waiters

Ever since Carl Jung's work on archetypes, there have been a lot of systems devised to categorize people, such as the Myers-Briggs personality test used often in business.

Here is a simpler categorization technique: take someone out to eat and watch how they treat the waiter. You will learn quickly that there are three types of people in the world, as follows:

1. "[Waiter: can I get you something to drink? Person: yes, let me think about what I want. (Pause.) How about a ginger ale? (Pause.) No ice please. (Pause.) And with a lemon. (Long pause.) Actually, do you have diet sprite?]" These are people who like to push waiters around, getting pleasure that there are some people they can "control", and show their power.
2. The second (and most common) type are people who are oblivious to the issue of the waiter's time: they are usually prompt in their answers, and they interrupt the waiter only when needed.
3. The third type are people who are sensitive to the waiter's time. They recognize that waiters are often very busy, and might even realize that most waiters find it hard to earn a decent wage. These people are very polite to the waiters: they smile and make very quick small talk, but let the waiter get to their work. The extreme form of this type almost never interrupts the waiter-- if they are brought the wrong food, they will sometimes just eat it!

Which type are you?

It is fun to leave really oustanding tips to great waiters; sometimes I tip 50% or even much more than that.