This is one of the rules that I live by. That is why I despise hipsters and yuppies and almost every other fucking idiot that I run across when I am going out to eat. For example there is this column by a stupid entitled twat from the New York Post. Her thesis is that waitresses should be replaced by ipads. What a fucking moron.
A good waitress or waiter is essential to a dining experience. They can answer your questions. Help you choose your meal. Make exceptions and substitutions. When I go to a place I always introduce myself and the other members of my party. I try to make a personal connection. Or at the minimum establish the fact that I know that the waiter is a person. Not my slave. If they were a slave I would expect them to be a shut in from Oakland ranting about reparations. They are simply a server. Someone to help me enjoy my meal. Not someone that I should berate or treat like shit.
A perfect example is our recent somewhat disastrous dinner at Incognito. The waiter was a confused Mexican who was probably distracted because his kids had just got dumped at the border. Since I had been to the joint more than twice I had the menu memorized. I lead him through the appetizers and the main courses. He had to go to the kitchen a couple of times to be sure that they could do what I asked. Not that it was anything spectacular. Just mashed potatoes. But he tried his best and that is all you can ask. Everyone had a good time. I just worried about the meal and made sure it turned out great for everyone.
Hey I am happy if they just don't spit in my food.
29 comments:
Back in the late 20th century, when we lived in the Charlotte, NC area, we were getting to know a couple who attended our church. He was a top notch guy. Textile engineer. Poor guy...his entire industry was in the process of emigrating to China. Anyhow, she worked in a local food processing plant, in the office.
We went to dinner after church one Sunday, along with their two-year-old, who threw food all over the place. First of all, I wouldn't have allowed him to do that (and I didn't with my kids), but that's another rant. Anyhow, we got up to leave and the mother got the brat out of the booster seat and noticed the mess he had made (okay, part of it was the normal process of a toddler attempting to feed himself). She started to clean up the mess, then stopped herself and said, "That's what they get paid to do."
We didn't need to get to know them any better after that. We knew all we needed to know.
As a restaurant owner you know better than most.
I have been thinking a lot about the situation you described.
Yesterday as I was walking to work I saw this hipster mom struggling with her seven year old son. He was screaming and wiggling. She had a hold of him and was trying to escape to do whatever it was he wanted to do. She picked him up and started walking down the street. He hauled off and started beating her on the back and the head screaming at the top of his lungs. Imagine that.
I think love is very important. But so is a little fear.
I know the situation is far more complex than reducing it to a single issue, but I think a primary factor in that situation is that the parent hasn't established and proven to the child that she has his best interests in mind. Too many parents lie or change rules to suit their current situation, and haven't provided moral and practical guardrails for their kids to navigate through life. The kids have learned that Mom and Dad aren't reliable and predictable, so they do whatever enters their heads to get their own way.
Kids need structure (not a rigid, impersonal set of rules).
If you don't fear the lawnmower, you will stick your hand into the moving blade. Fear is a healthy thing. If you don't fear syphilis, you will stick your....never mind...
The thing I was thinking about it in relationship to the argument Spinelli and I were having about the Pope. This Pope is all love. No fear.
When I go to church tommorrow you know who is going to be doing everything? Being lectors and ministers and picking up collections. Old white guys like me in their fifties or older. There are about twenty guys like me in church. All alone without their family. My wife is with me but most of these guys are on their own. The last generation who had a healthy sense of fear injected by the nuns.
Everybody else seems to think you only have to go to church when you feel like it. That you don't have to show up on Sunday to be close to God.
They need a little fear.
Sometimes The Enigma (in particular, due to her condition) made a big mess in a restaurant.
You can't always clean it up, but you can always leave a big "I'm sorry, you shouldn't have to deal with this" tip.
My kids are all scared of me.
Or they would be, if I let them out of the basement.
Fear, and it's ugly cousin, hate, are very good motivators. But, only in the short run. Then they become self destructive. Corinthians 1 is part of most wedding vows. It speaks of faith, hope and love, the greatest being love.
You have made it clear you hate kids. To each their own. And yes, there are many shitty parents and therefore spoiled brats . Kids crave limits, it makes them feel secure and loved.
Going to church, fear of God, you should have been a Southern Baptist, a fuckin' Protestant. They're all fire and brimstone.
I don't hate kids. I hate other peoples kids.
There is a place for them.
In a sack at the bottom of a well.
Well...
How deep does this go?
Is a ruler needed to reinforce the point?
When the Big Ol' Rock with a chair named after him in the Vatican, screwed up in a major way, the questions asked after the fact had nothing to do with fear, blame or shame. They were:
Do you love me?
Do you love me?
Do you love me?
And it was the other Main Man doing the asking. With the mandate to "Feed my sheep and lambs" to follow.
On of the "benefits" of being raised by a dirty Prod family who were Calvinisticly driven to make sure their offspring were familiar with the Scripture the Papists has kept from the people and hoarded for themselves, was to read aloud two chapters of the Good Book on a daily basis, one at breakfast, one at dinner, to whomever was seated around the dining table. This went on for 15 years for me, with the upside being a familiarity with the Word that started in infancy and became imbedded in memory. Not a bad method for making sure the Catholics don't run away with the Church again or whack people with their Ruler. Which means this is what springs to mind when I hear Fear being waved around and touted as the missing piece:
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us...
It doesn't get any clearer than that. If this Pope is being perceived as "all Love" than I'd say he's on the right track.
With regard to fear as the basis of behavior modification, Nd got there first. Clear boundaries reinforced with logical consequences beat out punishments based on fear and shame when it comes to long term outcome.
MamaM, Catholics don't know squat about the bible. The clergy do, but they wanted to have that be their purview. They would read snippets to you @ Mass, and tell you what they said it meant. But, you were never encouraged to read the bible yourself. You weren't smart enough!!
The more I learn about you Mama, the better I understand your wisdom.
Windbag said ....
... the parent hasn't established and proven to the child that she has his best interests in mind. Too many parents lie or change rules to suit their current situation, and haven't provided moral and practical guardrails for their kids to navigate through life.
I am no expert on raising children, having raised but one. In her case it may be a measure of our skills that she is still a good friend at 42, as well as loving child.
My other experience is with a dozen local kids or so at a time, usualy involving visiting our yard and playing with "Dera" the German Shepherd who thinks she's a Golden Retriever. It's an immigrant neighborhood of Arabs that changes over time, but kids are still kids.
Back to what Windbag said...adults lying to kids is the most foolish move one can make. Kids are born liars and can spot your antique ass in one in a heartbeat. So...to beat that, and set an example of how NOT lying is better for everyone, don't be a liar to your kids or anyone else's.
It can be tough when some precocious child of say 11 asks questions relating to boy/girl things, or whatever like that...but if you have the intelligence God gave you, don't be lazy, find a way to tell them the truth without making it sound "dirty." It does pay off, because you will find that when you need to ask a tough question of them yourself, most of the time they will not lie to you, even if they will to many others.
As Windbag implies, reliability engenders reliability. Trust is something that can only be earned.
I think when Trooper refers to "fear" he is really referring to an imbued sense of consequences. Failing to respect others may one day find you face to face in battle, trying to kill each other. Consequences. Failing to be reliable, from a kid's perspective, usually means they won't find adults reliable either. The STFU lesson in discretion is best learned on the block IMO, among your peers. Consequences...trust is a two way exchange. A reliable adult will more easily influence a kid to be the see way...they see positive consequences.
Off to the Children's Mass in a Mexican part of Detroit...my favorite of those available in our clustered parish. Real people bringing real kids to church. Gives me hope.
Although small, both halves of the cluster, neither has any more debt now, but it too a few years to get there. You'd think the Diocesan bureaucrats would be pleased...but, no, all they can do is think about more closures...a reward for paying off all your debt, you see.
I hate bureaucrats, government or religious. My "sin" for this week...:-))
I thought it was kind of interesting when I saw the Responsorial Psalm today:
The angel of the Lord will rescue those who fear him.
It is a constant amazement to me that when I am thinking about something I get a sign from the words and scripture of the Mass on Sunday.
It is humbling to say the least.
Of course that only works if you go to church on Sunday. Just sayn'
Aridog, Too much of organized religion is bureaucratic. And, too much is based on guilt and fear. I KNOW I'm good w/ the Lord. I pray to him daily, giving thanks for all his blessings. I help people all the time. I have an at least one kindness a day rule. I don't get compulsive or GUILT RIDDEN about it. But, in a year, I bet I only miss 15-20 days. I can speak somewhat knowledgeably about Presbyterian as my wife is an elder in that Church. I know less about the holy roller Evangelical Church my deceased sister was in down in Texas, but some. Her funeral was 3 hours! That did not include the cemetery. I know A LOT about the Catholic Church, "The one true Church" as the nuns always called it. Obligation, guilt, and money are the main tenets. As you know, there are Holy Days of OBLIGATION! Do you know how funny that is to very respectful, religious people not raised Catholic? Did that phrase strike you funny when you converted. Some people think I'm bullshitting them when I say that.
Trooper, you are an urbane, savvy, good man. But the nuns and priests played you like a cheap guitar. You are skeptical about EVERYTHING but the Church, which in reality needs skepticism more than just about anything else.
We submit to what we fear.
If I point a toy gun at you, or my finger, and say, "Stick 'em up," you'll laugh, because you do not fear me. You will not submit to my command to stick 'em up. However, if I am holding a loaded gun and say, "Stick 'em up," you'll likely submit to my command.
The hedonists in our culture have no fear of God, so they do not submit to His moral code (Ten Commandments et al.). Many of them believe either that God doesn't exist or doesn't care.
Unfortunately, many professing Christians have no fear of God, and like the hedonists, do not submit to His moral code. Yes, God is love. He is also holy and does not tolerate sin, hence His admonition to steer clear of it. Unlike the bandit in my analogy, God isn't pointing the gun at us, so that our actions are coerced. His gun is holstered, but quite real.
Obedience (submission to Him) becomes the smart and loving option. Smart because He will deal with those of us who do not submit. Loving because we recognize that His restrictions on our behavior are barriers against some pretty devastating consequences, and we respond with love and gratitude.
At least, I think that's sort of how it works. I'm frequently wrong about such matters.
You are skeptical about EVERYTHING but the Church...
That's a feature, not a bug. I would alter that a bit, though, by replacing "Church" with "God." What else in reliable in this world? Even the earth is unreliable. Stand at the edge of a cliff, and it may collapse, due to the erosion and decay present, but undetectable, within. Same with people. Rely on them without exercising any discernment or skepticism and you'll likely stumble along with them when the decay from within presents itself.
Trooper can defend himself (or choose not to), but wasn't his skepticism of the Church displayed when he expressed his views on the Pope?
Oh, and another thing, I include myself in the list of things to be skeptical towards. I do not trust myself.
Man is a dark and twisted soul.
The older I get, the more I understand The Flood...and the more I appreciate the cross.
When God was pissed at the world, He sent the Flood. When God loved the world, He sent His Son.
windbag, I "submit" to God out of faith, love, and thanks. Those who submit out of fear are too concerned about not doing anything wrong, the negative. God wants us to focus on the positive, doing good things for our fellow man/woman out of love. That's my God anyway. Obviously some have a much different God. Many kill in the name of God, Allah, etc. Thanks to organized religion, more people have been killed in the name of The Lord, than have been saved by him.
The 2nd best part of the "Do you love me" Peter story, happened earlier with an often missed phrase inserted between his denial and the rooster's crow which was followed by deep remorse.
... another man began to insist, saying, "Certainly this man also was with Him, for he is a Galilean too. But Peter said, "Man, I do not know what you are talking about." Immediately, while he was still speaking, a rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how He had told him, "Before a rooster crows today, you will deny Me three times." And he went out and wept bitterly.
What was in that look? Whatever it was, I don't believe fear was the dominate emotion or response.
"Christ didn't come to Earth to give us the willies! He was a booster!"
Nick ... I just noticed you said, apparently to me...
As you know, there are Holy Days of OBLIGATION ... Did that phrase strike you funny when you converted.
First, I did NOT convert. I joined. I was nothing beforehand. In every sense of that word...and I am still in danger of being heretic.
Before that I was agnostic with a capital A, and only not outright atheistic because all the ones I knew appeared to have a religion of their own...proving the existence of a void, etc....total Nonsense.
As for a Holy Day of Obligation, we seem to have a different idea about what "obligatory participation" requires. In the parishes I attend (clustered) it is not about money.
Finally, in my conversations with curia and others educated in the Catholic hierarchy, I have never heard that being knowledgeable about the Bible, several in fact, was a bad thing, let alone discouraged. The fact I've read three cover to cover (King James, Dartmouth, and Vulgate...the later years ago in Latin)was remarked as a positive thing.
Either I have it all wrong and am still at a minimum heretic, or worse, agnostic may be the case. I simply found the Church reflected my values, after years of denying I had any. Oddly, it was my Jewish friends who first expressed the idea that I should become "something."
Ari, I did not say knowledge of the Bible was discouraged by the Catholic hierarchy. I said it was not encouraged. There was also the not so subtle, "Those dirty Protestants and quote the Bible, aren't they silly?" Compliant Catholics got the message loud and clear. "We'll tell you what you need to know. Now, kneel down and give me 5 perfect Act of Contrition, soldier!!"
Nick you cited....
"Those dirty Protestants and quote the Bible, aren't they silly?"
I'll agree in so much as most Protestant advocates are prone to citing bits and pieces, frequently out of context, of Bible text..yes, that really is silly. Just as silly as when Catholic curia do it.
Oh, wait....
I am a honest troglodyte...read the books of the Bible, of any version, as if you wish to learn. They are all referential to their time of publication. But read them in their entirety, not snippets selected by bureaucrats.
My own mother became a "Christian Scientist" ... yet she never fathomed the similarities between her "quarterly" and the quarterly Catholic missive publication.
MY dad remained like me for most of my life, an agnostic waiting to be shown a higher truth.
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