Every month I have a standing date with the girls. It’s my societal equivilent to the family Sunday dinner… except of course we’re brought together by choice. Needless to say, I love the second sunday of the month. What’s not for me to love – where ever we congregate there’s always lashings of conversation, stories and laughs. The hours just slip-slip on by.

Fine Desserts welcome | snarly wait staff are not

And what is good company without the neccessary accoutrements? A selection of consumables: beverages, lunch and desserts. And herein lies my point: you see, we always meet out. It protects this precious time effortlessly as “ours”.

Sound delightful? It is. unfortunately, the end of such lovely reverie is frequently marred by an uppity waiter with little to no customer service. There’s nothing that ruins a sense of food-induced wellbeing like sloppy treatment from your hostess.

In the course of the last year I have had a number of bad experiences in cafe’s in Brisbane. Waiters beware – I’m not a happy customer if:

* I have to stand at a cash register waiting for you to finish texting on your phone/ chatting to a friend or the barman before I can pay

* I have to endure complaints about coworkers or the previous customer before you take my money.

It’s rude, unprofessional and I’m unlikely to go back. That’s my power as a consumer. What’s really gotten to me in this instance is that old chestnut “we don’t split the bill”. Apparently, all the customer service required is a small laser-printed sign attached to side of the counter which the hostess drew to our attention with all the care of a militant fundamentalist. There was no kindly, “Oh I’m sorry we don’t split the bill” or “if you pop round to the left there is an ATM to use; I’ll just print a receipt so you can work out your totals”. Sure she might have had to explain that to 50 people that day, but this cafe has a dedicated cashier so a) that’s her job and b) if they’re getting lots of people wanting to split the bill maybe they need to readdress the payment strategy (I’d suggest better signage in the first instance).

It’s the 21 century: if you’re a restaurant or cafe that’s big enough to have a dedicated cashier, and five people’s coffee and dessert are well over $150.00 you can afford to invest in better service training and/or more flexible payment options.