My mistake
I would like to apoligize to the hostess of an event that I attended. It seem that my actions offended her. The group that I was with were trying to get seated at a busy resturant. Part of the party was seated already and the rest were waiting for their table. The people at the table had already paid their bill and had been sitting there for a while. I went up to the head of the table and quitely said to the person sitting there " Sir I am not trying to be rude or anything like that but a fiend of ours is going into the Air Force and there is quite a large group of us here to see him off. Half of our group is already seated and the other half is planning on using this table." The person directly to the right of the man at the table said to me. "Are you saying you want us to leave" I responded with " No I am not saying that at all. All I am doing is relating to you what the situation is. What you do with the information is completly up to you." The group talked amongst themselves and presently departed. The crew of the resturant flew into action and cleared the table for the rest of our party. It seems that all these people needed was information that was not available to them. It appears the man in charge of the departing party regiersted a complaint with the manager. The server helped me play a small joke on the hostess of our group. He told our group that the other party had had a big fit and the manager wanted to speak to the head of our group. Needless to say that everybody who was there pointed their finger, down the way, to me as the culprit. Then we burst the Lindy in trouble bubble by telling her it was a joke. So yes my approach is a lot more direct than most peoples. But it got us a table. And if othere peoples feeling are hurt then I would like to say" Take a stand and if you dont like what I did then dont sit at the table, but dont sit and be embarssed. You didn't do anything." I stand on my own and take ownership of everything I do. And if you haven't figured it out yet, sometimes it is outside of the norms. So again if I offended you I apoligize.
Afterwards the server said it was one of the best moves he had ever seen. The wait staff and kitchen staff chuckled for at least 15 miniutes. He had tried to move them along earlier but to no avail.
One thing I don't understand is if this places policy is adding 15% to parties of 8 or more and they have a policy of not splitting checks (they do them by table) how where they able to add 15% on to the check at the table that I was sitting at when there where only 6 people there.
The girls and I bought Aubrey and family dinner. And we left another 10% (on top of the 15%) so I think our server made out pretty good on our end.
Submitted by
Aubrey
at 2/9/2004 2:33:54 AM- I agree with what Jes said.
And thanks again for dinner! :-)
Submitted by
kat
at 2/9/2004 8:51:20 AM- regardless of the outcomes of your decision, it wasn't your desicion to make. that showed a lack of respect for the effort i spent organizing the evening and a lack of respect for me.
I am not upset about the joke.
Submitted by
reboog
at 2/9/2004 9:58:49 AM- I dunno. I don't know what good it would have done to hassle the manager, who may or may not have felt he was in a position to do anything. I don't like the idea that I must hurry out of a restaurant, simply because I have finished eating. However, if someone approached me and explained the situation to me, I'd be more inclined to do it as a favor.
I'm not sure why the person from the departing party complained. If it were bothersome, why not just say "we'll leave when we're ready?"
I'm also not sure how this shows a lack of respect for the person's effort in organizing the evening or the hostess herself??? Sounds to me like you were just trying to help.
There's something to be said for speaking up, even when it might be socially unacceptable. I'm still not sure if i think it was inappropriately blunt or appropriately rude...
I was pretty frustrated with the people at that table. They were being rude - they were lounging in a clearly crowded room on a very busy night *long* after they had finished their meal. I'm all for hanging out and chatting after get-togethers, but not at the expense of other people.
Personally, I probably would have hassled the manager rather than confronting the customers. But as you say, we got the table, the server earned a decent wage, and most of us had a decent night out.