“A mans manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.”
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
For sure, we pander to a large clientele that would be thrown out of any other restaurant, let alone fine dining. But there's that peculiar inverse correlation between privilege and responsibility, the more people are given, the less they feel should be expected of them, manners are but the tip of the iceberg.
Manners are, by and large, the universal and largely unwritten code by which we as a society get along. They are the putting aside of ego, the finding or acknowledgement of the common ground by which we relate to others. Waiters, by and large, are expected to entirely know and adhere to them, waiters, generally, good waiters, the egoless vehicles of service, they know and adhere to the code but project nothing of themselves...which becomes rather difficult when they're the only ones playing the manners game...that said, there are few enough waiters now that even remember good manners ...
People, entering the restaurant, ball-caps on, cellphones to their ear, ignoring the hostess as they wander through the dining room looking for their guests/hosts, all the while loudly talking to the invisible other...
...or the earpiece, the sign of a permanently disconnected person, always someplace else, with someone else, never here and in the moment, is he talking to you or his other....
Technology, more than anything else, has managed to legitimize mental illness, remove the stigma, talking to Jesus? Angels? Demons? Leprechauns or Fairies?, channeling dolphins off the coast of Ithica? Who will know, hold that bit of plastic and metal to your ear, carry on, you'll blend in just fine...
Families, with their younger children, 3, 5, 7, the cellphone or tablet to watch movies or play games upon while mommy and daddy separately text their friends, converse, catch up, withdrawn entirely from the conversation, group, left out, uninvolved, later the parents will protest that little Johnny or Sarah is showing signs of Autism, not engaging with the other kids at school, and little wonder...
Eating. The dinner fork and steak knife used for the salad and butter, say nothing, replace them for the entree...
When done, plates piled up, with napkins on top, shoved aside, fewer than 10% of people now know that you set your cutlery at 4 o'clock and wait for the other guests to finish. Mind you, few servers know that you don't clear the table until everyone is done, and this is hard given the many mixed signals...
Couples, a romantic date, each by the light of their phone texting others, photographing their food, sharing on facebook, barely a word between them over three courses, Narcissism is on the rise, social media is reinforcing this...Banksy's Mobile Lovers -got it so very right...
A phone rings in a handbag during a busy dinner. The owner of the handbag pretends nothing is happening, the well-timed-indifferent fart of technology, look puzzled, curious, it couldn't have been me, could it? The phone rings again, loud, she must have it plugged into a speaker in her purse, no phone has a speaker this loud, it rings again, and again, and the table becomes paralyzed in their conscious effort to ignore it, they know good manners, know their offending every rule of etiquette, and you stand there and just smile, deaf to the ringing of the unacknowledged phone, merely trying to hear the guests order their meals...
And we have the regulars, who arrive just as we're closing, leave when we open again for dinner, they know, know damned well, but the rules were not made for them, they're special, and you smile thinly as you take their order half an hour after closing, their mock-friendliness, these people, they're our clientele, our demographic...
We get job seekers, 2 Italians in a single afternoon. The first, a half wit, fat, shaved head, dressed like a soccer hooligan, track pants, sneakers, despite clearly never having done a moments exercise in his entire life, Italian, he wants to emigrate to Canada (and I can imagine the joy with which Italy stamped his exit visa...and damn whoever let him in!), living in a group home, obviously touched, orders espresso, and fills it with a dozen sugars, orders a coke, demands a pasta of the chef, he feeds him, for free, but advises we don't have a job at the moment...
The other, wants to be a waiter, ski jacket, drops by Friday Lunch. 12:00. We're not full, but if you're a server you know this is not the time to be looking for work...
He's a server. Doesn't want to work lunches, has a lunch job already...("Then how are you here? I wonder..." the entire interview, visit, he wears his aviation styled sunglasses and toque. Never thinks to take it off. A***** takes a moment, we're too busy to afford it, but takes the moment anyways to interview him. It's disconcerting this, interviewing the unshaven, bearded, sunglassed too-cool to be here Italian looking for work...A***** catches my glance, he cringes, he knows, he knows damned well what I'm thinking...