Getting Screwed

As my father used to say

It’s no secret that my wife and I are bar people. I’ve written about that before. We like bars because there aren’t any kids jumping, screaming, making nuances out of themselves, and because we tend to like bar food.

And of course, this leads to us having our own favorite bar in our little City.

We really like the family that owns the place, and we really like their hamburgers and fries. (We’ve since learned that nothing else on the menu is any good, but they do make the best burger and fries in town. Strange.)

Photo by Steve Allison on Unsplash

Anyway, we go there at least once a week, sometimes two or three times depending on our mood.

Since we order exactly the same things almost every time we go, we know what it costs.

Right at fifty bucks. My share of the tab is a bit more than my wife’s because I order a larger burger, and whiskey instead of wine, but it’s fairly close to twenty-five dollars per person.

While that certainly seems high, we understand that inflation is a real thing, and that if we were to hit Burger King or some similar place instead we’d be out at least twenty.

Last night our daughter wanted to go with us, so off we went.

My wife and I ordered the same thing we always order, and my daughter ordered a bit less. One glass of wine instead of my wife’s usual two.

When it’s time for the bill, I figure that it’ll be somewhere around seventy-five bucks. Three people at twenty-five a piece. I put a hundred on the table, and the waitress takes it away.

Now, I’ve got to pause here and explain that the waitress is new. When the family that owns the place first bought it, husband and wife did all the work. He cooked, she served. Even at that we weren’t too sure they would make it, customers were really far and few between.

But slowly they’ve built the business, and while he still does all the cooking, they have hired two or three waitresses for occasional shifts to give her time with their kids. Last night we got the newest waitress.

And when she brought the change, I learned that the bill was just under one hundred dollars, by the slimmest of margins.

I didn’t look at it very closely, one doesn’t want to seem petty, nor did I have my reading glasses, but my wife did take a quick look. Apparently there were some strange charges on there. My whiskey was on the bill; but so was the ginger ale mixed with that whiskey. I don’t generally enjoy cheese, so I made a joke when ordering my burger to ‘give my cheese to my daughter’ who does enjoy it, an offhanded remark indicating to hold the cheese. And indeed, I received my burger correctly, no cheese in sight, and my daughter had hers doubled. But, she also got charged for that extra cheese that came from my burger. Finally, the weirdest thing, she asked for no onions, but extra lettuce. Apparently there was a charge for lettuce on the bill as well.

In the end, all this weirdness, I don’t remember what else, inflated the bill by about twenty-five bucks.

Now the waitress is new. Clearly she doesn’t understand, and no one told her, that when someone orders whiskey and ginger ale you charge for the drink. You don’t charge for the whiskey and also for the ginger ale. And on and on.

I know the owners well enough. The next time I’m in there and they aren’t busy I’ll take one of them aside to let them know what happened, not to get any money back, but so that they will know that they probably need to train their waitresses better.

No harm, no foul.

But, I did end up getting screwed.

And if instead of being a long time regular customer, I was someone else making a first or second visit there, I wouldn’t return. Ever.

And I think that points to the importance of making a good first impression, as my mother used to try and drill into me. It’s not just the clothing we wear, it is what we say, and what we do. We have to be mindful of our actions, and how they will be perceived by others. We may be mindlessly going through the motions, but others perceive and will act according to their perceptions.

If those perceptions are negative, it can impact us in significant ways. If this happens too many times at my favorite little bar the customers will drift away, the waitresses will lose their jobs, and the owner will once again have to spend all day every day waiting tables.

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Over in Chat, at the Alkemye Book club, we’ve taken to reading the book:

How To Die by Seneca

You can join the conversation at the link below.