California Service

Today was uneventful, so I thought I would write something about my vacation to California. When we first arrived, Cara's friend Juel picked us up from the airport in San Diego and took us to Cara's truck in Escondido. We stopped and ate at a Mexican restaurant. The service was horrible. We were sitting in the bar, and it took forever for our waitress to bring us menus and get our drink order. When she finally did, we watched the bartender pour our drinks and put them on the bar, but the waitress passed by them twice before she brought them to us. We ordered dinner, and then we waited. We ran out of chips, and even though the waitress passed us by several times it was a busboy who asked us if we wanted some more. Our food was finally brought out by a manager, but Cara's food was cold. We eventually got the manager's attention (the waitress was MIA) and she brought some warm food. Meanwhile, our waitress had time to send text messages and cheerily greet her friend who came in and chat for a few minutes. I needed a drink. She finally pulled herself away from her company and I ordered another beer. The bartender pulled it pretty quickly, and then we watched the waitress pass by it three times before Juel got up to retrieve it for me. The bartender stopped her and brought it to the table. I asked the bartender if the waitress always performed her job so poorly, and the bartender claimed she was just really busy. That apparently got somebody's attention because there was a helper waitress there soon after. Too bad all we needed her for was to get the check.

I am usually a pretty generous tipper, but not so much for this meal. I did leave a five-point memo about why the tip was not higher. I know the job is difficult, but it ain't that hard either.