The Waiter’s NYE Policy – Shock and Raw.

New Years Eve eh. The dawn of a new and fresh year. Time to forget the past and embrace the new isn't it? I wont be embracing the new mind. Oh no I'll be serving the middle classes coffee and brandy and topping up their Cava "it's just as nice as champagne for a fraction of the price". Live a little you cheap little man. Not this year, no this year I'm actually off on NYE. Good times for Manuel. Could have been better but for the fact that I'm working at eleven the next morning. It's like they give with one hand whilst punching you in an area that was only meant to be treated kindly with the other. Oh well. Mustn't grumble, we have a table booked for lunch and will have a drink, singular, in Fillet Towers to ring in the new year.

But New Years Eve is a queer night to work.

Normally the waiter to customer relationship works thus - you arrive, we do everything within our power to build up a positive relationship with you over two hours in the feint hope that you will reward us with treats and belly rubs and cash from your wallet, you leave. This is not how it works on NYE. Money is not our raison d'être. Getting in, getting the job done and getting the fuck out again is our NYE philosophy. We are more Ninja than waiter. It's sort of like soup kitchen meets invasion of Iraq. We don't think about reconstruction either.

It's a policy we call, Shock and Raw. (Good luck getting  your fillet well done matey)

So if you are going out for dinner tomorrow night to celebrate the dumping of one calendar and the hanging up of the new one by eating from the overpriced and clearly ludicrous set menu then heed these words from a bitter waiter who has worked 20 NYEs out of the last 21 (I didn't work the Millennium obviously).

Eat, Pay, Tip, Leave.

Don't dawdle or spend an age deciding over soup or salad like you are Sophie and you have to make a tricky decision. It's only dinner. Nobody really dies.

Don't ask for a twenty-minute break between courses. Actually no, go ahead and ask. We like a laugh. But really don't, you have no idea what can happen to food held on the pass. No. I. Dea.

Don't ask the waiter what they are doing to celebrate the New Year. I mean that's just nasty.

Don't fight with friends and family for a half hour about whose turn it is to pay the bill, just man or woman up and pay the damn thing. For every second the waiter is delayed getting to his party or home or cult gathering an angel has its wings pulled off.

Come on people, play the game, have a heart, don't be a cun...

Have a tremendous night whatever you do and with whoever you annoy. Thanks for reading Well Done Fillet in 2011, I love you guys...well some of you, some not so much...obviously. Heh. Regular posting starts again on Tuesday by the way.

Anyhoo, up the waiters and chums of waiters.

Mx

Mx? That doesn't work does it? Who am I? A militant black leader? I don't think so.