Funmurphys: the Blog

Memories Of The Way It Was

The chow hall staff part of this entry by Donald Sensing reminds me of my time in Pakistan (see the pictures -- be thankful you can't smell them, unlike Lileks' soap) when one of my government co-travellers wouldn't tip the waiters in the hotel (the Karachi Holiday Inn) for breakfast because the cost was included as part of the stay. We all put down 10 rupees (a little over 50 cents at the time) but Terry. If they did something special like get you watermelon, we'd throw down 15 or 20 rupies (about a buck). Terry never tipped a red rupee at breakfast, was stingy at lunch and dinner, was demanding and abusive at all times, and never could figure out why he got such lousy service and the rest of us, polite, thankful for goodies, and relentless tippers, got such good service. If we ordered the same thing two times in a row at a meal, the waiters would place that order as soon as our fannies hit the leather. Even when we ordered something different, we'd be finished with our meal and Terry wouldn't have his yet. No matter how many times we urged him to tip and be nice, he couldn't draw the connection between his behavior and its results.

Terry complained about the food in Susie Wong's -- the hotel's Chinese restaurant -- which was delicious, but Terry claimed it wasn't authentic because it wasn't like the Chinese food back home in Milwaukee. Now when I say he complained, I mean he'd complain to us and then berate the staff. He complained about the music as well, until one evening he brought his own tape for them to play. For what ever reason, the replay was a bit slow, with all the notes flattened, and it sounded terrible. After a little bit, Terry blew up, berated the waiter some more, and we avoided eating with him as much as we could.