Weird Encounters In The Service Industry

There are some weird goings-on in the food industry. On Tuesday I sat next to a lady with a weird request along with her order. Today, Sophia and I witnessed an interesting incident at California Pizza Kitchen at The Forum on Orchard.

I'm still not sure if the incident was borne of a possible miscommunication or misunderstanding, or if it was just a stupid policy of the restaurant.

A group of three office people came in for lunch. From their accent and conversations in Cantonese, I surmised that they were probably Hongkies. Anyway, the man in the group started raising his voice after the waitress got to their table and I was able to make out something along the lines of them wanting to split the bill three-ways and the waitress telling them that was not possible. At which, the man called loudly to see the manager.

Instead of getting the manager, the waitress got the cashier. And while the customer was grilling the cashier, the manager showed up. I couldn't really make out what they were discussing, just the fact that the customer was quite upset.

In the end, customer and manager somehow came to a cort of compromise and the group was allowed to split the bill individually. The weird thing was how that was managed. I saw the group of three break up and two of them individually sat at another table each. And the man who had complained said something to the effect of, 'Serve them right for such a stupid policy. I don't care if we have to split up into three different tables just to get our bill separated. It's absurd and there was no issue the last time I was here but if they want to make it an issue and do it this way, then we'll just do it their way."

So that was how the group of three at one table split up into three groups of one, each at a different table, just so that they could get separate bills on their lunch.

How about that for service?