The (Formerly) Lost Post: The Idea

I'm one of those people who gets pissed off by little things. Especially things that involve patience. Like waiting. I'm terrible at waiting (unless there's adequate people-watching at my disposal, like in ERs and airports). I especially hate having to wait in restaurants, where the people working there are in the SERVICE industry. I know, I know, they get paid less than minimum wage, and it's not their fault if Joey quit, and Jimmy called in sick. But fuck, when I have to sit there and can't eat my food while it's hot because you never came back to refill my water glass, that frustrates the hell out of me. Incidentally, that's how I judge a restaurant - I never want to get to the bottom of my water glass. Maybe one out of every ten restaurants will let this happen, which leads me to think it's reasonable.

But I hate waiting in restaurants. I don't want to wait once I know what I'm ordering, I don't want to wait for the check, I don't want to wait if you've delivered the food and I have a problem with it, I don't want to wait when I need more water, I don't want to wait for anything. Wow, I sound like a total nightmare in restaurants - let me assure you I'm not. Don't worry that I rip all waitstaff I encounter new assholes, or that you'd be embarrassed to dine with me. I just don't want to wait.

Some people say if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Some people are idiots. But regardless of them I came up with a solution to this waiting issue years ago. I could even go so far as to say decades ago, because I really am that old. My solution is to have a machine installed at each table. Each member of the waitstaff would have a pager that corresponds with the machines for their tables. If I need the check, I press a button. My waiter's pager goes off, and s/he sees a message that say the table number I'm sitting at, and a number that s/he knows means I need the check. There's one for the check, one for menus, one for "Ready to Order", one for more napkins, drink refills, and maybe one that indicates a problem with the food. It's absolutely brilliant.

Well, I may have come up with the idea, but some other punk actually made it exist. He didn't design it exactly the way I would have, but at least there's progress: From the 10/17/05 issue of the Los Angeles Business Journal:
Remote Concepts - A push of a button signals a waiter or waitress. Los Angeles based Remote Concepts Chief Executive Yaniv Shmelzer came up with the idea after growing impatient waiting for a refill. He turned Xuse Me into an ad vehicle by placing slots on two sides of the 6-inch triangular shaped wireless device. Restaurants get the device for free and advertisers pay $1 per day for one 3 by 3 1/2 inch ad. A touch of the service button lights up the unit, as well as the ads. It also features slots for the dessert menu, the salt and pepper shakers and sugar packets.