I Do Not Negotiate With Terrorists

The question, "What are you doing for this New Years' Eve?" has little meaning to a waiter. Our answer will depend on how thoroughly exhausting the night has been and whether or not going out for a drink at one o'clock seems like a good idea or not. New Years' Eve is one of those days waiters love to hate. We know it will take every ounce of energy we can summon up either through caffeine, Red Bull, or some illicit substance, to power us through seven hours of constant order-taking.

This year, I started off the festivities by watching Rocky beforehand and attempting to get pumped up for what awaited me when I would get to work. This year I was pleasantly surprised. I don't know if it was the push-ups or Foreigner's soundtrack in my head, but it was not half as crazy as other half-breed holidays I have experienced in my illustrative career.

Then I did it. I actually believed that I had survived the holidays unscathed by restaurant insanity. Fool that I am.

When Saturday night rolled around, I waltzed smugly back into the steak house to be greeted with the pleasant news that we would be having around three hundred guests that night. Now, this is not half as many people as had reservations for Thursday night, but nonetheless, this is a pretty busy night.

I will not tell you about our massively under-staffed support staff. Likewise, I will resist the urge to tell you about my beloved chef's continual sending out of lukewarm food, even after my continual efforts to remind him why I was back in the kitchen when my tables were constantly in need of another drink. No, I told myself I would not tell you about these things.

What I will tell you is a little story about a man who came in at 6pm announcing that the rest of his party would be around shortly. At first, I took this as a blessing. Afterall, I was already in the proverbial 'weeds', so I was in no hurry to speed up my own demise. As time wore on, however, and the man continued to wait on his people, he began to wear out his welcome.

After two hours of sitting (mind you, I could have had a party of four sit down, order three courses and leave in that time), his party showed up.

I told myself I would not tell you, dear reader, about the fact that one of his friends showed up playing the violin (you can't make this stuff up). I also told myself I would not write a word about the fact that his method of payment was literally in a handheld pinball machine. No, I have resolved to only tell you about his request.

After two and a half hours of burning my time and money, the table was ready to order. Once they had, our friend leaned over to me and whispered,

"Could you tell the chef to hurry this order? We are late to another engagement".

As a wise professor of mine has said, it is not my policy to negotiate with terrorists. Terrorists constantly demand things on their own terms at the expense of the well-being of others, if necessary. Their food, suffice to say, was not on my list of top 10 priorities after this request.

I do not know if I have a great moral or spiritual application to this post. If you must learn something from every post of mine (and I do hope you are not depending on my blog for your spiritual well-being), then simply learn this: considering the needs of others is actually a good thing. As odd as it may seem, we, especially as followers of Jesus, are called to put the needs of others in front of our own.

So if you are out at a restaurant this weekend, take my advice. Consider the needs of your waiter. You are not his or her only priority and you will become much less of a priority the more time you waste and the more demanding you become.

Enjoy.