The Magic Words

If there is one piece of advice I can offer you that will save you a whole lot of heartache, it is this: be kind to the people who are helping you.

Patience and manners really do go a loooooooooooong way. If you're out of coffee and can clearly see I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off because I've got 15 other tables who need me just as urgently as you do, RELAX! I'll get there. Don't wave your empty cup around and point inside it. I can tell it's empty. I can't pull the coffee pot out of my ass when I've got a tray full of food, an arm full of menus and my shoe is untied. I'm not superwoman, you know. If you wait patiently until I have half a second to pick up the order that's been sitting in the window for 5 minutes, drop off the drinks for the 6-top that just walked in the door and take the orders of the three tables that sat down while I was taking your complicated order or returning your wife's eggs because "they're not scrambled enough," I PROMISE you, you will get your coffee.

Saying please and thank you will get you a long way, not only when it comes to your waitress or bartender, but in life in general. I always appreciate a heartfelt thank you. Just because I'm serving you some sunny side up eggs and bacon today doesn't mean that someday I won't be signing your paychecks. (No Christmas bonus for you, cup waver!) I don't care if your silk underpants cost more than I make in a week of double shifts, you can say please and thank you just as easily as the little old man who comes in just for the company and the conversation. Please and thank you will get you better service with a real smile (not the I'm-smiling-through-my-teeth-because-if-I-don't-pretend-to-be-nice-I'm-going-to-end-up-telling-you-where-you-can-go smile). It's easy and it takes no more than half a second. Keep that in mind next time you're ordering a double dry martini with bleu cheese stuffed olives even though the olives are already stuffed with pimentos and your bartender has to pop out the red stuff and fill them with the cheese every time you order a drink because you're the only one who orders them and you don't come in nearly often enough to pre-stuff them. She might be putting herself through law school with that job, and you might need her services one day.

There's a reason I love my job, and it's because of people like I had yesterday. A group of 5 young men came in, said please and thank you and were patient and kind and funny, even though they'd been on the road for a couple days and were very tired. They made my day. (In a strange turn of events, they were traveling from Boston, where I once resided, and we ended up having some mutual friends from the bar I worked at out there. Small world.) If they found it in themselves to be polite to a total stranger after long days of being cooped up in the car together and having to travel in 98 degree weather through crazy heat lightning and flash torrential downpours, then surely you can.

Or karma will bite you in the ass.