“How would you like to pay? By cash or credit card?”

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

Yesterday evening I was having a meeting with two good friends of mine (one Romanian and one Greek), in the lobby of one of the top hotels here in Bucharest. At the end of our discussion, we asked for the bill. After 10 minutes of waves and other signs, we finally… convinced the waitress to walk 3 meters distance and reach us (I guess there is a river there, unseen to the rest of us, because she was moving so slowly, as if she had to be careful while crossing it…). My friend gave her a note of 100 ron, she took it in her hands and then asked: “How would you like to pay? By cash or credit card?” Both of them froze and didn’t know what to reply, I tried to reply for them, but I was kicked under the table, so the girl left, probably confused (and annoyed) by the silence of her clients.
Too bad, because I wanted to interfere and… help. I am sure it would be VERY interesting to see her reaction if (while keeping the 100 ron note in her hand) I would propose “we will pay by credit card”, replying to her question. I told to my friends that it’s not polite to let a lady in darkness, without any clue about your real intentions (because probably giving cash can be a trick, at least I guess that’s what she thought). But I should not worry. The lady guessed right and surprised us all, by bringing the change without any other questions.

“No oranges for fresh juice”
       I should not complain though. The previous days I was quite a few times in a café at Radu Beller area and I was happily surprised by the pro-active way of thinking that a waiter had there. At a moment that almost all the place was empty, he took an order for 3 orange juices (as you can see, I become a bad influence to the people I meet, they start following my example). I guess he went behind the bar and analyzed the situation for quite some time, so after 15 minutes he returned and informed us that he didn’t have oranges for fresh orange juice.
       By coincidence, just across the street there is a super market selling them. But why to do this? It was not his fault if his clients would go to another place. His boss (probably the one who pays him a small salary, even if the price of juice is high…) would not notice. And if he would find out, he could easily blame the supplies manager, for the missing oranges. “It is not in his duties” to buy them (as I hear several people saying, when they want to be covered behind a paper for not doing their work and letting a stupid problem unsolved).
       I asked my friends to smile and to order a coffee, full of happiness, as I had just read in yahoo an article about how waiters take revenge of their clients. And that revenge was mean…

(No, the alternative of waking up, being more serious and careful at their work, is not an option yet for a very big number of people around us. In their minds, they should be praised by their clients just because they decided to appear, take the order and execute it, no matter how, in how much time etc. I guess this is why I usually buy things, pay them and say “thank you” and at more than 50% of the cases I hear the reply “for nothing”. How generous some people are…)

dirtyLuca

If you go to buy the oranges once everybody else expects me to go buy them every day that this incident happens because you’re considered a fool for doing something that is in the spirit of business not decadent(romanian poor way of thinking). I do not have a problem buying oranges as a isolated incident but I have a problem doing somebody eslse’s job on my own time.

#14

Nick

She probably thought that the 100ron was the tip

#16

elisheba

Nobody’s born to be a waiter. They probably hate their job.

#50

“How would you like to pay? By cash or credit card?”

3 Responses to ““How would you like to pay? By cash or credit card?””

Leave a Reply

All time classics

Real estate news