Bar Vulture

Some friends and I were at a bar last night to celebrate a birthday. It was that sort of place where the wall and ceiling are plastered with dollar bills, and this happened to be karaoke night. I did manage to sing, although I have had better performances. In any case, the karaoke is not what I found chiefly remarkable. There was something about the service there that rubbed me the wrong way, although I'm sure I would be alone in this.

We got dinner there, and the food was good enough. Certainly there was an awful lot of it. I hardly got halfway through my burger before I'd had enough, and there were nachos and fries as well. The food is not at issue. It's the guy who came around looking for completed dishes and empty glasses. That's a necessary thing, I'll grant, but I won't agree that one need be as as aggressive as he seemed to be in his task.

Every few minutes, around he came sniffing out anything that had been unattended. He did this with the ruthlessness of a meter maid, constantly putting me on guard to ensure that I did not lose my food or my drink. He struck me as something like a vulture, although it's not that he was consuming the food. He was just looking to clear tables and get dishes back to be washed and reused, and this is admirable enough.

I suppose he maybe was eager to be done with the work so that he and the rest could go home promptly, although this was well before closing time. I was perhaps in a bad state of mind to fairly judge him, but I just saw him clearing tables for which there was no demand and snatching up dishes that no one was going to need soon. He really put me on edge, which I don't regard as the point of service. I guess I give him the benefit of the doubt anyway.