Leaning Dining Etiquette in EDC (UUM)

Our school conducted a special lesson guiding us with the Dining Etiquette in EDC (UUM), which is quite useful in the real business world.

Most people enjoy eating-out. Plenty of television shows, magazines, and books revolve around the dining experience. Consequently, the general American’s defenselessness to advertising, couch coma-induced laziness, and ineptness in the kitchen all add up to millions frequenting restaurants nationwide. Though these hordes of consumers have mastered the fine art of shoveling food into their faces, many lack basic restaurant etiquette.

Greetings in Eateries

At respectable dining establishments, after the guests have been seated, they will promptly be met by a server. Before the diner begins to bark off his or her drink order, it is proper to allow the server to give a greeting and introduce his or herself.

The greeting establishes an accord of respect. The server and customer acknowledge each other as human beings, instead of simple tools for money or food. After a proper greeting, server and guest continue with ordering formalities.

Restaurant Campers

Many people believe that a restaurant is a lounge, which can be true if the diners tip well, if the restaurant is noticeably slow, or if one is in Europe, but generally speaking it eventually becomes irritating when a group hangs around for hours on end. Those in the restaurant business refer to such people as “campers,” and like houseguests and fish, they soon become repugnant.

Why? Well, servers get paid based off of tips and restaurants make money from turn-over. Yes, a good dining experience and customer satisfaction are paramount. However, taking up a server’s table and preventing the individual from making money soon becomes irritating at the least and borders on blatant inconsiderateness.

The Family Dining Experience

Tipping is a form of respect, a basic custom, rooted in dignity and community. Therefore, tipping and family values share much in common. Both are social imperatives.

Families, especially those with large groups of small, loud, and destructive children, should consider what goes into their accommodation. Though people enjoy the sight of sleeping babies, they hate the sound of them screaming. Generally speaking, when a child is being an unruly nuisance the entire surrounding section has a sullied dining experience.

Parents should instill restaurant etiquette into their children from an early age. It is irresponsible to allow one’s child to utterly demolish the dining area. Leaving a wake of strewn about garbage, crushed and crumbled food, and soggy mounds of salt, pepper, and sugar packets is severely frowned upon. Though legal, such behavior is reprehensible.

Responsible Tipping

Tipping constitutes one of the major areas of proper dining etiquette. Even poor service, at times, merits a respectable tip. This is a social contract. Society’s thousands of waitresses encapsulate single-mothers, young girls supporting their dead-beat boyfriends, grandmothers with no retirement funds, and scholars struggling through college. The nation’s waiters include much of the same, worn-down, hard-working punks and intellectuals, thanklessly covering double-shifts, carrying food on empty stomachs, just trying to pay the bills.

This class of working people does not receive minimum wage. Servers on average, in most states, receive two to three dollars an hour. Their livelihoods, therefore, rely on tips. This social arrangement of payment is how restaurants can afford to operate.

With all this in mind, please do not leave pamphlets or coupons as tips. Do not leave ant piles of pennies, and do not leave tips on how to get into heaven. A tip of one dollar per person dining is not acceptable. When tipping, please be gracious, conscientious, and generous even. Good tipping promotes good will. Bad tipping promotes hostility. Consider good tipping as a contribution to an improved society.

Conclusions of Restaurant Etiquette

It is much to better to legitimately feel good about oneself than to have to falsely justify to oneself why misbehavior may technically be acceptable. Generally speaking, an individual’s restaurant etiquette reflects his or her character. Good people treat their servers humanely. They do not disrupt the dining experiences of others and do tip well. Unsavory characters, to put it nicely, impolitely grumble orders, refrain from eye contact, show inconsideration for those in their vicinity, and give miserly tips in a unsightly spectacle of sociopathic greed. What type of diner are you?