A Comment on Comments, the Allergy Edition

A Comment on Comments

A Comment on Comments

Every once in a while I throw a photo on the ol’ Facebook wall and then I go on with my day not giving it a second thought until five hours later when I look at Facebook to discover that the photo has stirred up a hornet’s nest of angry impassioned people who want to stab me with a hundred Epi-Pens. That happened yesterday when I posted a photo about allergies. It was a picture of a business card that someone named Megan had created to explain everything she was allergic to in order to make it easier for the kitchen to prepare her food. Oh, and I called her a “special little snowflake” because I’m bitchy like that. That darn photo pissed off a lot of folks and was seen by over 325,000 people, “liked” by over 2,200 people and shared almost 1,000 times. It was definitely a polarizing photo that made a total of 46 people decide to “unlike” The Bitchy Waiter Facebook page yesterday. However, a total 595 new “likes” were earned, so there’s that. There were a number of comments that I should respond to, so let’s get started, shall we?

Allergies!!

Allergies!!

First of all, the photo was posted on a page called “Bitchy Waiter.” I mean, it has “bitchy” right there in the title, so it should come as no surprise that some things that get posted are less than friendly. I would also suggest that everything on the page be taken with a grain if salt, that is if you had a salt shaker, which you probably don’t because even though you asked me to bring you one, I got distracted and forgot about it. Most people commented with the standard “I guess it’s lettuce for you” and “How about a big glass of air?” and a lot of “GTFO’s.” Plenty of people, thought she should just eat at home and some assholes said she should die. I never said any of that. All I did was call her a “snowflake.”

Leonardo said: I love it when guests have these cards. They are concerned about not dying in a restaurant and it helps the chef prepare safe food more efficiently than listening to us servers ramble on about what the guest can’t eat.

Yes, I agree that the cards can be very very helpful. I don’t know how Megan presented the card to her server since it was just a photo that someone emailed me. If Megan looked over the menu and made some basic decisions of what she thought she may be able to eat and then asked more specifics about the ingredients, that’s great. A lot of times though, I have had customers sit down and tell me “I’m allergic to this, this, this and this. So what can I have?” It’s not my job to create a dish from scratch for someone based on what they can’t eat. It’s the customer’s job to work with me to look at the menu and decide what can be altered. Big difference, right?

Rusty said: Hits close to home. My adopted granddaughter has a ton of allergies and I’m in the hospitality biz. Our job is to take care of our guests. You people that are put out by this type of thing need to get out of the industry. You’re probably a shitty server anyway.

Rusty, I feel for your granddaughter, I really do. And I understand that allergies are a serious issue for a lot of people. Nobody wants their customer to die because of an errant peanut making its way onto a plate. I am pretty sure that when you send your customer into anaphylactic shock, your tip suffers greatly. Keep in mind, Rusty, that most of the comments on the page are for venting purposes only. People are saying things that they know they could never get away with in real life and the Facebook page is a confessional of sorts to let loose with your worst possible thought knowing that it’s “just a Facebook comment.”

Ted said: As a Chef I love it…food allergies are extremely dangerous and not to be joked about.

I suppose it all depends on what type of kitchen Megan is giving this card to. If the kitchen is helmed by an actual chef like Ted, he can use the card as a guide to create a wonderful tasty dish for her. If she’s giving the card to a cook named Juan who works at a Chili’s, she might be in some major danger.

The last comment I want to respond to is actually a series of messages that someone sent me. I shall refer to her as Vagina. She sent me several picture of her red, bloated and swollen children. They looked that way because of an allergy and not just because of unfortunate genes that came from Vagina’s vagina. She wanted me to remove the image of Megan’s allergy card, but I didn’t and I won’t. In the six years I have been running this page, I very seldom have felt the need to remove something. It’s not that I don’t care; it’s that I feel there are thousands and thousands of other images on the Internet that are far more offensive than this silly little meme. Here is a screenshot of our conversation.

We get it, I'm an asshole.

We get it. I’m an asshole.

I guess at some point today I am going to be “exposed” by Vagina, but I don’t really know what that means. If she’s trying to decipher where the image came from, it came came from me, The Bitchy Waiter. I did it. There, I exposed myself. (It’s cold, so don’t judge me.) And in two days, no one will even remember this allergy brouhaha.

 

 

 

 

Discussion

  1. Azhure
  2. Reginald van der Slythe III
  3. Allergy mom
  4. Laurent
  5. FormerServer
    • Robyn
    • Allergy mom
  6. Paula
    • Paula
      • Stephanie Shaffer
  7. Anonymous
  8. lucille
  9. jeri
  10. SlumSlut
  11. Kelly
    • Paula
      • Bunny
        • ThatB
  12. Erin
  13. Steve
  14. Xarata
  15. lisa gehm
    • Anonymous
  16. Lynn
    • Paula
      • Anonymous
  17. Juan
  18. DeeDee
    • spider
  19. Gup
  20. Carrie
  21. Mary
  22. viki
  23. Jen
    • Henry
    • Ashley S
    • Courtney
  24. Megan
    • megan
      • BobbyAnn
      • Paula
  25. April
  26. Derek
  27. Valerie Villar
    • cat
    • Anonymous
  28. Stephanie Shaffer
    • Valerie
    • Valerie
    • Tech Chemist
      • BobbyAnn
        • ThatB
      • Anonymous
      • Bunny
  29. Ashley
    • Bunny
  30. jersey girl that you know
    • DaveJ
    • Anonymous
  31. kendall
  32. Di
    • Bunny
  33. Miranda
  34. TheRibeye
  35. TheRibeye
    • BitterOrange
  36. halbu
  37. mary
  38. Scargosun
    • cat
    • Colleen
  39. E
  40. Johnnie Jeffers

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