Why Oh Waiter? Why?
08.21.09
Dear Jon,
Why is it that the waiter or waitress always comes up to you to ask a question just after you’ve taken a bite of food?
Alyson, New York
Dear Alyson,
Ah yes, those sneaky wait staff and their ploys to make you look stupid. “How is everything?” “hrmmmphft!” you reply, and they smile and think about how much they’d rather be doing anything else than smiling at you. It must be an organized conspiracy right?
Well, probably not. Now I’m not saying their isn’t an international Wait Staff Forum that doesn’t advocate sneaky things like this, but it’s far more likely that you’re falling victim to something called the Availability Heuristic. This fancy rule-of-thumb simply states that things that are more memorable are judged to occur more often. Each time the waitress comes up to you and asks a question while you’re mid-mastication, you probably think “Damn, this is a horrible time to ask me this stupid question”, and you make a memory about how they asked at this specific time. However when you’re just sitting there chatting about the pros and cons of buffalo wings, and they come up and ask a question, you rarely have the same thought (Unless you are really intensely debating the wings). Later when it happens again, you can easily recall the “while eating” times, but not the “While talking” or the “while thinking” or “while doing nothing” times. Thus you’re more likely to think the wait staff is plotting against you because it seems they come while you’re eating more than they come at any other time. Just one way your mind likes to make you paranoid about other’s watching you eat.
Cheers,
