(no subject)

[chouchoot]

last night james and i met up for farewell dinner with fairyphotos and her partner, who had arrived a bit before us. when the waiter brought our drinks back to the table, with great deliberation, he gave me the water with the straw in it, james the one without. for some reason, this seemed like a vaguely sexist move ("wouldn't want to mess up your lipstick"), and i said as much as he walked away; however the theory was (technically) disproven when jeremy ordered a water and it came...with a straw.

i look for this kind of stuff, though. when i eat in restaurants (specifically with men), i consider the placement of the check at the end of the meal a make-or-break moment. this is especially true of nicer restaurants. i am happiest when the check is neutrally placed in the middle of the table, evenly located between myself and the other person. in cases where the check is, well, obviously placed in front of the dude (james; a friend; whoever), that server not only guarantees i will be paying the bill, but also that i will be tipping poorly/minimally.

there was a fancy restaurant in florida (which i thankfully never patroned) where a friend of mine and her (female) partner went for dinner once. they had two menus: one for men (with the prices), and one for women (without the prices, so they could, i guess, order whatever they wanted?). i suppose the establishment was only prepared for that binary prospect, and none others, because both my friend and her partner received the price-less menu, and were refused when they asked to see a menu with prices on it. ridiculous.

i've never worked in the service industry, so i don't know what philosophy goes behind these kinds situations. is it just legacy issues--policies or practices that haven't changed in god-knows how long? are people aware? are servers actually instructed to "slide the check to the male party, when a party of two is male and female," or is that server just making a judgement call on who's got the money, or based in their own politics?

the check thing really is one of my largest pet-peeves in eating out. like to the degree of making me sick to my stomach when it happens (especially when, in +50% of the cases, i am paying for the meal.)

Comments

[rag-and-bone.livejournal.com]

this drives me nuts, too. people even do it with s. and me--assume that bc she is more masculine, she must be paying.

[muero-de-risa.livejournal.com]

I haven't worked as a server, but having hosted and now working the front counter at a food place, I have a bit of experience in this realm. I have always tried to engage eye contact with both parties, whether they appear to be a couple or just friends. Often times I found the woman would stand sheepishly while the man would give his name/place the entire food order. With my job now, even if it's kind of obvious the man just placed his and her food orders, I'll ask the woman what she would like or if she'd like anything to drink.

The restaurant you spoke about in FL would absolutely disgust me! I would definitely have caused a scene.

[thetathrees.livejournal.com]

I don't necessarily think it's fair to tip service less for something like that without telling them why. I mean, they don't *know* that you're tipping them less than you would otherwise, and they're also not getting a message from it except that you are a crappy tipper. I have had it happen in (not only nice) restaurants and, when I planned on paying, made a big show of sliding the check over in front of *me* before the server walked away. It seems much less common than the neutral ground check placement, though. I have even had servers bring the check back after running the card and they obviously didn't notice I had placed it in front of me, or had looked at the name, and they have placed the receipt to sign in front of Jason, and I definitely made a lower tip then.

I think the menu thing would *never* happen in a metropolitan area in the west coast.

[vanessa-elle.livejournal.com]

that happens to me from time to time- it amuses me more than anything. like thetatreees, sometimes i take it in front of the service and we all laugh. that shit at the fancy FL restaurant is fucked up, though. did your friends actually stay for a meal? i would have left.

'i look for this kind of stuff, though.'

yeah, this happens to me too- once you start learning about the mysterious ways of the patriarchy, you start seeing it everywhere (for me it's both feminist and speciesist stuff)...probably because it really is everywhere.

[firthofforth.livejournal.com]

well, the FL story aside (hate to say this, but the part about being refused a menu with prices rings untrue to me...but it wouldn't REALLY surprise me..FL sucks:).

Honestly, the check thing does bother me(although it is getting better with time) - but the way I deal with it now is, if I intend to pay - I SIGNAL to the server to give me the check. It's pretty easy and they get the message. If you want to change things...you have to ACT. If they are still being dicks, then the tip is affected. How do you know if the server is a) dealing with a restaurant policy that they have no control over and you are hurting them directly, b) your table might just be arranged that the empty space is not in front of you, c) they are just doing their job - they don't see you as male-female, and they are simply putting down the check. How do you know?

[v0rtex.livejournal.com]

This annoys me too, especially if Kim is buying me dinner (we generally go back and forth on who pays, or split checks).

Pretty sure it's determined by the server's attitude as I've never noticed any restaurants which will always do this - even the family-owned hole in the wall Indian restaurants tend to do the middle of the table thing, even though first/second generation Indians come from a very conservative country.

[whiskeyson.livejournal.com]

I often have to retrieve the bill from my huzbands side of the table because he's older...

[fraxl.livejournal.com]

when justin and i were in italy, they pretty much handed the check to him directly everytime. when the waiters would see him give the check to me (because i was paying), they were *shocked.* at least a few times they actually stopped to be sure we didnt make some mistake. the attitude was more "wow, how lucky are you that your woman pays for stuff!" than "woman shouldnt/cant pay."

generally though, i dont think waiters give it a lot of thought. probably has more to do with open space on the table than sexism. what i really want to know is why only one of your drinks came with a straw? ;-)