IT'S NO ONE'S FAULT BUT YOUR OWN
in which i lament empty tables and even
emptier excuses.
So yesterday, at a few minutes past four o'clock,
nearing prime time for an early Sunday dinner, I stroll up to the hostess at the
new Pittsburgh Mills Houlihan's restaurant. There's
a man and woman in front of me, waiting their turn to give their name, and
several other groups of people standing around, checking their watches or
looking at menus, obviously waiting for a table. I take a quick look at the
dining room, then the bar area, and count nine empty tables. I look around
again at the people waiting. Six parties, maybe seven. No
problem.
The couple in front of me says, Two for non-smoking.
The hostess smiles blankly and says, Okay. The wait is forty-five minutes.
The man and woman look at each other, frown, shrug, shake their heads, and walk away, obviously disgusted. Flabbergasted, certain that I must have misheard or misunderstood or was merely hallucinating, I step forward.
The hostess smiles blankly and says, How many?
I say, The wait is forty-five minutes?
Yes, sir, it is. How many?
The blank smile continues. It would frighten me now -- a chilly, creepy, Stepford Wife kind of scare -- if I weren't so dumbstruck by the situation.
How, I ask her, can the wait be forty-five minutes? I can see at least nine empty tables from where I'm standing.
She holds up her clipboard and her waiting list, brandishing them with the same resigned and simple authority people use when they tell you, But that's what the computer says, or I'm afraid that's just our policy, or I heard it on the Rush Limbaugh Show. Independent thought need not apply.
But all these people are before you, she says. The smile widens, baring even more of her perky, officious teeth.
I understand that, I say, proud of myself for so-far maintaining some uncharacteristic restraint. But that doesn't explain why all these people aren't sitting at all those empty tables.
She responds in the tone of voice people use when they're talking to three-year-olds -- which is to say, she sounds like a three-year-old -- and she tells me: Well, we've stopped seating people.
I smile. I stutter. I shake my head. If she understands why I do these things, or why I'm standing before her, groping for words and struggling to comprehend why a restaurant with lots of waiting customers and lots of empty tables has stopped combining the two, her eyes do not show it. Much like her smile, they don't seem to show anything at all.
You've stopped...seating people? I can barely get the words out. Why?
Well, she says, her uncomprehending facade still admirably unblemished, our kitchen is backed up. And we've run out of silverware.
She smiles and stares without blinking, as though she has given me a good, much less sufficient, answer.
I can't help it anymore. I laugh. I laugh the laugh of the customer service damned.
The kitchen is backed up. And you've run out of silverware, I say, still laughing. You've gotta be kidding me.
Finally, a small crack in the smile. And it feels, for a moment, almost as good as if I'd gotten a Buckingham Palace guard to flinch.
Well, it's not my fault, she says.
I ignore that, tempting though it was, and move instead, foolishly, to ontology.
You're a restaurant. At dinner time on a Sunday. And you're not seating people at empty tables because the kitchen is backed up and you've run out of silverware. So, in other words, you aren't able to handle many of the basic things a restaurant is supposed to do. That's unbelievable. And kind of pathetic.
Another crack now. Both corners of her mouth droop.
Well, it's not my fault. You can talk to the manager if you'd like.
Some small part of me admires her for sticking to the script, even as I resist the urge to scream in her unctuous face.
Okay, it's not your fault. Then whose fault is it?
The smile officially dies, and for the first time, I think I see the faintest spark of life in her eyes.
It isn't my fault! It isn't anyone's fault!
And so there it was. The endgame. The points of no return and no recourse. The inevitable checkmate of twenty-first century customer service damnation.
Oh, of course not, I say. It never is, is it?
I sigh a great, heaving sigh. And in that moment, just as I have done in so many other, woefully similar moments lo these last few years, I give up and walk away, saddened, beaten, burdened a little bit more than before, feeling the deep and mournful pangs of a world in which, no matter what happens, no matter who fails or forgets or screws up or simply does not do the job that he or she or it or they or some blessed someone was supposed to do, everything is inevitable, nothing is inexcusable, and, if only because you took the time to care and to ask and to expect even the most bare and basic minimum, it's never anyone's fault but your own.
The couple in front of me says, Two for non-smoking.
The hostess smiles blankly and says, Okay. The wait is forty-five minutes.
The man and woman look at each other, frown, shrug, shake their heads, and walk away, obviously disgusted. Flabbergasted, certain that I must have misheard or misunderstood or was merely hallucinating, I step forward.
The hostess smiles blankly and says, How many?
I say, The wait is forty-five minutes?
Yes, sir, it is. How many?
The blank smile continues. It would frighten me now -- a chilly, creepy, Stepford Wife kind of scare -- if I weren't so dumbstruck by the situation.
How, I ask her, can the wait be forty-five minutes? I can see at least nine empty tables from where I'm standing.
She holds up her clipboard and her waiting list, brandishing them with the same resigned and simple authority people use when they tell you, But that's what the computer says, or I'm afraid that's just our policy, or I heard it on the Rush Limbaugh Show. Independent thought need not apply.
But all these people are before you, she says. The smile widens, baring even more of her perky, officious teeth.
I understand that, I say, proud of myself for so-far maintaining some uncharacteristic restraint. But that doesn't explain why all these people aren't sitting at all those empty tables.
She responds in the tone of voice people use when they're talking to three-year-olds -- which is to say, she sounds like a three-year-old -- and she tells me: Well, we've stopped seating people.
I smile. I stutter. I shake my head. If she understands why I do these things, or why I'm standing before her, groping for words and struggling to comprehend why a restaurant with lots of waiting customers and lots of empty tables has stopped combining the two, her eyes do not show it. Much like her smile, they don't seem to show anything at all.
You've stopped...seating people? I can barely get the words out. Why?
Well, she says, her uncomprehending facade still admirably unblemished, our kitchen is backed up. And we've run out of silverware.
She smiles and stares without blinking, as though she has given me a good, much less sufficient, answer.
I can't help it anymore. I laugh. I laugh the laugh of the customer service damned.
The kitchen is backed up. And you've run out of silverware, I say, still laughing. You've gotta be kidding me.
Finally, a small crack in the smile. And it feels, for a moment, almost as good as if I'd gotten a Buckingham Palace guard to flinch.
Well, it's not my fault, she says.
I ignore that, tempting though it was, and move instead, foolishly, to ontology.
You're a restaurant. At dinner time on a Sunday. And you're not seating people at empty tables because the kitchen is backed up and you've run out of silverware. So, in other words, you aren't able to handle many of the basic things a restaurant is supposed to do. That's unbelievable. And kind of pathetic.
Another crack now. Both corners of her mouth droop.
Well, it's not my fault. You can talk to the manager if you'd like.
Some small part of me admires her for sticking to the script, even as I resist the urge to scream in her unctuous face.
Okay, it's not your fault. Then whose fault is it?
The smile officially dies, and for the first time, I think I see the faintest spark of life in her eyes.
It isn't my fault! It isn't anyone's fault!
And so there it was. The endgame. The points of no return and no recourse. The inevitable checkmate of twenty-first century customer service damnation.
Oh, of course not, I say. It never is, is it?
I sigh a great, heaving sigh. And in that moment, just as I have done in so many other, woefully similar moments lo these last few years, I give up and walk away, saddened, beaten, burdened a little bit more than before, feeling the deep and mournful pangs of a world in which, no matter what happens, no matter who fails or forgets or screws up or simply does not do the job that he or she or it or they or some blessed someone was supposed to do, everything is inevitable, nothing is inexcusable, and, if only because you took the time to care and to ask and to expect even the most bare and basic minimum, it's never anyone's fault but your own.
Posted: Mon - August 15, 2005 at 10:55 AM
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Published On: Aug 28, 2008 10:24 PM
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Published On: Aug 28, 2008 10:24 PM