Tis the season to be selfless

I noticed her milling around, and I’ve been doing this long enough to know what was going on. As she walked down the bar, weaving in and out of the crowd there, she stopped and looked over each person’s shoulder.

She was assessing where everyone was in their evening. If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it a thousand times. And a thousand times is probably grossly understating it.

“Hi,” I said, hoping to head off the inevitable. “Are you looking for seats at the bar?”

I am,” she said, somewhat surprised.

“Great,” I said.

I then gestured at the group of people she had just woven through.

“Just be aware that there are half a dozen people waiting in front of you,” I said.

Now she really seemed puzzled.

“I thought it was first come, first served?” she asked.

“It is,” I replied.

She still looked puzzled.

“And they were here first,” I added.

Welcome to the holiday season. I know it’s the holiday season because I can hear the hostess on the phone — they turn on the phones an hour before we open — while I’m setting up. Of course, I can only hear her side of the conversation, but it’s pretty easy to extrapolate the other half.

“Do we have anything on next Thursday for a party of six?” she asked. “At 7 p.m.?”

She looks at me.

“Do you mean Thanksgiving?” she asked.

There’s always someone who thinks that they are going to slip something by.

“Do you mean Thanksgiving?” I heard her say again 10 minutes later — and 10 minutes after that too.

Sometimes it’s more than just one.

One of the hardest questions to answer is the obviously absurd one. And the most absurd is when people ask, “Isn’t there anything you can do?”

It’s usually in response to not getting a table or not getting a seat at the bar. And it’s always asked at the most crushingly busy time of the night.

The answer is always, “I’m sorry, no.” But sometimes you just want to ask them: “What would you like me to do? Should I ask that person to leave? Should I bump another reservation and just plunk yours in there instead? Who cares if they made the reservation a month ago, and you just showed up unannounced? And it’s their birthday.”

T.S. Eliot once said, “Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm, but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”

And it’s that endless struggle to justify selfishness, or even recast it as virtue, that plagues us to this very day. People only seem to care about things when they directly pertain to them. Maybe I’m being cynical, but 40 years in the service business teaches you a few things.

And it’s not just me. Have you noticed that most supermarkets when they open a new register now go and get the person who they feel was next? Why do you think that is? It’s because they got tired of people jumping the line. Merging onto the freeway has always been challenging, but there are now people out there who just won’t let you in no matter what. And what about the toll booth? There’s always someone who shoots past the stopped line of cars, ignores all the signs and then tries to force their way in at the last minute.

And we in the restaurant business — especially during the holidays — get these people face-to-face. And that can be challenging. Explaining doesn’t help, pointing at the sign doesn’t help and sometimes neither does involving the manager.

“The bartender won’t let me save my friend’s seat,” said a man the other night.

“Is your friend here?” asked the manager.

“He’s outside,” he said.

“So, he’s not here?” asked the manager.

“Well, not yet,” he said.

“Our policy is that we don’t save seats for people when they aren’t here,” said the manager.

“He’s outside talking to the valet,” he said.

“Our valet?” asked the manager.

“Yes,” he said.

“We don’t have valets, sir,” said the manager.

“Oh. But you did,” he said.

“That was five years ago. So, we are going to let this lady sit in that seat. We can’t have someone already here stand because someone else, who is not here, is coming,” said the manager.

The man looked at the standing woman.

“Ladies first; that’s always been my motto,” said the man.

Leaving me with these thoughts:

• Barstools generate money, and they can’t do that when they’re empty.

• You are what you do, not what you say you do.

• Mottos are easy to toss around but much harder to live up to.

• Boy, Eliot really knew what he was talking about.