The OCD waiter
Oct. 3rd, 2007 01:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wwcitizenMatthew and I went out to work more on my storage unit tonight after work. The purpose is to find things for a yard sale this coming weekend at his sister's house. Whereas this should ultimately be fun, I'm more the morning person and Matt's more the night person, although both of us enjoy sleeping late on Saturdays and Sundays. The work is very dusty and irritating to our noses and skin. The unit is very clean, but my stuff, having been in a dusty old apartment for 10 years prior to my rushed move is not always that clean.
After finishing up tonight, we dashed out of the place to grab a bite to eat before it got too late, and ended up at Outback - again. A little pedestrian, yes, but we love it. We have our low-calorie meal already decided before we get there. In fact, we are so dutiful about it, that one time I ordered the meal to go, knowing that it was a good, low-cal option for our diets, and weighed everything in the order, so that we would at least have a pretty decent, consistent clue as to how much we were eating and if we would still be able in a given evening to have our low-calorie ice cream. Yum!
The problem is at Outback, though we love the place, the wait staff doesn't always get with our program and understand that when one of us orders his meal, and follows up the order statement with, "Ok, double that entire order and bring him the exact same thing," every single, flippin waiter or waitress gets some element not quite right, or flat out wrong. We don't send things back, unless there's cheese and croutons (big no-nos) on the salad; the other day, I almost sent back my main course because there was rice on the plate. If rice is present, it's really, really hard for me to resist. When we order it, communicate correctly, and everything comes out basically correct (without one of us having to repeat the entire thing to the wait staff), there is no rice. Clear communication is key.
The order is: a diet coke, a seared Ahi Tuna appetizer, a chicken griller with grilled veggies using no butter, replacing the rice with green beans, and the salad without croutons or cheese and with tangy tomato fat free dressing on the side. Seriously, the wait staff doesn't understand it when we say, "Ok, double that," or "Now, put a '2' in front of every item." Inevitably, they say, "Ok, you want the same grilled veggies?" and "So, you don't want rice with yours or cheese and croutons on your salad?" We exasperatedly reply, "No, thank you." I mean, we're polite about it.
Tonight, thankfully, one waiter finally got it all right. I will always wonder if it is because of how I prefaced the order or if it truly is because this guy was REALLY and happily OCD (I started with, "I have a challenge for you..." and he was up to it!). His name's Marc - he was the first waiter out of like 20 who got it all right, and even mentioned that there is an on-screen option to leave off the butter on the grilled veggies! We were happy. We happily discovered his OCD not only at the moment he was organizing our table, the coasters, the glasses, the salt and pepper just so, and taking our used dishes off the table so that they made a convenient stack. No. It was the fact that when we pointed out his OCD to him and assured him that he was in good company (we organize our tables, too...) that he pointed to his apron and said, "But have you seen my pens?!" There, in his front pouch were 15 pens in ascending alphabetical order of their color: black, blue, and red - with one minor exception - there was one black pen out of order. He said, "Yeah, it's been killing me all night, but I haven't had a chance to stop." He got a 25% tip from us and we'll see him again.
After finishing up tonight, we dashed out of the place to grab a bite to eat before it got too late, and ended up at Outback - again. A little pedestrian, yes, but we love it. We have our low-calorie meal already decided before we get there. In fact, we are so dutiful about it, that one time I ordered the meal to go, knowing that it was a good, low-cal option for our diets, and weighed everything in the order, so that we would at least have a pretty decent, consistent clue as to how much we were eating and if we would still be able in a given evening to have our low-calorie ice cream. Yum!
The problem is at Outback, though we love the place, the wait staff doesn't always get with our program and understand that when one of us orders his meal, and follows up the order statement with, "Ok, double that entire order and bring him the exact same thing," every single, flippin waiter or waitress gets some element not quite right, or flat out wrong. We don't send things back, unless there's cheese and croutons (big no-nos) on the salad; the other day, I almost sent back my main course because there was rice on the plate. If rice is present, it's really, really hard for me to resist. When we order it, communicate correctly, and everything comes out basically correct (without one of us having to repeat the entire thing to the wait staff), there is no rice. Clear communication is key.
The order is: a diet coke, a seared Ahi Tuna appetizer, a chicken griller with grilled veggies using no butter, replacing the rice with green beans, and the salad without croutons or cheese and with tangy tomato fat free dressing on the side. Seriously, the wait staff doesn't understand it when we say, "Ok, double that," or "Now, put a '2' in front of every item." Inevitably, they say, "Ok, you want the same grilled veggies?" and "So, you don't want rice with yours or cheese and croutons on your salad?" We exasperatedly reply, "No, thank you." I mean, we're polite about it.
Tonight, thankfully, one waiter finally got it all right. I will always wonder if it is because of how I prefaced the order or if it truly is because this guy was REALLY and happily OCD (I started with, "I have a challenge for you..." and he was up to it!). His name's Marc - he was the first waiter out of like 20 who got it all right, and even mentioned that there is an on-screen option to leave off the butter on the grilled veggies! We were happy. We happily discovered his OCD not only at the moment he was organizing our table, the coasters, the glasses, the salt and pepper just so, and taking our used dishes off the table so that they made a convenient stack. No. It was the fact that when we pointed out his OCD to him and assured him that he was in good company (we organize our tables, too...) that he pointed to his apron and said, "But have you seen my pens?!" There, in his front pouch were 15 pens in ascending alphabetical order of their color: black, blue, and red - with one minor exception - there was one black pen out of order. He said, "Yeah, it's been killing me all night, but I haven't had a chance to stop." He got a 25% tip from us and we'll see him again.
