Considerate Customer

Small businesses have had it rough throughout the years of 2020 and 2021. Owning a small business has never been easy, but when another weight gets added on, like a pandemic, things become 10 times worse and obstacles become 10 times harder to get over.

A study done by the U.S Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy shows that "the number of people who were self-employed and working was 20 percent lower in April 2020 than in April 2019." By area, the study shows that self-employment rates were 21 percent lower in April of 2020 than in April 2019 in the metropolitan area. During this time, the start of the pandemic had taken place and major numbers of businesses had to close down. "Locations with larger declines included metropolitan and coastal areas. Industries with larger declines included restaurants and taxi and limousine services.

The United States National Academy of Sciences did a survey of roughly 5,800 small businesses between March 28th and April 4th, 2020. "Across the full sample, 43% of businesses had temporarily closed, and nearly all of these closures were due to COVID-19." They also reported that businesses "reduced their active employment by 39% since January."

Small businesses are struggling more now than they ever have. With obstacles upon obstacles being placed onto them it has not been easy. This year has also brought out a lot of hate towards small businesses, restaurants especially. To counteract that, this article talks about how an individual can be a considerate customer when going to eat at a food establishment.

Thank you for stacking your plates, but...

Look, I know you want to be helpful after your meal and that’s great, I love nice customers, but… there is a right and a wrong way to stack your plates. If you are at a restaurant and you just pile your plates at the end of your meal, one on top of the other leaving chunks of food and silverware in between, that is not helpful and please stop. If you scrape chunks of food onto one plate, put the silverware on the same plate THEN stack them with the icky gross plate on top, then marry me. I’m in love with you. If you cannot follow my advice, then just leave your plates where they are and let us handle it. I would rather just stack it myself then have to take the stack apart and then stack it again. It is also easier for the dishwashers since, at most establishments, we have to scrape the food into a trash can before running it in the dishwasher. If you work at an establishment that does not scrape the food into the trash before washing it, then you should quit, or enlighten me about your gross workplace.

Children, Why?

I know all children are not bad, but if your kid is making a mess at the table and all you do is apologize, I will have an attitude towards you for the rest of your meal. I understand that kids will be kids (well, maybe not because I don’t have my own), but maybe feed your kids instead of letting them stick their hands in the food and tossing it around? I’ll leave this one up to the parents, but if I come back to your table after you leave with a handful of rice on the ground, I will be extremely upset. If you leave a big tip and you are trying your hardest to control your kid, then I will gladly clean up the bowl of noodles that you let your child play with under the table.

That's not a compliment

To the females out there (or those who present more feminine), I am sure you can relate to me when I say this whether you work in the food industry or not. We don’t care for the compliments or should I say “compliments,” people give us. Maybe some of you out there are actually trying to be nice and telling us that our outfit is cool or that we look pretty, but most of us would rather you just take your food, say thank you, and leave. Even if you have good intentions, the world is drowning in too much evil for us to feel like you are being genuine--unless you snap your fingers and the world goes poof and everything bad in the world is gone-- just don’t make any comments about us at our workplace or anywhere else. I would rather you shove a beef burger down my throat and that is saying a lot, considering I am vegetarian.

An estimate is not exact...it’s an estimate

Different places tell you different times your food will be ready. At a fast food restaurant? Maybe a 10 minute wait. At a sit down restaurant? Maybe a 30 minute wait. Whether it takes 1 minute for your food to come out or 1 hour for your food to come out, we will never give you the real time your food will take. This is not because we hate you, but because we have absolutely no idea. It is quite literally impossible for anyone to know how long your food will take unless you have super powers and can see into the future. We do not know how busy it will be or how long the cook will take. Not even the cook knows exactly how long it will take to make your food. Once again, yelling at a person-- no matter what position they work in-- because your food is taking longer than expected just makes you a rude person and will absolutely not make your food come out faster. If you think yelling at someone will make your food be done faster, then you should take yourself to a boxing match so you can watch what someone might do to you one day if you keep up with that behavior.