Culture of Entitlement

Ah, lunch! One of my favorite pastimes, or at least normally. This most delightful occasion was ruined today by someone who apparently was entitled to something unearned. It may not be social security or a government program as is often the subject for the culture of entitlement, but perhaps I can adapt the definition.

Some friends and I went out to lunch today. We went somewhere we wouldn't normally go, but we had specifically planned for some time to go spend a little more money than we generally would because after lunch this establishment had some desserts we wanted to try.

It was exciting at first. We all got together and carpooled downtown. We were lucky to find a parking spot just outside. When we got in there was only a few minute wait. Once we sat down, however, the tide of darkness began to spread. Being that this was a workday, some of us being hourly and clocking in and out, every minute mattered. We knew we'd have to be quick, deciding our choices with haste and then bringing dessert back to the office. At every turn though we were thwarted.

Our initial impression of our waitress was deceiving. She seemed nice, attentive, and quick witted. Once again the lesson of not judging a book by its cover is made apparent. After getting our first glasses of water, teas, and sodas we were not visited for some time. Then we were given the opportunity to order. We did so quickly and emphasized the need for speed. The waitress gave the impression of understanding and with prompting even refilled our drinks too! Our rekindled hopes were soon doused as we sat waiting, idly, for our food to arrive. Drinks once again empty stayed just so. No wait staff were to be seen. As our frustrations began to come to bear with slightly awkward jokes about finding a manager or how perhaps the restaurant was much busier than it actually was or the kitchen staff that we could see from our seats might not exist, our food arrived. This time it was a kitchen runner who brought the food. Our waitress stopped by moments later asking if the food we hadn't even had the chance to start tasted good. She didn't really wait for a response and went off to some more important duty one would assume. Our empty drinks staying so.

With the arrival of our food some of our cheer returned and we ate quickly. When we were done we sat and waited. Then we waited some more. As we were about to get up and find a manager our waitress arrived again and asked if we were done. We ordered our pieces of dessert and the check saying we were now in a big hurry. She giggled and made a joke about sweets and went off bringing back our treats quickly and the check. A glimmer of hope. A light at the end of the tunnel. Or at least so we thought.

Since we were a group at a restaurant more expensive than we would normally frequent, we all needed to split the check. No one could afford to simply foot the bill this day. So we gathered our cash and with our large group there were only three credit cards to run. We wrote down names and amounts on the check. I apparently made some glorious faux pas when I put "the rest" next to my name.

It wasn't long until she came back to collect the check. We told her that there was cash and then three cards with the amounts written on the check. She smiled and laughing said it would be no problem. We thanked her for dealing with the multiple cards. The part of the group paying cash took the leftovers and desserts and went to warm up the car thinking we would only be a moment.

A minute or two after the left the waitress returned with the receipts to sign for the cardholders. We split them up to the rightful owners and it was right about then I thought something might be wrong. Mine was for about $40 more than I had thought I owed. I looked at the other two at the table with some confusion and asked if everything looked right to them. Theirs were for the proper amounts. It took a second, but two of us realized as we added up the amounts, the three receipts added up to the entire bill. What had happened to the cash? We were very confused.

Our friends had been waiting in the car for a couple minutes now, the clock was ticking. Where was the waitress? We needed to clarify what was going on and figure out this discrepancy. Looking around we couldn't see her. Oh, there she is, wave her down! What? She's not looking this way. Here she comes again, and once again she never looks this way or makes eye contact. One of the others at the table gets up to look for her. It takes a couple minutes but he finds her. They talk for a minute and when he comes back to the table he says, "She thought the cash was hers." We just looked at each other completely dumbfounded. "She thought that was her tip?" I asked. My friend just looked at me and nodded. He then asked if we should wait to rerun cards or could I work with just taking the cash, writing in a tip, and going. We were already 15 minutes late. I took the cash, quickly put a 15% tip out of habit and left.

We thought about finding a manager and talking to them, but we were so relieved to be leaving and we were already so late we didn't. As we talked in the car I thought out loud that she had thought the cash was her tip. She had actually believed for some reason beyond anything we could imagine that for some reason we just left a 50% tip on a bill of a little more than $90. She just assumed that she was that good. There are sadly not just a few times I have had this poor of service.

As we talked in the car about how none of us could fathom how even the person giving that service could come to think that it deserved a 50% tip. Not only that, but we couldn't figure out how someone might not think to ask for clarification then to see if it really was a tip. Our waitress had just surmised that she was worth it, that she was entitled to a huge tip. Even now I can't understand how someone can believe that when there is no merit.

As I understand it a tip is a gratuity. In general, at least where I live, tips tend to range from 15% to 20% for decent to great service. The can be more or less, but those tend to be extreme circumstances of note. One might think then that if you received a tip of 50% you would think to yourself, "Wow, did I do really great service above and beyond the norm?" Apparently, you just assume your just that good. And assumption of entitlement.

As these thoughts began percolating and we discussed this matter on the drive back to work I began to feel it. I couldn't avoid it. I felt mortified. Once again I helped reinforce exactly what I had a problem with, what we had a problem with. I was not part of the solution, and thus, I was part of the problem. I spoke to no manager, I didn't even speak to the waitress about the problem, I just used the excuse of being in a rush and let it slide.

And with that we arrived 45 minutes late back to work. At least the cheesecake was unspoiled by the experience.

The Chaos Effect

Today I was mortified. To my utter horror and disappointment it was in myself. There I was, standing at the entrance to the supermarket with one of my co-workers, watching as a man and his wife walked into the store. On their way in I was dumbstruck as the man walked into one of the displays of merchandise outside knocking some of it down onto the snowy dirty ground. "Hey, no problem, accidents happen," I thought to myself. It was then, however, that I realized this guy and his wife weren't going to pick it up, they just kept going.

At first I thought perhaps he hadn't noticed. Maybe they were too engaged in a non-existant conversation to hear the loud thump as it hit the ground that I could easily hear 20 feet away. Maybe only he noticed and was embarrassed to bring something like that to attention with his wife. Maybe he couldn't feel the bump as he walked into the display because a butterfly had flapped its wings at some instance in the past on the other side of the world, the chaos effect having taken it's full course at that precise moment causing a freak gust of wind to exist only at that exact location and nowhere else.

I think not.

It was a moment later, as these thought paralyzed my mind and body, that I saw both the man and his wife turn around and take note of the felled products glancing back and down at them on the ground. Not only that, but they then looked around and made eye contact with both myself and my friend. Then they both just turned around and walked into the store as if nothing had happened. They both acknowledged what happened and that they weren't going to a thing. There was no possibility that he just couldn't hear, no possibility that he was just embarrassed and didn't want to notify his wife, there was no possibility that the Butterfly of Chaos had found another victim. They both just didn't care.

It was then that I felt a disgusting feeling of shame. I hadn't said anything. I lost myself to inaction. I was unable to hold someone accountable for their actions. If I can't do this for such a small showing of an uncaring someone-else-will-clean-up-my-mess attitude, how can I for something greater?

Thus, after my moment of indecision, I exchanged a glance with my co-worker and walked over and cleaned up this other person's mess. I played right into this man's delusion that it didn't matter, that someone else would fix it, that he was entitled to just leave it there for someone else. On the other hand it was about then that one of the employees who had seen this happen walked out to clean it up. By the time he got there we had already picked it all up. He looked at us and said, "Thank you." A very simple statement, but it was good enough. It's too bad the man and his wife hadn't wanted to hear it themselves.

So much power in those two words. After hearing them I didn't care as much. I still cared, but slightly less. I had just become The Stealer of Thank Yous.