheard this exchange and quipped “Don't worry baby, I can ride you home.” Denae laughed and explained she was married, he said, and I kid you not “Honey it's mind over matter, if you don't mind, it don't matter.” (lame pick-up line anyone?) I told her to call corporate as I had, and she did. To this day that employee still has his job, and still regularly harasses customers.

At the beginning of September, I had some further issues with the company and so did some close friends so I basically said I'd had enough and decided not to pay my bill, I planned on switching to T-Moble because they have a no-contract unlimited plan priced similarly to Cricket with better coverage and award-winning customer service (literally). T-Mobile's only draw-back is that their phones are $500-700 without a 2yr-agreement, so I was saving up to get a nice phone and be able to pay the first month. Unfortunately I have the least favorable odds in the world and things almost never work out as planned.

Shortly before I'd be able to make the switch I get an E-mail telling me I'm going to need to travel out to a client's data center on the other side of the state to do some maintenance, and I don't travel without a phone, it's just not a good idea at all, and besides my sister and I share my house so I'd need to keep in touch with her while I was away. So I break down and log-in to MyCricket and pay the bill, and my phone turns on. For about a week.

Cricket markets themselves heavily based on the fact that they're a no-contract provider, with no late fees or early termination fees. They don't maintain the same business practices that companies like Verizon Wireless use, allegedly that is, aside from providing absolutely terrible customer service. So when I got the text message “reminding” me that my bill of $66.35 was due on the 7^th of October (I paid it on the 29^th of September) I thought it was a mistake and dialed up Cricket. Turns out, it's not a mistake, they actually thought I was going to give them $134 for one month of service.

Before I go any further, I need to crunch some numbers for you, the same numbers I crunched for each and every person I spoke with at Cricket. On average there are 30 days in a month. My bill is $66.35 which works out to 2.21166... or $2.21 a day. My bill is due on the 7^th, they shut my phone off on the 8^th at midnight (so at 12am on the 9^th my phone no longer had service) Which means I had one day of service that I didn't pay for, but I mean, that's their fault for not shutting me off right away, assuming it was a courtesy I'm willing to accept responsibility for it though. I paid my bill again on the 29^th, because I needed to, God know not because I wanted to, and they wanted me to pay again on the 7^th of October. In effect, I should technically owe them $2.21 for the 8^th, but since “we can't just change your billing date” and the payment I made for essentially the next 30 days of service would only take me to the 29^th of October, I told them I understood, and that I'd gladly pay for the 9 days needed to get me back on track with the 7^th of November billing date. So in the end I was paying for a total of 10 additional days of service (one of which I conceded to pay for as my way of being reasonable and trying to meet them half-way) which at $2.21 per day is $22.21.

They refused to listen to any of it, well they all listened, and every single one of them said, and this is an almost word-for-word quote “I'm sorry sir, I do understand sir but the maximum rebate we can provide for time without service is $25.” In other words I was expected to pay $41.35 for 10 days of phone usage, and this is after I'd gone through 2 supervisors.

The third supervisor very, very rudely told me “You can't just pay your bill whenever you want, it's not a pay-as-you go service, it is [a] pre-pay service.” I responded asking him if I was wrong in my belief that Cricket had a no-contract service and he confirmed I was correct, and I also mentioned I never signed an agreement with Cricket and he confirmed I hadn't. So I told him that I wasn't Paying-as-I-Went, but merely Pre-Paying for 30 days of service beginning with the 29^th. I finally asked this twat for his supervisor who pretty much said all the same stuff with the same accent and a slightly ruder tone. I'm not sure if it was this guy or if I went through one more supervisor before I finally, becoming so very frustrated, explained again the mathematics of the situation and that I was willing to pay for an additional 10 days of service to bring me to the next billing date. He told me that because they require a payment every month, if you miss a month, you still have to pay for it, plus the current month, to restore service. If you don't pay for 2 months, or 3 months, you'd have to pay for 3 or 4 months of service to restore your phone connection. So much for a no-contract plan, eh Cricket?

We ended up arguing for another half-hour, and finally, at long last he said “How about this sir, you're the customer and [other stuff], we want to work something out how about $20.” I promptly agreed, and made the payment, reminding him again calmly and politely that this is all I'd been asking for for over 3 and a half hours, and honestly, they'd have gotten more money if they'd just listened to me from the start.

Why did I just type over 2 thousand words about Cricket? Because they're an awful company and I want people to know about it. Further, Cricket isn't a no-contract wireless carrier after all, because their terms of use are considered by them a “legally binding contract between you and Cricket” which essentially does say that you have to make a payment every single month or you'll pay for the months you didn't have service too, even if their FAQ leads you to believe otherwise. Just pray the sales person who sells you your phone lets you in on this and hands you their terms and conditions pamphlet because I never got one, and lots of other people I know didn't get one, so either this is new, or it's the terrible service at the neighborhood Cricket store. Either way, this company is ridiculous.

But it's not the first and only company to indulge in unsavory business practices, plenty of companies charge you a fee for you to pay them, for instance, and the only way they'll stop is if we force them to, by refusing to pay their fees, or use their service. Big businesses don't care about customers anymore, just like they don't care about employees, we're all replaceable. As a small business owner/freelance developer, I can say that I will never treat customers like this, I've fired my customers before, and gave them a full refund, but Cricket wasn't even willing to give me a refund and send me on my way. I am leaving Cricket, and honestly, I don't care about a contract at this point, I'll need a phone for the next two years pretty much no matter what, so I might as well, right?

Things to Consider When Tipping Your Waiter

Everyone goes out to eat at some point in their lives, often more then once or twice a week. When we go out, we do so because we don't want to cook, or clean, or maybe we're celebrating a special achievement or event of our kid(s) like an "A" in math or a celebratory dinner after a concert.

Rarely, though, do we think of the people who make this nice, relaxing evening with the kids or that new special person in our lives possible. Most notably are the service staff at your favorite restaurant. They run around literally all night, waiting on us hand and foot, making sure our drinks are refilled before they're empty. Your server is the person who acts as the intermediary, between the customer and the cook, making sure you get exactly what you want and how you want it.

The server often gets crap, so to speak, from both sides. They put up with our rudeness, our needy demands, they go out of their way to make the evening right, and they get the comments from the kitchen when the cooks screw up, your server is a micro-managment-machine, and they make your dining experience enjoyable. Even if the food is less than par, a good server can make the evening favorable anyway. Servers are, in fact, the most important piece of a dine-in restaurant's equation and what do they make on average? $2.83/hr. 

Having talked to many servers and non-servers alike, it seems that most people generally assume that a server makes minimum wage like every other employee in a restaurant. But state and federal labor laws allow employers to pay their service staff a special minimum wage which is far less than the standard. What makes the situation worse is that most people don't understand exactly how to tip, or what to consider as a basis for the tip.

As a general rule, for me at least, my server never gets less than $5 from me, even if I simply sat down and had a coffee, but I also tend to be out at 2am and often sit for an hour or two. Generally, you should tip your server $1 for every $5 you spend, which works out to 20%, this simple formula can save you time at the register with your phone's ridiculous tip calculator that defaults (usually) to 10-15%. 

Remember when I mentioned I sit for a few hours drinking coffee? Time should be taken into your tip as well, remember that on average, a table "turns" every 30-45 minutes in most family restaurants (like Denny's) and ever hour to hour and 15 minutes in higher-end establishments (think Olive Garden or Long Horn Steak House). So if you and your family sit for 3 hours catching up, you should probably at least tip 1.5 times the 20% standard (ex: $20 check works out to a $4 tip, divide the tip by 2, you get $2 add it to the original tip for a new tip of $6) however if you sit much longer consider doubling your tip all-together.

"Why should I double my tip or even tip more?" You might be asking, and the answer is fairly simple, if a server has 4 tables in their "section" that she is responsible for, and you take up one of them for 4 hours, they're effectively losing out on 3-4 tables worth of tips, which you should help to make up for, even if you've stopped needing refills an hour and a half ago.

If you've had a bad experience at a restaurant you probably shouldn't take it out immediately on your server, they may have had a death in the family, or perhaps another table was abusing them beyond what is expected, and trust me when I say there are some people who will run a server from minute one. If you thought your service was poor, tip no less than 10% and talk to the manager, they will usually adjust your bill for you or send you home with a free desert or gift card. If the manager or head waiter/waitress comps your bill, you should perhaps consider leaving at least a 15% tip, or even 20% because, after all, you did eat for free and it may not have been the server's fault.