Thank You, Ms.....

SOURCE: dreamstime

Sierra's last post reminded me of another annoying thing servers do (or rather don't do) that drives me bat sh*t crazy. Here's the setup:

You're out to dinner with a group of people (friends, coworkers, randoms, whatever). For the sake of the story, let's say the group is Ms. Jane Doe, Mr. John Smith, Ms. Ann Johnson, and me. I assume y'all have guessed by now that Scarlet is not my real life name (maybe you haven't...sorry to ruin it for you). My real name is not a common name. In theory, anyone with an 8th grade education should be able to pronounce my last name; I concede, however, that my first name is a little tricky. Anyway....

There's gabbing, laughter, a bottle or two of wine. As much fun as it is, at some point the dinner comes to an end. The bill arrives and it turns out that everyone has credit cards. To make things easier on the server, the group decides to just split the tab evenly. Server comes to collect, you let them know, s/he smiles and takes the cards. When the server comes back, s/he wants to be particularly impressive - so, s/he does that thing where they announce names as they hand back the cards.

"Ms. Doe?" Ms. Doe gestures to indicate who she is; the server gives her the credit card book with her card in it. "Ms. Johnson?" Seeing Ms. Johnson's little wave, the server hands her her book. "Mr. Smith," the server says confidently as s/he hands Mr. Smith his book. Then s/he wordlessly hands me my book. S/he then addresses the whole group with the generic meal closing ditty learned during server training.


Whenever a server does this, I immediately know two things: 1) they are an effing idiot and 2) they clearly think I drink the same stupid juice that they do. Do they think I won't notice their completely obvious avoidance of my name? Hmm...let's see. A server deliberately says the name of each and every other person at the table (there is time involved, you know, with everyone having to identify themselves) and then says nothing - NOTHING - to the last person. Sometimes, they pre-stack the books out of sight, so that mine is last. Other times, my book is in the middle of the stack. What happens then? They look at it, close it, and then put it at the bottom of their stack! What the eff?!? Every time I've encountered this name game - EVERY TIME, I SH*T YOU NOT - my name is the unspoken one.

I've always tried imagine what a server is thinking when they do this. Let's take server number one, the pre-stacker. Doe, Smith, Johnson - uh, oh, I can't say that one - well, I'll just hand it out last - by process of elimination, I'll know who it is and I won't have to say this crazy name. How about server number two? Ooh, I should do that name thing - guests love it - bigger tip - okay here, first Doe, then - sh*t I don't know how to say this effing name - hmm, i'll put it at the bottom - hopefully there aren't anymore weirdo names - Johnson and Smith, easy - last card must go to that lady.

Here's some advice, people who have uncommon (unusual) names are VERY aware of name usage. Remember first day roll call in school? It didn't matter in what order the teacher called out the names - alpha, backwards alpha, by seat - I always knew when they got to my name. There was a pause, then they would look up in hopes of catching my eye to try to will me to say it for them, then they would say (massacre) my name. I'd "save" some teachers in the eye contact phase, others not so much. This isn't just a school thing, it happens on interviews, when meeting new folks, and with telemarketers (easy to identify - they can never say it right).

Server name avoidance tricks are neither new nor clever, I've seen/heard it all before. It is just RUDE! If a server can't say all the names, they shouldn't say any of them - no one is expecting it. By skipping my name (and not acknowledging it) the server is telling me that I am not important, or certainly not as important as the others at the table. I'm willing to bet (and I don't like to gamble) that this is NOT what they want me thinking before I fill in the tip amount.