"Tell your busboy to ask before he clears plates"

My dad absolutely HATES it when servers give their name. He's there to interact with his meal partners, not the employees. He's not going to remember it and he won't reference the server by their name anyways, but knowing that they told him makes me feel like a dick. He has absolutely zero interest in forming a personal relationship - he wants food, not friends.

My dad is not an asshole. He's very sweet, considerate, a very generous tipper, and when servers try to form that relationship, even though he hates it, he goes along and smiles and replies. I've never seen him act rude or condescending to a server, and he's never bad mouthed any of them behind their backs to us - he just thinks restaurants are nice places to enjoy a meal with people you care about and not about forming new, superficial relationships. The biggest mistake anyone can do at any establishment is recognize my dad. To him, being a regular is embarrassing; it's like having no life. The second they start automatically preparing things or saying stuff like, "the usual?" he's guaranteed to never return. Except for one small family owned Mexican restaurant in my hometown. He goes every Sunday. As a community leader and ex school board president, he's written letters of recommendation for college and done other things for that family's children who worked as our servers every single week for years. He didn't mind getting to know them.

He's an odd man. A good man, but an odd man.

/r/TalesFromYourServer Thread Parent