After reading Qiao Yun’s entry about waiters, I suddenly felt that I should write something to encourage nasty Singaporean customers to make waiters happy.

*Someone raises up his/her hand and asks, ‘Huh? I thought the waiters are the ones who are supposed to make us happy instead? It’s their job!’*

Yes, that’s right, it’s their job, indeed. However, waiters are humans too. I’m also a waiter. Imagine having to make hundreds of customers happy and endure unreasonable stuff for the whole day, being a waiter is not easy. You might say that many Singaporean waiters don’t provide good service, but if you put yourself in their shoes, you might realise that many Singaporeans are bad customers too.

So now, I’m going to share 4 very simple ways to make waiters happy, in return, you will probably receive better service! It’s a win-win situation.

1. Appreciate them
   I hate it when customers (usually Singaporeans) take us for granted, treating us like slaves. I believe most waiters agree with me too. The sad thing is, almost 80% of the Singaporean customers we’ve met don’t even have basic courtesy. Many of them simply treat us like people of lower class.

   So, try to appreciate what they do for you. Treat them like real humans with feelings (even though, they already are humans with feelings). Mention their names when you thank them, if you can see their name tag. It will make a lot of difference on how they treat you afterwards.

2. Keep the place clean
   It might be hard to believe, but Singaporean adults rank the second biggest group of people who make a huge mess on their table and their surroundings, according to Desmond’s data collection™. Oh, the biggest group is kids, by the way.

   Some people, when ‘accidentally’ drop their used serviette, don’t pick them up. Some people even sweep pieces of food off their clothes onto the floor. Worst of all, some even play with food, and end up making the table dirty and difficult to clean.

   Please, eat properly. Don’t litter. Think about the people who are gonna clean the place later. And if you know that you’ve dropped something, please pick it up. Unless it’s money, then we’ll be happy to ‘clear’ it for you, haha.

3. Be patient and wait
   Notice that there are usually ‘Please wait to be seated’ sign placed at the entrance of a restaurant or cafe? If customers know how to wait, it wouldn’t be there in the first place.

   Unfortunately, despite placing the sign at the entrance, many customers simply ignore it and just walk/dash into the restaurant like it’s a neighbourhood coffeeshop. Worse still, some customers don’t even acknowledge waiters’ greetings and presence when they walk in like this. They simply ignore waiters, as if they are invisible.

   The purpose of the sign is to allow waiters to assign seats for customers, so as to prevent confusion as well as have enough time to provide good service for each and every customers who come in. Imagine 50 customers walking in at the same time, and looking for their own seats.. whoa.. waiters can just go home and sleep already.

4. Give tips
   Definitely the quickest way to make a waiter happy, if the waiter loves money. Haha.

   Well, seriously, if you have enjoyed good service from a particular waiter, or a few, tipping them will most likely encourage them to do better. Most Singaporeans don’t tip waiters because there are already ’service charge’ in their receipts, which don’t directly go into waiters’ pockets.

Bear in mind that, while these ways might make waiters happy, not all of them are worth your efforts. There are waiters who just do their jobs for the sake of doing them. For example, when you leave a restaurant, and you hear almost all of their staff saying “Thank you see you again” (not at the same time) to you without looking at you, you’ll know that they are not sincere.

As much as you can, try not to give waiters a hard time. You are not trying to kill them when you’ve merely paid $9 for your meal, are you?

I’ll get straight to the point:

• The plot is very simple, and a little too predictable.
• It’s not very funny. Most of the funnier parts have already been shown in the trailer.
• The charm and the wit of the first two Shrek movies are gone.
• The animation and render quality is getting better.

Overall it feels like a movie that has almost nothing useful to say, and is trying too hard to say something. It felt like they cheated my money when I walked out of the cinema. V_V

5 / 10

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