As a former waiter, I have a counterpoint:
- I can’t carry that wobbly precarious mess you’ve made, and it’s easier to disassemble and reassemble it because I know how to do this.
Thus, you’ve created work for me.
Thankfully I haven’t been a waiter in - oh look! - 30 years.
Plus if you hand me a messy stack, I now have to leave the table with it. If I can arrange food waste and cutlery on my own, I can carry way more
My wife used to wait tables and we generally eat or box everything, so I’m pretty confident she’s right to pre-bus (and even wipe the table a little while waiting for check).
My only personal analogy is bagging groceries; self service shows how typical people have no idea, while an experienced bagger does. I saw a guy literally put eggs in the bottom of their bag. I can’t imagine how terrible their pre-bussing must be.
sheepishly telling the cashier thanks cuz my bag Tetris is no good
Hehe, bag Tetris. “Oops, I put the eggs in vertically to fill a hole and now the whole bag is empty.”
Ahahaha I’ll be watching out for that now
Yeah, I originally thought I was being nice until I heard this exact sentiment from another server. I try not to make a ridiculous mess and tip at least 20% for good service
Yep instead I pass things out of reach, look the waiter in the eyes, comment on how hard they’re working and chat to them. Just treat them like they’re human
Well luckily for you I have restaurant industry experience, so I already know how to stack them the right way.
I almost never had a table stack their stuff the way I wanted. Just make sure your spot is tidy, easy to grab, and there are no surprises like silverware or a tiny dish wrapped inside a napkin. Definitely don’t stick a paper napkin inside your cup that still has a drink in it. By the time it gets back to the dish station it will have turned into a paste someone has to dig out and will be cursing you!
I always prebus. If i don’t know how to stack funny dishes then I leave them in small piles by type with cuttery on the top of what makes sense.
Takes less than 5 seconds for a stack / pickup with a nod to the busser.
If you leave your cart in a parking space, you’re sub-human
You’re passible if you take it to the corral
But a truly good human will stack the carts into proper rows if the carts are loose in the corral
I firmly believe in the validity of the Shopping Cart Test. On a related and depressing note, my little city is overrun with errant shopping carts.
I have a clip from my dashcam floating around somewhere of me stopping, jumping out of my car, then hauling ass to catch someone’s runaway cart moments before it hit a parked car. Honestly one of my proudest moments.
On the opposite end, I once left a cart (on a curb) and it haunted me. To be fair, it was absolutely storming outside and I was chilled to the bone and just wanted to warm up…
- I used to work at a supermarket and preferred returning carts to other tasks, and got paid hourly. When someone returns the cart, they’re doing that hourly work for the store owner for free. Since time is rival, you could be more effective with your altruism than helping store owners.
- You’re depressed because there’s so much homelessness, right?
I push products to the shop floor because some people prefer stacking the shelves to their other work. I’m an altruistic job creator. You’re welcome
Isn’t that just the parable of the broken window? Somebody ultimately needs to clean the dishes and return the cart - they’re not wasted time.
I’m even more altruistic than the lazy shits not wanting to put the cart back since I don’t just not do something, I’m actively doing it to benefit their day.
It’s not benefiting or harming them either way. Their day is spent and their odds of getting paid are the same.
I’m creating more work for them, if everyone just trashed the stores they’d go in we’d have more people working at the stores. I’m a job creator
Apparently I’m a truly good human because my organizational autism trait gets triggered. I’m not even annoyed fixing them. It’s just satisfying to see them in order.
The exception is the handicapped area. When I drive my 80 something mother, we park in a handicapped spot, and I get out and grab the nearest cart for her. She uses that like a walker to get to the store. When we get back to the car, and she gets in, I leave the cart near the handicapped spots for the next person. I have often seen others do the same thing.
We parked the other day, and there were no carts nearby, so I went and got one for her. She could have made it into the store with just her cane, but she would have been slower, and not as confident.
So leave a cart or two in the handicapped zone. The handicapped folks have already worked out their own system that the normies don’t know about or understand. It’s a Geezer Thing.
This comment section is a nice mix of “I’m a waiter, please don’t do this, you’re making my job harder” and “I always do this to make the waiters’ lives easier”
Checking in at 23 hours - I count one comment to this effect, but even there the caveat is ‘but only if you do it wrong’
As a waiter, I’ve never had a customer stack their plates correctly for me
My dad gets legitimately angry when I do this. Boomers are a different breed
I don’t think it’s an age thing, more of an empathy test. I’ve been a dishwasher, maybe that’s why I tidy up.
I’ve owned a restaurant, and once you’ve done that, you’ve been the dishwasher, janitor, toilet plunger, punching bag, robbery victim, etc.
After all that, you tend to lose that sense that some jobs are below you. You just see it as work that has to be done, and you’re standing there, so it might as well be you, so get it done.
Yeah, my boomer uncle told me it was low class after he watched me do it. When I was a waitress at the time. Fuck him and that mentality - I do it to this day and make into 6 figures
Impressive. Employ a buncha seasoned techniques ‘n’ tactics during service? Influence by Dr. Cialdini had some, (including one that was essentially dishonest), but one more normal one like this:
That’s bizarre to me.
edit: you just unlocked a memory of my mum bollocking me as a kid for doing it. It’s so bizarre why?
Too many people see life as a zero-sum game with a one-dimensional ranking. To them, success is defined as the number of people of people you’re better than. Worse, many people go by pass/fail,as in “they’re one of the good ones” (popular with bigots everywhere)
My dad gets legitimately angry when I do this
I think it has to do with “putting the waiters out of their job”. Like, when you do a part of the job for them consistently, the restaurant manager will eventually notice that and realize they can do with a little bit less staff. So they hire fewer waiters, which means potential waiters face a tougher job market.
And for anybody saying “that little bit of support can’t make the difference between more and less staff”, yes, it can. Consider that a restaurant manager might have already decided to fire a waiter that’s a bit less performant (because they struggle to keep up) but decided to keep them anyways, just in case. Now they see that people do a part of the work, and that might just give them the idea that maybe, they could do with fewer waiters, and there’s that one lazy guy who can’t keep up anyway …
When I was a server I hated when people stacked their own plates. First off, I found it performative. Secondly it messed with my system. Thirdly it usually produced a 20lb pile of dishes covered in queso, half eaten burritos, and guacamole that was impossible to carry.
Huh, me mum was a waitress at one point and taught me to stack for politeness, I didn’t realize it was a preference thing. Now I’m not sure what to do.
I’ll still keep ordering the queso though, that shit’s delicious.
offer them the plates so they don’t have to reach or move around the table and help them stack them when they’re there… pause your conversations and ensure they spend as little time sorting your dishes as possible, and then both they can get back to what they’re doing and you can continue your conversations in private
especially true when there are plates, bowls, and cups of all shapes
exception being it’s okay to pile cutlery on a single plate because that’s always going on the top and if not it’s easy to tip off all at once to restack
bussed tables for years; what are you doing clearing tables as a server?
I liked it when people stacked their shit up, it shaves a few seconds off me doing it before I dumped it in a tub.
As far as food issues - well yeah if they’re some kids acting like cretins pouring shit all over that’s a problem but what’s that got fuck all to do with the stack?
I find your hate performative to be honest.
Yeah man. I don’t stack anything, not because I don’t want to help, but I don’t want to mess with your system. Waiting isn’t as easy as it seems and I absolutely have no idea how to do it, so I don’t want to interfere. I prefer to sit awkwardly and pretend that me leaning back as much as I can to make more space is equally helpful.
This. Heard the same from a waiter friend a while back. Since then, I do nutsack
Nutsack is preferable.
I thought this to be common courtesy everywhere?
It *can* be seen as rude, depending on the culture. Like, “I did your job for you because you took so long”. More often in “high class” settings, like places that need reservations weeks in advance.
But most of the time, people just don’t care to assist the waiters and most waiters will appreciate it if you stack the plates. Some may judge you if you do it wrong.
I really never liked tables that did this, in the restaurants I worked we observed oldschool etiquette… as long as someone is still enjoying their meal, we don’t clean up and if you do, I’ll asssume you just lack education.
So far I manage to avoid “high class” most of my life 😁 And at best we’re two people, I guess I can’t do much wrong stacking two plates or so. But if that’s seen as rude, OK. Can’t know beforehand, but would assume most waiters are fine with it. If not, I’m not a psychic and just try my best to be polite. Can’t please everyone.
Common courtesy is much too uncommon to be called common
That’s sad. And that’s coming from a misanthropist that can’t stand his own species. Doesn’t mean I mustn’t be polite to them.
And what’s that say about common sense?
My wife and I do this, but I’ve always wondered whether I’m actually helping or just creating a different kind of inconvenience by not organizing them in a beneficial way.
It’s helpful! But don’t put trash inside the cups - this can be annoying to empty
As long as you don’t overstack it. Make a tidy stack that can be carried easily with one hand securely. If you eg put utensils between plates you can cause an accident.
And if there’s any big food waste like bones, put them all in the top plate
I usually have a pack of gum and I deliberately start a pattern on how I take pieces out. Usually it’s from left to right, emptying a full row before I move on to the next.
My test is to offer them gum and see where they pick from. Will they recognize a pattern and continue it? Or will they be oblivious?
Either way, it’s not a measure of good or bad. It’s just a fun lil test.
Sometimes I just take a bite out of the entire kit kat bar without breaking it up.
My family would get upset if you did that or if the server came by and offered to take the empty plate away. Why yes one of them is named karen. How did you guess?
My boomer mother did this. My boomer father was indifferent.
I do this.
For the record, the only things that get stacked are things that are perfectly stackable, I don’t put a plate on top of a half-eaten cheese steak or leave utensils in the middle.
My test is mostly how do they treat my visibly disabled husband. Who also is older than me and looks it. I don’t like being treated like I’m his nurse. I understand why they might think daughter so I’m ambivalent towards that. A lot of people are short and snippy with him because he’s harder to understand and that gets me upset.
This and the shopping cart thing share the theme of consuming with less cost to the business owner, but with no actual difference (or making it worse) for the employees. Their boss will use all of their time no matter how much work they do. You aren’t saving them work; you’re saving the boss’ money.
If you decline to go into a business near closing, then you’re my kind of people. If you tip highly you’re my kind of people. If you order clearly, concisely, and politely you’re my kind of people.
But while you’re pushing Sisyphus’ boulder up the hill, he just has to go find another boulder.
So if the carts stack up outside, the cart guy has to go outside in the rain, slush, whatever. If they don’t, he can stay inside for longer.
It gives him more time to dick around doing nothing.
Waiters also get some waiting around time. If they don’t, they have to run everywhere. Why wouldn’t you want them to have more breathing room?
That’s assuming the boss won’t give the employees shit for not able to finish enough work in a day.
Anecdotally that was my experience when I worked at a restaurant and later a grocery store. They had no idea how much total work there was; they’d just keep us working.
You just failed the test
I just lost the game!
you want me to work for you, pay for everything, and tip you?
At a time when the tipping options are 18%, 20% or 25%.
you do you, but if im just chilling talking after i eat, it feels like nothing to me - just something to do with my hands that doesnt feel like work at all and is massively helpful to someone
I do the clean up thing just because I don’t like having a bunch of shit in front of me all spread out. I think it’s years of having to clean up my stations and desks so I can actually function so it’s just habitual. We should be taking into consideration that this might not be helpful at all to the worker if these other comments are to be believed.
You’d fail my test if I learn you have tests for people.
Maybe it’s just a matter of phrasing, but the idea that I could be kind to our server all night, tip well, generally hit it out of the park, but be disproportionately judged for failing to do this one small thing because it’s your personal test? Sets my social anxiety off enough that if I knew that were on your mind I’d probably just say we’re not compatible.
Obviously, keep an eye out for shitty people, and don’t put up with bad behaviour, but also judge people as people, wholistically.
It says the word ‘test’ in the post title, but if it helps I don’t think you need to take it so literally.
This isn’t necessarily “setting up” specific situations for people, but more like how people respond in normal everyday situations which you might consider to be either red flag or green flag behaviour.
For me, an example is littering. I’m not so sociopathic that I’d create some trash just to test someone, but if trash happens and they throw it on the ground, it’s a bad personality indicator.
Yeah, what you’re saying makes sense. I like “bad personality indicator” as an alternative, since it conveys to me it’s one of many indicators you might process, maybe not even consciously. I’ve just had rather negative experiences being “tested” and hearing that world applied to any kind of casual social interaction gets my hackles all the way up.
