In Good Company: Please And Thank You
...A friend who worked there for a number of years tells the story of one awkward customer they renamed ‘horseface.’ She was a noted culinary fad. My friend served her with carrots one lunchtime which she refused to eat and demanded they were sent back. In the servery my friend, greatly annoyed, made a statement which was laughed over for years. ‘Huh, it’s the first time I’ve known a horse refuse carrots.’...
Enid Blackburn reached the conclusion that courtesy could be quite costly.
A Yorkshire landlady ordered her bar staff not to serve customers who don’t say ‘please’ or ‘thank you.’ A commendable action, but in my experience ‘staff’ must take some of the blame for public discourtesy. It appears to me that the more ill mannered and rude customers behave the better the service they receive.
Wax docile, proffer large helpings of p’s and q’s and you are often either ignored or indifferently served. Display aloof, over demanding tendencies with a bristle of bad manners and the ‘staff’ are humbly at your service.
Look at the way Frank Sinatra’s behaved drew the Press and fans to his entrances and exits. I wish I could have seen his face - with my earplugs suitably adjusted of course – when he discovered an airport VIP lounge inaccessible. Pardon me while I smirk – politely, of course.
Unfortunately this diabolical attitude is infectious. Take the day when the rest of a bus queue and I witnessed the touching farewell between a couple of leather clad lovers. He had parked his bike in a pub yard and decided to have a walk with the rest of his mates until opening time, but female pillion riders were not included, even though they protested noisily. ‘Get lost,’ was his parting invitation.
On holiday at a country inn we waited patiently for coffee. Our waitress was busy explaining to a long vowelled show-off why the sweet trolley, a couple of feet away and clearly visible to all, was necessarily stationary in the diminutive dining area. Show-off had to be escorted personally to it. None of the four varieties of cheese was big enough for him, then his side plate was not clean enough.
In her place I would have been tempted to present a whole cheese ‘to match your mouth, sir.’ But the waitress flitted enthusiastically from kitchen to table, even presenting him with an off the menu vintage port. ‘It’s 65p a measure, sir,’ she apologised, while we tried to draw her attention to our parched coffeeless throats in vain.
Human nature is so paradoxical. A display of ultra politeness often evokes contempt. ‘Everybody worships me – it’s nauseating’ is the way Noel Coward summed up this superiority complex.
Some of the waitresses at a beloved, now extinct, town centre café were notorious snobs, avoiding me at all costs. ‘I’m not having that lot with ‘no hands’ on my tables,’ one in particular would crow whenever low tippers entered her kingdom. She would then pretend her tables were reserved, which indeed they were – for her ‘handy’ regulars.
A friend who worked there for a number of years tells the story of one awkward customer they renamed ‘horseface.’ She was a noted culinary fad. My friend served her with carrots one lunchtime which she refused to eat and demanded they were sent back. In the servery my friend, greatly annoyed, made a statement which was laughed over for years. ‘Huh, it’s the first time I’ve known a horse refuse carrots.’
At another esoteric haunt in town I once witnessed the supreme belittling of a couple of fellow diners. Every request was met with a supine sigh. Anything was too much trouble for this waitress. When the broken pair had eventually crawled out, I heard her announce loudly to one of her purple-haired pastry eaters, ‘Anybody comes in here nowadays.’
Yes, I have come to the conclusion in many establishments – not all – it is that unmistakable aura of wealth that brings the staff to life and nowadays, sadly, courtesy can be quite costly.
