Get the Story! (What are we celebrating today?)

[Palsgraf]

"Get the Story!" is one of the newer initiatives from corporate on how to improve customer service. Each server is required to ask why the guests chose to dine-out ... What's the occasion? What are we celebrating this evening? (What the f*#k are you doing here and why won't you leave me alone??!!!)

When I got the response for my number one entry, I immediately realized that these needed to be recorded, logged, and saved for future generations.

Feel free to add reasons why people have told you - or reasons you have had - for dining out.

3. Woman pointing to the woman beside her: "She's becoming Jewish tonight." (an "aliyah"?) I immediately told my Jewish manager, who of course didn't believe me at first. Within minutes, a priest walked by us as his party left the restaurant, and I turned to my manager and joked, "Hey, should I send him by table 107 to give that woman one more chance to be 'saved'?" She glared at me and replied,"You're an ass," (which I believe meant 'no').

2. The father of the famliy said, "Our dog died today." I looked around the table to see if anyone was smiling, hoping he was joking. He wasn't. One of the daughters began to cry. This "Get the Story" b.s. sucks!

1. At a table of early-20's girls, one points across the table to another and announces (loud enough for guests at neighboring tables to hear) "She's STD-free!" Yes, that shocked me. It took me a few seconds to come up with, "Well congratulations! Good for you! Maybe we have some sort of cake for that. I'll have to check."

Okay. Other entries?

[JLRodgers]

My reasons for dining out have included: wanting to help out a friend who was a waitress (who wouldn't accept money -- so I went there to tip her [like $40-80 -- where she got it all]), taking a woman out to eat, and uh... I was hungry ---- the latter being the most likely.


Although I heard (at a pizza place, pickup only) once a customer eating out because the partner couldn't cook worth anything. And a few saying they accidently burnt the stuff on the grill...


And I've known a few people that ate out for weird reasons:
- lost virginity
- stopped bleeding (constant thing)
- started bleeding (not pregnant thing)
- (other women-problem or pregnancy related reasons)
- going to catch the "lying cheating bastard"
- and surprisingly, one that went out to eat because she was STD free! (her ex had sexual relations with her against permission -- and he picked up a number of STDs... she was very "lucky", and figured after dropping a grand or so for the tests, then finding out she didn't have to pay for it due to why she had to have them -- she thought treating herself to dinner was a good idea)

[cinema guy]

My friend has left her abusive husband and is feeling down. So I took her out to cheer her up.

[Geek King]

"Well congratulations! Good for you! Maybe we have some sort of cake for that. I'll have to check."

Wouldn't pie be more appropriate?

[Taboo]

My father once took me out to dinner to celebrate his new restraining order against my mother. I would have loved to see someone's facial expression when he said that, though.

[tamezin]

Last year during after a particularly nasty company take over, we all went out to dinner to celebrate the survivors and commiserate with the victims.

[RobotPlanet]

- and surprisingly, one that went out to eat because she was STD free! (her ex had sexual relations with her against permission -- and he picked up a number of STDs... she was very "lucky", and figured after dropping a grand or so for the tests, then finding out she didn't have to pay for it due to why she had to have them -- she thought treating herself to dinner was a good idea)

I know this is completely off-topic and I'm opening myself up to controversy (sorry mods!), but "had sexual relations with her against permission" is rape. She was raped by a rapist. I just feel like using euphemisms like "forced sex" trivializes and attempts to normalize the act of rape, which is a bad thing (both the act and the trivialization/normalization of it).

But yeah, that whole "get the story!" thing seems like exactly the kind of bullshit corporate policy that's meant to "create a relationship with our guests" but ends up causing way more trouble than it's worth...but maybe that's because I could easily imagine an SC getting offended and taking it out on the poor server.

[NightWatch]

I know this is completely off-topic and I'm opening myself up to controversy (sorry mods!), but "had sexual relations with her against permission" is rape. She was raped by a rapist. I just feel like using euphemisms like "forced sex" trivializes and attempts to normalize the act of rape, which is a bad thing (both the act and the trivialization/normalization of it).

I could be totally wrong, but I read it as the Ex was going around cheating and then bringing home his icky diseases. Not that he was raping the woman. Again, I could have read it wrong.

[sms001]

I but I read it as the Ex was going around cheating

Yeah, I got that she didn't know/he wasn't supposed to be sleeping around.

[JLRodgers]

I could be totally wrong, but I read it as the Ex was going around cheating and then bringing home his icky diseases...

I just phrased it the way she did, too easy to get into fratching really quick...so that's all I'll say


My parents just called me and said they ate out a few nights for a strange reason: they didn't want to take the time to go shopping for food.

[Dasota]

My friends have taken me out to eat after my mom set her face on fire and I needed to get out of the house. That would have been an intersting thing to tell someone if they were asking why we were dining out.

[RobotPlanet]

"her ex had sexual relations with her against permission"
"she didn't have to pay for it due to why she had to have them"
These two parts are why I'm yelling rape, as it were. Doesn't say anything about him sleeping with other people, cheating, etc. Usually the only reason a person would not have to pay for an STD/pregnancy test (assuming it's not a free clinic or federally-subsidized program -- like the grants that allow women access to free/reduced-cost healthcare at Planned Parenthood) is in a case of criminal sexual assault. I'll agree the wording is confusing (I had to read it twice before I understood it fully), but in the paraphrased words of Billy Madison: "that's [sexual] assault, brotha!"

[MadMike]

My friend has left her abusive husband and is feeling down. So I took her out to cheer her up.

When I got rid of my ex, I went out and got drunk for joy. But no one asked me about that.

Seriously, I try to celebrate that date every year. It's like my own personal independance day.

[blas]

Not a super special lunch, but instead of the usual McDonalds on Friday, I went to Arby's and went overboard on the year anniversary of DipShit's firing.

The night I broke up with my most recent ex I went out with my girlfriends and partied so hard that I don't even remember what happened that night.

I'm not so sure I like the "get the story". Some people just go out to go out, ya know? I fault corporate for stuff like this and not the poor server, but I hate how they are forced to be so damn chirpy and happy, when you can tell they don't want to be. It sucks.

[NightWatch]

I fault corporate for stuff like this and not the poor server, but I hate how they are forced to be so damn chirpy and happy, when you can tell they don't want to be. It sucks.

It makes me really nervous when the person serving me my food is trying too hard to pretend they're happier then they really are. I'm worried they're plotting something... evil...