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Things I dislike about the English, part 1.

(I'm Cornish, btw)
This is from a catering perspective.

1) The mealy-mouthed inability to admit that you're a cheapskate. I've lost count of the amount of people who've rung up asking me if I have a "special" menu. I now reply "do you mean a cheap menu?" as standard. See also customers who mutter something about having left the tip on the table and presto, there's no tip there. Newsflash. IT'S NOT FUCKING OBLIGATORY.

2) The fanatical worrying about REALLY UNIMPORTANT BULLSHIT. We're situated next door to a block of flats which has a private car park. The residents have a habit of leaving the gates open (the gates which have the signs on to denote private parking). Naturally the odd customer gets a bit confused and parks there. So this afternoon a red-faced woman came in the retaurant to complain to me that one of my customers had parked in her space. Heaven forbid. She then carried on complaining at me for five minutes (during which time my barman had found the customer in question and the car had been moved). I wasn't as sympathetic as I could have been. Also the lady who was upset (and I mean genuinely upset) that she'd received the wrong dessert. three times she told me she'd ordered crumble and got a creme brulee. Three times. Guess what I could have been getting for her in the time she took to tell me? Guess how long that mistake took to rectify? Jesus.

3) The constant assumption that everyone else is being treated better than you. This peculiar trait manifests itself regularly. Take for example the florid chap who declared to me in outraged tones that the table to his left had ordered after him, and yet been served before. I pointed out patiently that he'd ordered a well done steak, and the other chap had ordered fish, and which did he think took longer to cook? But no, no, I was victimising him and treating him shabbily FOR NO READILY APPARENT REASON. I just hated him. Obviously. I'd never seen him before in my life (when his coffee took five whole minutes to arrive he refused to pay for it on the grounds that the chap on the other table's coffee had arrived faster. I'll let that sink in. He'd timed it ).

There's more, there's much more, but that's quite enough to be going on with.

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