Thought or Rant of the day!!!

[Mykey]

I think, what is it excellent idea.

[SekoETC]

Rant of the day: Customers who don't turn in their trays but leave them lying around on the tables and filled with garbage. (I've been working in a fast food joint this weekend.) People should know that all the time workers need to spend gathering dishes from tables is away from washing them, and also from serving customers. Also don't leave spoons in coffee cups, that slows piling them up.

[cantrlady]

Rant of the day: Customers who don't turn in their trays but leave them lying around on the tables and filled with garbage. (I've been working in a fast food joint this weekend.) People should know that all the time workers need to spend gathering dishes from tables is away from washing them, and also from serving customers. Also don't leave spoons in coffee cups, that slows piling them up.

Lets look at this a bit differently - my rant would be at the restaurant owenrs who tried to cut out a position or two to make their bottom line look better so they hammered a tray on top of a trashcan in hopes that customers would bus their own tables.

[Phalynx]

Yeah I'm with Cantrlady, if we don't leave our junk lying around then there is no need to employ people to tidy up.. In my Uni days I would have been screwed without a job clearing up for other people's laziness!

Mykey I need you to sort out N-Aldwych and Seeker....they clearly are involved in some form of love triangle and need your assistance!

[Missy]

Point is, people are lazy. Fast food restaurants aren't supposed to made so that a front-end worker has to clean up after you and that is WHY they put those areas on top of the garbage can for the trays. So that they have a place to put them when they are finnished with their meal. If you don't want to clean up after yourselves eat at a real restaurant where there's a waiter/waitress. Not that when you're leaving it is THAT hard to take your tray along with you to dump as you're exiting. I don't know why people wouldn't. Guess again I was just raised in an odd family where I was taught that that's what you do. I don't work in fast food but I did and it's rude to leave your tray&trash laying.

[cantrlady]

Fast food restaurants aren't supposed to made so that a front-end worker has to clean up after you .

My exact point - they used to...when fast food places were created. Now that they aren't. Of course, I throw my trash away but in the beginning, there were a few kids hired just to clean up the tables until the owner got the great idea to let the customers clean up after themselves - thus two kids lost a job.

[psymann]

I tend to get strange looks in busy pubs when I take my glass (and those of my friends) and put them back on the bar when I leave. It's pretty uncommon for people to do that in most places, but in quiet pubs in pleasant little villages, it's more common.

And those pubs are often far nicer to be in. I know a friend whose local is such a place - he and his friends (even when students) would almost always leave the place tidy when they leave. In return, the pub was always beautifully tidy, the staff friendly and co-operative. Even to the extent that they used to tap on the window and hold up four fingers as they walked past the pub towards the cash machine - by the time they'd got the cash out and got back to the pub, the four pints of Bass were sitting on the bar ready for them.

I'm not saying you should wash the tables and sweep the floor in McDonalds before you leave, but where's the harm in just tidying up after yourself a little? Might mean the staff have more time to clean the grubby tables and listen to your order for long enough to hear that you asked for no mayonnaise before bring you one with... Not to mention that if you're there with children, it sets them a far better example to follow.

Oh well, just another sign of selfishness spreading around the place I suppose *sigh*

psymann

[Nyaraka]

I'm completely in agreement with Psymann.

Even as a child, I've always tidied up whatever mess I made while eating. Restaurant workers tend to be far nicer when they see that you're helping them out, even if it's in the smallest little way. And it's not like it takes you that much energy to just put up your own tray after a fast food meal, eh?

[Phalynx]

You guys are somewhat missing the point here.

It's like this. In the old days someone was employed front of house at McDs or KFC or whatever. They cleared tables, they sweeped up bits of food, they wiped and cleaned tables.

Now.. they don't (seem to) have anyone on cleanup, just expect people to tidy-up after themselves and rely on the dirty looks of others to perusade those that don't.

But guess what, if you empty your tray into the bin and then stick it on top nobody has cleaned the table or checked the floor for spillages or wiped clean the seats. And then you get a filthy restaurant and then some poor night worker has to do a whole days worth of cleaning in an hour or two and you get to eat in a sh*tty unclean dump.

The difference between Eat-in and Take Out should be that if you Eat-In you get to sit in a fairly clean relaxed place and eat your food, not have to shovel someone else's stuff to one side, inspect your chair and have to wipe your feet on the mat on the way out.....

[Nyaraka]

I'm not saying that it's solely the customer's job to clean up after themselves. What I mean is that people should do the basics -- put up their tray, for example, in places where that's encouraged. I don't expect people to ask for a mop and dishrag to clean off the table and floor after themselves.

That's really another person's job -- even if as you said, those people are getting cut. That's still no reason to be lazy and not clean up your mess.

[SekoETC]

Someone still needs to empty the trashcans, wipe the tables, pick up the trays and dishes from the collection points... So it's not like people would be out of job suddenly if people learned to clean up after themselves. And if they would indeed hire someone just for bussing but no, that job is shared by all the workers. So when people leave a mess behind, someone needs to leave their primary spot to go hunting trays.
The place I work at is a merger of a burger joint, a café and a pizza place. So there several types of dishes. And people may order for example a hamburger and a coffee. Since they have the coffee cup on the tray, they can't just shake off the burger wrapper into the trash. So they just put the whole damn tray on a rack. Apparently either lifting the coffee cup off for the second you need to shake off the trash, or alternatively plucking the trash from the tray and putting it in the bin is too complicated.

I think the designer hasn't quite thought the thing to the end. In Finland, everyone goes to basic school for a total of 9 years. There they learn to turn in dishes. Glasses go in one basket, dishes go in another. The same thing could easily be repeated in a fast food place. People would sort out their own junk and not think twice about it, since that's what they've gotten used to. Sure thing that fancy restaurants are different, but there you also need to wait. Fast food is supposed to be fast. And if customers cannot be served because the staff is out hunting trays then it's not fast anymore.

[DylPickle]

I accidentaly dropped a tray in the can once :S

Felt terrible.. Wierd how a tray can affect ones day.

[SekoETC]

How did you make it fit? Actually, you can make a tray fit through the hole in one way, but not the other way, the way you're usually holding it.
I broke a glass on my first day of work. But after that I haven't broken anything. Someone else broke a coffee mug though.

[DylPickle]

The garbage had some goop on it, and I didn't feel like having my hands smothered in it while pouring the garbage off my tray, into the bin.

I was trying to slide the garbage in, while opening the thing splatter free, but the tray slipped. Rectangle tray, the short side fits, the long side doesn't?

[SekoETC]

Uhhuh... We sometimes use trays to cram the garbage lower, since there's lots of air in the middle and it may look full when it really isn't. Well, most people do. I find it easier to put some sort of paper on top and push it with my hand.