We Too

Sometimes the line between the professional and unskilled job is blurry.

Tonight I went to order takeaway dinner. Quite a number of people were waiting outside the cafeteria. Most of us, it turns out, were there because domestic maids don't usually work on Sunday. Getting a table is tricky and may not be easy on Sunday evening. And yet it's practical. It's visceral. I wasn't surprised when the customers grumbled about the long wait.

"Heck, it's quite a bit of waiting for my turn," one of them shouted, hungry and cantankerous, "but we're just looking for a table for two. Why so?"

The scene is pretty familiar to me. It's the same as waiting at any emergency room in public hospitals - okay, not exactly the same, because it happens seven days a week in hospital instead of on Sunday. I'd expect the waitress to talk back and piss them off. That's very much what we heard in the emergency rooms. But, to my surprise, there's a flip side to the story at the cafeteria tonight. "I wish, too," answered the waitress, "that you don't have to wait. If only those people finished their meal earlier and left."

A real professional way to talk to the customers in a queue, I thought on my way home with the takeaway dinner.