"WhatCanIGetYouFolks" news and stories

When I was a senior in high school, I participated in the first-ever Take Your Daughter to Work Day. Since confidentiality laws prevented me from accompanying my psychotherapist parents' to their sessions, I ended up trailing a server at an upscale restaurant – an assignment that probably would have made Gloria Steinem shudder.

I'd never been in a restaurant kitchen until I cleared tables at The Lord Fox, a fabulously patrician eatery that still serves beef Wellington and crab-stuffed avocados. I recall having two concurrent revelations that day: Servers don't get a lunch break, and most diners leave food on their plates. To the disgust of my schoolmates who'd also landed the restaurant work gig, I nibbled on leftover steak sandwiches, ate the bacon out of BLTs and finished off any remaining French fries before rinsing the dishes.

Eating out can be a rather nasty business. Even in restaurants that exceed their state's cleanliness standards, food is generally handled by a succession of bare hands – some of them crawling with germs. Innumerable elements of the prototypical great dining experience – crowding together with friends, sharing appetizers, shaking the manager's hand at the end of an evening well-spent – are an epidemiologist's worst nightmare.

As servers, we're constantly exposed to all sorts of viruses. That's why it galls me that so many diners make the situation worse by ignoring hygiene altogether.

Of course, we can't quarantine cold-sufferers. But having the sniffles is not license to leave your wadded-up tissues all over your booth and half-sucked lozenges on your table. Why must so many diners treat linen napkins like handkerchiefs?

Remember the Omnibot? When Radio Shack first introduced the short-lived 1980s sensation, it promised buyers could "astound and impress their party guests" by relying on the personal robot to deliver their drinks.

Now Applebee's is borrowing the Omnibot's shtick, employing a newfangled electronic system that's designed to downplay the human element of service. In restaurants across central Florida, servers are now outfitted with watches that vibrate whenever their guests press tabletop buttons.

Applebee's diner Virginia Wesson this week told the Orlando Sentinel she loves her button, since she often has trouble getting her server's attention.

"This way, they have no choice," Wesson said. "They make sure you can't be ignored."

Kudos to the anonymous waitress in Manhattan, the unnamed server in suburban Chicago and the pizza-chain staffer who helped Reader's Digest assemble its story this month about restaurant secrets. Just in time for holiday dining, the expert panel has reminded restaurant-goers that it's not OK to let your shy kid order for himself on a busy night, whistle for service or leave a compliment instead of a cash tip.

I'd concur with just about every item on the list, most of which will be familiar to readers of this column. Not surprisingly, many of the gripes center on beverages, which seem to be the bane of the service biz. I was only slightly annoyed that a waitress revealed servers, who don't want to mess with the noisy, time-consuming process of mixing froufrou drinks, nearly always claim the frozen drink maker's broken; I'd hate for a customer to challenge my colleagues or me the next time we trot out that standard line.

Only a few of the touted secrets seem generated just to round out the list: I'd have serious concerns about the sanity of a server who told guests her "brother's off to war" in hopes of getting better tips, and I've never worked with anyone who would dare leave the alcohol out of a customer's cocktail.

But perhaps the story's most interesting secret isn't a secret at all: It's a question posed by Kansas City waitress Charity Ohlund, who blogs for frothygirlz.com.

Most every plate I clear looks pretty much the same: There's a typically a stain of sauce where the protein sat, a few unwanted onions shoved to the side and a spoonful or two of uneaten vegetables.

But over the course of an average evening, I'll usually encounter at least a half-dozen diners who have a very different sense of what it means to be done. These eaters -- and I'm using the term loosely here -- push back from the table after taking a few dainty bites. While every restaurant-goer is entitled to enjoy a meal in his or her own way, the under-attacked plate puts the server in a rather awkward spot.

Hard as it is for vocal diners to imagine, there are plenty of customers who are shy about saying their steak's overcooked or potato was served cold. Their untouched plates are very tactful cries for help, which is why I never whisk a still-full plate away without asking whether everything was OK.

The problem is, sometimes everything is OK, except that the diner has an eating disorder. Or was just dumped by the guy sitting across from her. Or sensed a case of swine flu coming on. Not only are guests understandably reluctant to talk about such things, they often seem to resent my posing the question.