Open Letter To Kyle Smith of the New York Post

Hi Kyle,
My name is Jessica Bluemke.  I just had the extreme pleasure of reading your opinion article in the New York Post.  Because it is just that, an opinion piece, I thought that I would take a moment out of my day to respond to your opinion with my own.
A little background about myself:  I spent about 8 years of my life, on and off, as a server. (Oh, that's what we actually call ourselves.  It's a nice, gender-neutral term, and most servers prefer it.)  I don't wait tables any more, but I learned a lot doing it.  At times, it was a really great job.  Really, it was!  Especially when I was on home for summer break from college, working a local casual-dining chain.  After that, I worked at 5 different restaurants throughout Chicago.  Additionally, I worked in a restaurant while traveling abroad in Australia.  It opened a lot of doors for me.  I was active, often working 12 and 14 hour days.  Serving taught me how to multi-task, prioritize, and compartmentalize.  I worked with some of the brightest, most fun, delightful people I have ever had the privilege to encounter.  Some actors, yes, but also mothers and fathers supporting their families, graduate students, writers, and those of us who were still waiting for the economy to recover so we could use our associate's degrees, bachelor's degrees, MBAs, doctorates.

Your article really offended me, personally.  You were condescending and rude, and I am embarrassed for you.

I am just going to go through your letter and address it point-by-point, if that's alright by you.

Well, hi there! I’m doing great this evening, thank you! It is quite rainy out there, you’re absolutely right! I guess we’re both really super-stoked to be here in this restaurant that’s more crowded than my junior-high-school cafeteria! Imagine the excitement, eating food in public! And your name is Jason?

Jason! I don’t care! Just bring me some food and go away!

Well, I am sorry that you are upset by how crowded my restaurant is, and I'm sorry that you don't like eating food in public.  But somehow, here you are!  At my table!  I am going to give you my name and make some polite small talk with you because:

1. I'm polite and that's what polite people do 
2. If my supervisor happens to be nearby and I am not being polite to you, I'll get in trouble
3. If you need to get my attention later, wouldn't it be better to use my name or give it to another server instead of vaguely shouting or trying to describe me?
4. I know it's too bad, but I cannot read your mind, and most other people find pleasantries to be...well, pleasant.

Waiters and waitresses at New York’s self-consciously hot restaurants need to cool it a bit. I don’t care how charming you are on your auditions. I’m not here to make friends. Frankly, garçon, I don’t even need to know your name. By the time you tell me about the specials, I’ve already forgotten it. You’re a servant. So serve.

Well , we addressed the name thing, but really?  You don't even want to hear about specials?  The thing is, if you didn't hear the specials from me and then found out later that you there was a parmesan-crusted tilapia that sounded so amazing, guess who has to hear about it later!  Me.
And really?  "You're a servant. So serve."?  You must be saying that just to get a rise out of servers everywhere.  You understand the implications of the word you picked.  Implications of second-class citizenship.  Of slavery.  And I know you don't sincerely think that.  You're just trying to be an asshole.

 Strangely, New York waitrons (my generic term for both sexes of waitstaff) don’t even serve anything anymore. They seem to view themselves as party planners or masters of ceremonies. After taking my order, they disappear and give way to a series of surly busboys who do the food delivery, the clearing, the refilling of the water glasses.

The implication here is that servers actually have control over what roles they fulfill.  I am assuming, Kyle, from your obscene ignorance that you have never worked in a restaurant in your life.  So let me enlighten you.  Who runs food, who clears food, who refills your water, you takes your money is not determined by your server.  It's probably not even decided by the store manager.  It's most likely decided by someone has run numbers and decided that the most efficient way to get you your water, food, bread, refills, clean table, or check is the system that you are witnessing.  Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong.  But guess who isn't making that decision!  The person you are blaming.

After the order goes in, the next time I see Jason is when, after first ensuring that my mouth is full, he sneaks up behind me and hits me with a cheerful, “HOW IS EVERYTHING?”

Yeah.  That's what I do.  I lurk in the corner and wait until you have shoved food into your mouth to pop out and surprise you.

In France, where I try to spend a week or two every year, waiters don’t even work for tips (the customer is expected to leave a mere euro or two) and yet they’re so much less annoying.

Working for tips can be really hard.  And, again, your server didn't chose the system.
Also, that was the single most pretentious sentence ever written by a human.

It’s the difference between a country where the children act like grown-ups and one where the grown-ups act like children.

Says the guy who would say to a perfect stranger "I DON'T CARE GO AWAY"

The French waiter sees himself as a party in a simple business transaction. When he’s ready for your order, he says, “I am listening.” Not talking. Not smiling like a politician. Not preening like the most adorable scamp in “Newsies.”

I am so so happy that you have been to every single server at every single restaurant in France and every single server to every single restaurant in the States.  That's really wonderful research you're doing, buddy.

When a French waiter brings you the food (himself, instead of subcontracting the job), he, like P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves, simply trickles off, instead of vanishing. If you want him, you can simply wave him down. He’s standing right over there.

I don't even- what are you talking about?  Every waiter in France just loiters around?  I thought they were serving all of the food and drinks, clearing tables, etc etc?

The worst part of dealing with American waitrons is we’re forced to be nice to these creepy ex-darlings of their high-school theater departments because of the unspoken hostage drama that’s taking place behind the scenes with our food.

The worst part of servers is that you are forced to be nice?!  TO THE HELP?!!?  The horror.
And I have a sneaking suspicion you don't know what being nice is.  It's not leveraging a smile so you can get what you want out of a situation.  That's what sociopaths do.  That is what is creepy.

It’s as exhausting as pretending your friend’s baby is cute. Your mouth actually starts to hurt from smiling.

No one is asking you to grin at me ear-to-ear.  Not being an asshole should not be exhausting to you.  That is your problem to deal with.

“Of course you spit in the food if you don’t like the customer,” I once said to a girl I knew who had been a waitress for years.

“Nah,” she said. “If we didn’t like someone, we’d just throw his steak on the floor.”

Which is why I’m being so nice to you, Jason! In reality, I can’t stand you, you twerp! As you’ll find out when you see my tip!

You hate every single server you have ever had?  Like, every one? Because it sounds like you seem to dislike the way Americans, as a culture, have decided we want our dining experiences to go down.  But at least you're taking it out on the guy who makes $2.75 an hour.
Also, that's messed up if your friend dropped people's food on the ground.  And it's messed up that you presume that people would spit in your food.  I've never known a server who would ever do either of those, and I would hope anyone who would would be fired immediately.

And what’s with the squatting while you’re telling me about the specials? I know the waiter’s handbook says you get more tips that way because you remind us of cute, subservient creatures we actually like, such as golden retrievers. But it’s juvenile. Stand up and be a man. As much of a man as it’s possible to be while enthusing over whipped-feta crostini.

List time again!  Here are the reason's your server might be squatting next to your table:

1. Like you said, your server is trying to make more tips.  So he can pay his rent.  And bills.  And taxes. (which, by the way, he is paying on his tips.  And Uncle Sam is assume that assholes like you aren't eating out at restaurants too much, so he's assuming that an given server is making about 15%.  So he's overpaying on his taxes because of assholes like you.  You asshole.)  So yeah, if he thinks that squatting is making him 2% extra, you bet your ass he's doing it.
2. It can be loud in restaurants.  Squatting gets his head by your head.  So you can hear about those specials you care so much about.  And so he can hear you, so he doesn't get your order wrong, because something tells me that you won't take that super well.  Because you're obviously an asshole.
3. Have you ever been on your feet for 12 hours without a break?  It's kind of exhausting, and sometimes your feet hurt.  Squatting can feel nice.
4. If you happen to be a lady, sometimes other ladies don't appreciate lady servers bending over and putting her tits in their husbands' face.
5. What does it matter to you?
6. Comparing human people who are helping you to animals, even an animal as awesome as a golden retriever, is incredibly and inexcusably disrespectful.  Dude, this guy is just trying to do his job and make a living, and you are just shitting all over it.  What if you said these things about your janitor or bus driver or nurse?  Is your ire related to the fact that some of these people are trying to achieve other goals that are creative in nature? Because you are a writer, bro.  And the line between the pretentiousness and obnoxiousness of a writer and that of an actor is paper thin at best.  I know.  I am a writer.  
7. This whole "man up" thing is frustrating to me as a strong, independent woman living in the 21st century.  Your idea that caring about food being an innately feminine, and therefore weak or stupid, thing really speaks to the problems of our culture in a larger sense.  While this doesn't at all apply to what your article is about, I don't like to let these little things slide.

  Jason, if you were at all useful, you would at least keep anyone from clearing away my plates while I’m still eating off them.

Sure.  We have nothing to do besides goal-tend at your table.
There are international signs for "I'm done" and "I'm still eating" and I swear to god if you are one of those people who puts your napkin on your plate or your knife and fork together pointing at 1:00 on your plate, and then snaps at the busboy for daring to disturb your meal, then I hope your literal head gets stuck up your literal ass because you are just the worst kind of human being.
Is it the worst thing that has ever happened to you to say to a busser "I'm still working"?  Is it, Kyle?

I realize you want to hustle me out of here so you can replace with a new customer. I’m a capitalist. (And in France, I’ve been baffled to get turned away from an entirely empty establishment at 6 p.m. because all tables are already reserved — for diners who intend to show up at 7:30 or 8 or 8:15. Don’t they want my money in the meantime?)

So you're mad that people are rushing your meal, but you can't understand how a restaurant would want to avoid rushing your through your meal?
Cool.

Nor am I sentimental about lingering for hours in a restaurant. After a while, the way everyone seems as though they’re determined to act out the concept of “Having a wonderful time!” starts to creep me out.

I am starting to figure out your perspective.  Because you can't understand the idea of a couple or a group of friends enjoying the act of sitting together at a table for an extended period of time, it's creepy and weird.  Because you can't relate to a server trying to do his best to give you a great dining experience, he must be a dweeb.  Because you don't like making polite small talk, it's a waste of time and inappropriate.  Kyle, do you think that maybe we all don't live on Planet Kyle?  That the rest of us don't mind interactions with other humans because that's kind of how life works, and you may as well just enjoy it?  Or even that people are just doing their very best, trying to be true to who they are, it doesn't matter that their personality isn't pleasing to you personally?  Just...just try for a second to see the world from a slightly different perspective from your own.

But, Jason and Co., it’s been only eight minutes since you set my plate down. There’s still food on it. There’s still a fork in my hand. Do I need to actually hunch over my meal and make snarling sounds to keep your busboy buzzards at bay? 

In other words, Yes. I am. STILL WORKING ON THAT. THE WAY YOU’RE WORKING ON MY LAST NERVE.

New York restaurants’ tables should be set with a little two-sided sign that can be flipped around as appropriate. STILL HARD AT WORK on one side. MY WORK IS COMPLETE on the other. 

Oh, I am sorry Kyle.  I am sorry that every single thing isn't perfect in your meal.  Because the lady at the table next to you can't believe that Jason didn't know that she was in a hurry and obviously she wanted to have a box brought to her table 5 minutes into eating.  No, you shouldn't have to slap hands away from your plate while you're eating, but sometimes life is really hard and you have to say "I'm still working, thanks" to a busser.  Hell, you don't even need to say those words.  Hold your hand over your plate and they will leave.  It's like a damn magic trick.

I’m spending $150 tonight, Skippy, and yet you were in the Federal Witness Protection Program when I needed a second drink. Now you want to hustle me into dessert and coffee. Uh-uh. Negative. This $28 sliver of trout still has about $9 to go, and I’m not leaving any of it behind. Enjoy my 11% tip.

So Kyle.  Soooo Kyle.
Here is what I'm trying to sort out.  Was this a conglomeration of all of your dining pet peeves, or was this the one dining experience that just set you over the edge?
Because lets go through your issues one by one.  In list form, because I loves me a list.

1. Jason gave you his name
2. Jason made small talk
3. The restaurant is crowded
4. Jason talked to you
5. Jason had a semblance of a personality
6. Jason told you the specials of the evening
7. Jason wasn't submissive enough
8. Jason doesn't carry enough things for you
9. Jason checks on your food at not the exact right moment
10. Jason is not a French-style server
11. Jason "vanishes" instead of "trickles off" as you would prefer him to
12. You feel obliged to be nice to Jason so he doesn't spit in your food or drop it on the floor
13. Being nice is super hard/exhausting for you
14. Jason squats when he talks to you
15. People think you are done before you are done
16. French restaurants won't let you eat when you want to eat
17. Other people spend too long eating
18. You don't like to have to communicate with people with words, you would prefer signs
19. You think you spent to much/want us to know how much you spent on a meal
20. You are a shitty.  Fucking.  Tipper.

Kyle, listen.  I am not adverse to ranty, complainy blog posts.  Hell, I've made a job out of doing it myself.  

But here's the thing:

If you are relentlessly annoyed by waiters who are nice to you or have a charismatic personality (whether that's because they just have that kind of personality or if they are just trying to be nice to earn tips), then maybe you need to take a good long look in the mirror.  

Here's the thing, Kyle.  I didn't hate waiting tables.  I don't miss it because, as I am sure other's have informed you, they were long, hard hours, it took a toll on my body, it is emotionally exhausting to be nice to everyone, and because it can be truly demeaning to depend on the kindness of strangers to make your rent every month.  But all of that is what it is.  There are parts of every job that are hard.  You know why I really don't miss waiting tables?

Because of people like you.  People who thought they were, at their core, just better than me. Smarter than me.  Assholes like you expected me to be the exact person you felt like I should be, at the exact perfect time for your convenience.  You didn't notice or care whether or not I had just been quadruple sat, whether I was on my 5th straight double, whether my boyfriend had just broken up with me, whether I was counting the pennies to make sure I would make rent.  And I would never ask you to. 

Because you aren't complaining about getting bad service.  Yes, you mentioned that you couldn't find your server when you wanted a second drink. But that's not what this was about.  This was about you being annoyed by your server as a person.  You didn't complain about Jason's service, you complained about Jason.

What if I didn't pay full price for my shirt at The Gap because I found the cashier to be flighty, and that money came out of her paycheck?

What if there was a line at the deli and because you have to wait, the guy behind the counter has to pay for 10% of your order?

What if every time someone wrote you a shitty email like this, that money got taken out of your pocket?

It's not that it was a poorly written article, you see, Kyle.  It's that you, personally, seem like the kind of person that I don't personally like, and because of that you deserve to have your compensation withheld from you.

I know I don't know you, Kyle.  But I hope I never have the misfortune to meet you.

You don't seem like a nice person.

I hope you're okay with that.

Regards,

Jessica Bluemke