I have often told people that I believe that the very moment we became a “service economy,” service began to suck. Yesterday, I had lunch with a friend who was in town visiting his parents. Another friend also joined us. Our first choice of dining establishments was as we used to say in college, “shit canned.” There was a sign out front which read “Closed for Beautification.” I am not sure what that means other than we could not have lunch there. My first thought was that without the U, the sign might at least have been interesting. Our second choice was nixed by me because the food is very heavy there and more importantly; you have to stand in a line cafeteria style although the décor does not match this approach. The third and final choice was an over grown bar with a lunch and dinner menu. We ran into friends of one of my lunch dates and made niceties’ before standing around awkwardly waiting for an invisible someone to direct us to seating. The bartender stared at us the whole time not uttering a word until; I asked if we should seat ourselves? He gestured with his hand and gave me a, “well duh,” expression. We sat awkwardly and I felt faint in that it was now almost 1:30pm and I had only two slices of dry toast earlier at 6am. No one came over so, my friend went back to the bar and asked for help and was told that we needed to get in line to place an order. The only person behind the bar was the bartender. He finally let us knows that around the end of the bar was the line. After a couple minutes a haggarded woman appeared to take our order as if it were a great chore. She gave us one of those child-like beeper thingies that light up to let us know when to return for our food. We did just that.
The meal sucked pretty much. How do you f –up a tomato and cheese sandwich? Well, we finished and as we chatted a lad took our plates (some of them.) As we rose to leave the same lad returned to take the remainder of the plates; this time he smiled. As we rose he stood looking much like a bellhop waiting for a tip. I was almost in shock. Had I been wearing pearls, I would have clutched them. “He wants a fucking tip?” We ignored him and left.
We made our way down the street to a coffee shop. It is obvious an independent sort. I have been in there before and cannot understand the absence of furniture. The place looks as if they are moving and have one trip to go. We stopped there because my friend wanted a cookie. He ordered the 4 inch oatmeal. No bells or whistles, just a four inch round oatmeal cookie. “That will be $2.50, the cashier stated.” We all were in shock and the cashier returned a look suggesting we were douche bags for not liking the cost. We quickly left. My friend asked if I wanted a piece of the cookie and I told him that I wasn’t worthy.
My lunch experience here is a long about way of asking, “What the heck is going on in this country?” We complain about taxes, NAFTA, welfare and a host of other maladies that affect our pocket books but, we don’t consider that we suck. We don’t consider that we need to offer a decent product served up well to the public. We can’t even produce a cheese sandwich (which by the by was $7.00 and immediately left as quickly as it had entered) but, we expect a tip? Maybe we should look at how we run businesses great and small before whining about how the government won’t let us or encourage us to make more money?
This soapbox will self destruct in five, four, three...
