Nancy, I have my hands full with the proper etiquette-toward-white-folks-at -Wingfield’s bunch:
I’ll concede that customers shouldn’t complain when they go to an extremely popular restaurant and have to wait. But your comment that the woman wasn’t “treated with enough subservience” is obtuse. No one ever said, or even implied, that they expected a subservient staff–just a friendly one. Friendly service is something that customers expect no matter where they go (except maybe Goff’s) and no matter how busy that place may be.
And frankly, I’d be offended too if someone said I was the nicest white girl they’d dealt with all day. Why is it even necessary to point that out? Like our fellow FBvian said, I’d love to see the reaction I would get at my job if I said that someone was the nicest black person I’d dealt with all day.
I’d say the main subtext of all these emails I’ve been getting is that, as the friend says in Nancy’s post re immigrants, some people tend to lead sheltered lives, here in respect to race. Unless I’m being “obtuse.” Maybe the Great Wingfield’s Burger Interface will help change that. And, hey, take a compliment wherever you can get it.
