At some (mostly chain) restaurants they get their heads down to the level of yours. I’ve generally seen them squat rather than kneel. This one knelt, but did it on the table. I’m with her: I don’t care for it regardless of whether they kneel on the floor or the table.
Arthur has it. The best way to make sure they don’t kneel on your table is to get the food from the little window outside the restaurant… just pull up about 3 feet from the window, and they’ll be so busy stretching they don’t have time to kneel.
“At some (mostly chain) restaurants they get their heads down to the level of yours. I’ve generally seen them squat rather than kneel”
I’ve never seen this in a restaurant. And, I should add, my wife’s really short.
Mostly go to buffets so the only order to take is soda, unless one has that already from when one paid on the way in.
“I’ve never seen this in a restaurant.”
It’s been a really long time since I’ve seen it, so I don’t remember which chain(s). Even more annoying was the one (Outback?) where if there was room the server sat in your booth while taking your order.
I suppose the idea of kneeling, or more likely hunkering down, is that the waiters aren’t looking down on their customers, forcing them to look upwards in supplication. However, kneeling on the table does not solve this problem but adds to it as the customers still have to look up at the waiter, plus he is kneeling all over their place settings and in this specific case knocking over the salt and pepper pots etc.
Regardless of actual kneeling, this comic is exaggerating the common trope from a decade or more ago of how much people hated it when waiters would sit at their table to take the order.
I’ve seen it once or twice, when the server was particularly tall. It seemed like an attempt to avoid looming over us, but, yeah, it was more creepy than reassuring.
The last time we had to deal with a kneeling waiter, it was overshadowed by Cheese Dome. A basic nacho plate that was entirely covered by a thick, smooth, greasy dome of a cheese like substance. Must have been near a kilo of the stuff. Never say anything like it before or since, praise be.
“Even more annoying was the one (Outback?) where if there was room the server sat in your booth while taking your order.”
We had one diner in WI and another here in FL where we would eat every day . . . we thought it was a mark of friendliness when the waitress sat with us, or the owner would join us for a while. I miss both those places!
Maybe he kneels to show that the customer is not only always right, but his object of worship.
I suppose different people notice/are irritated by this to different degrees. I guess I’m slightly but not very consciously aware it that I was able to *just barely* understand what she was talking about but not familiar enough to think it’d be common enough to make a joke over.
My personal metaphor for this type of joke is the Jerry Seinfeld bit about toilet sears made of pennies suspended in transparent plastic. It’s for too specific an item to be a subject of a “y’ever notice” joke.
A long time ago at Durgin Park in Boston the waitress would sit down in a chair at your table to take your order, and sometimes sit down and tell you a joke when she gave you the check. And scold you for not eating all your peas.
I must be eating at the wrong places. I can’t recall an employee at, say, Burger King ever kneeling to take my order.
Durgin Park – an experience to remember – and repeat.
Comics I Don't Understand 
At some (mostly chain) restaurants they get their heads down to the level of yours. I’ve generally seen them squat rather than kneel. This one knelt, but did it on the table. I’m with her: I don’t care for it regardless of whether they kneel on the floor or the table.
Arthur has it. The best way to make sure they don’t kneel on your table is to get the food from the little window outside the restaurant… just pull up about 3 feet from the window, and they’ll be so busy stretching they don’t have time to kneel.
“At some (mostly chain) restaurants they get their heads down to the level of yours. I’ve generally seen them squat rather than kneel”
I’ve never seen this in a restaurant. And, I should add, my wife’s really short.
Mostly go to buffets so the only order to take is soda, unless one has that already from when one paid on the way in.
“I’ve never seen this in a restaurant.”
It’s been a really long time since I’ve seen it, so I don’t remember which chain(s). Even more annoying was the one (Outback?) where if there was room the server sat in your booth while taking your order.
I suppose the idea of kneeling, or more likely hunkering down, is that the waiters aren’t looking down on their customers, forcing them to look upwards in supplication. However, kneeling on the table does not solve this problem but adds to it as the customers still have to look up at the waiter, plus he is kneeling all over their place settings and in this specific case knocking over the salt and pepper pots etc.
Regardless of actual kneeling, this comic is exaggerating the common trope from a decade or more ago of how much people hated it when waiters would sit at their table to take the order.
I’ve seen it once or twice, when the server was particularly tall. It seemed like an attempt to avoid looming over us, but, yeah, it was more creepy than reassuring.
The last time we had to deal with a kneeling waiter, it was overshadowed by Cheese Dome. A basic nacho plate that was entirely covered by a thick, smooth, greasy dome of a cheese like substance. Must have been near a kilo of the stuff. Never say anything like it before or since, praise be.
“Even more annoying was the one (Outback?) where if there was room the server sat in your booth while taking your order.”
We had one diner in WI and another here in FL where we would eat every day . . . we thought it was a mark of friendliness when the waitress sat with us, or the owner would join us for a while. I miss both those places!
Maybe he kneels to show that the customer is not only always right, but his object of worship.
I suppose different people notice/are irritated by this to different degrees. I guess I’m slightly but not very consciously aware it that I was able to *just barely* understand what she was talking about but not familiar enough to think it’d be common enough to make a joke over.
My personal metaphor for this type of joke is the Jerry Seinfeld bit about toilet sears made of pennies suspended in transparent plastic. It’s for too specific an item to be a subject of a “y’ever notice” joke.
A long time ago at Durgin Park in Boston the waitress would sit down in a chair at your table to take your order, and sometimes sit down and tell you a joke when she gave you the check. And scold you for not eating all your peas.
I must be eating at the wrong places. I can’t recall an employee at, say, Burger King ever kneeling to take my order.
Durgin Park – an experience to remember – and repeat.