"How come I no seet there?"

Convention hotel restaurants have to be some of the most bizarre places to work as far as dealing with the variety of people from all over the world.   

When groups of people stay at the hotel for a convention, our guests become this bizarre wave of the exact same type of people dining in our restaurant for multiple days in a row.   One week we can have a health convention when people order mostly salads, gluten free options, low carb meals and hardly any alcohol.  Two days later everything can switch.  Next group: fast-food chain franchise owners who love to consume almost anything and everything and aren’t picky whatsoever.  As you can imagine, it can be a widespread blessing or it can be absolute hell on Earth depending on the type of group in house. 

This week the foreigners were back with a vengeance.  For five straight days and nights they’ve been infiltrating our restaurant with frustrating language barriers, with virtually no clue as to how American restaurants operate and appalling non-tipping scenarios like the word tip doesn’t exist in their native tongue (which for some, in their defense, perhaps it doesn’t). 

Let’s say, for example, I worked at the neighborhood Italian joint.  Sure I’d get a table here and there of foreigners but in no way would I ever, ever get five days in a row of 90% foreigners.  Never.   Never, ever, ever. 

I’ve written about foreign diners in Serving Humanity in the past (reference ‘Euro Convention’ May 2012).  But foreign people can be so mind numbingly frustrating to serve sometimes I had to touch on this subject again. 

Two of the most infuriating aspects of waiting tables are high maintenance people (for countless reasons) and not getting tipped.  Combine these two annoyances together - for five days in a row - and you’ve got a recipe for a total nightmare … with the possibility of a complete mental breakdown. 

Guest after guest piled into the restaurant seating themselves at any table they wanted.  Or they’d demand tables in a closed section.  Most couldn’t understand the concept of proper seating in the restaurant at all.  “But I see open table!  How come I no seet there?”  (Note: I’m writing this in improper English for a reason).  When people are allowed to seat wherever they want and whenever they want, it affects the entire restaurant; from the servers and their assistants getting too busy to of course the kitchen getting slammed all at once.  That's never a good thing.  Proper seating controls the entire flow of the restaurant and when this fails, the entire operation of a restaurant can collapse into a horrific spiral downward. 

Another annoyance the foreigners bestowed upon us was the amount of cappuccinos, lattes and espressos we had to make.  Foreigners love their post-lunch coffees.  And I’m not talking smack about this tradition, it’s just that we’re not set up for this at our restaurant whatsoever and therefore slows us down tremendously.  Basically, when we have a foreign group in house, we really need our own barista.  It takes so much time to make cappuccinos and lattes.  Consider how long it takes your Frappuccino to be made at your favorite coffee shop.  And what’s even more frustrating is that we’re not going to see any difference in our tips from making all of these drinks whatsoever.  More work and no money to show for it. 

Now back to the whole high maintenance, language barrier and non-tipping thing.

A perfect example was at the end of my hellish day yesterday.  I got the word we were finally shutting the patio after my seventh hour (and fifth day) of waiting on foreigners.  My assistant had just begun to clear the table settings and had removed seat cushions from the empty tables.  Just then, two foreign men sat down at one of these tables.  Oh hell no.  I walked over to them and strictly said, “I’m sorry gentlemen we are closing this section down …” One of them cut me off.  Two beers,” he said in his thick Eastern European accent.  Ugh…Fine.  It wasn’t even worth my breath explaining, especially because he wouldn’t have understood me anyway.  I still had several other tables and was still fairly busy.  I thought, “I might as well take one more table while I finish up with my others.”    I brought the check with the two beers I delivered.  I did a couple other things and came back.  He placed a large bill down.  I went and got change.  I broke down the bill with lots of change, hoping this would allow him to give me some sort of tip.  When they left, I picked up the checkbook.  Not a single bill or even a coin in the check presenter.  Stiffed again.  No big surprise there as I’d been stiffed probably over fifteen times in five days. 

Another great example happened to another server the night before.  She waited on a foreign table who were extremely high maintenance that screwed up her entire section for a couple hours.  Apparently the language barrier had a lot to do with it because their food kept coming out “wrong” so they kept sending it back.  They were highly demanding in every way possible, constantly asking the server and her assistant for things practically every time they walked by, but nothing seemed to make them happy. This table tied up the kitchen, tied up the server assistant and tied up the server.  All for nothing.  Their check was over $300.  They paid cash and left one extra dollar.   Yet again, more work and more hassle for no money. 

Anyone can handle this type of crowd for a day.  But on the fifth consecutive day, the annoyances of this group had begun to crawl beneath my skin like a nasty infectious virus.  It reached beyond the point of frustration that I just wanted to explode…  I wish I had counted the times I said to myself “just kill me now” over the past five days…  Yeah.  It was that bad.

I don’t want to talk smack about foreigners.  I love meeting people when I travel abroad.  It’s one of the most intriguing aspects of traveling.  Getting to know people and other cultures is truly fascinating. 

Of course I realize I am a foreigner when I travel.  I’m sure I’ve pissed off some locals in my journeys.  And generally speaking, I know Americans can be a pain in the ass in foreign countries as well. 

I honestly love getting to know foreigners and their different cultures.  But I also honestly would be completely satisfied in my life if I never had to serve another one ever again.  Never. Ever. Ever.   

~ HK ~