I am just sick and tired of all these foreigners (also some locals) who say, “Bitching doesn’t help; be proactive”, “Stop complaining; solve the problem”…and my all time favourite pain up the backside, “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem”.

First of all, South Africa is not America or Europe where good service can be counted on wherever you go. No, in South Africa we have learned that unless you “bitch” and bitch aggressively, nothing gets done.

In South Africa you can go to a bank; they might have ten counters, but only three are active. Same with the Post Office, supermarket, municipality, drivers licence counter, etc. When you eventually get helped, the person serving you can hardly speak English and does not know his or her job.

Go to a restaurant in South Africa. Most of the time it is OK or “So-so”, but on the odd occasion you are confronted with bad service. Such a bad restaurant is a micro-cosm of what South Africa as a country has become.

When you get this bad service in “Restaurant from Hell”, you have the option to just get up and leave, but you know that that will not change the bad service in the restaurant for any of the other patrons. You decide you are going to be diplomatic and nice to the waiter. When that doesn’t help, you decide to be diplomatic and nice to the manager. Maybe the problem get sorted out, maybe not, but next time you come back to the same restaurant, they have forgotten your face and the bad service just starts over again.

South African people are different to Americans and Europeans. South Africans don’t like to make a scene and they don’t complain. South Africans will endure the bad service, pack up and quietly leave the restaurant and never return. Maybe it is wrong, maybe it is right, I don’t know, but one thing I can assure you of, is that leaving the restaurant and going somewhere else does not change the bad service for any of the patrons left behind.

Maybe in a bad restaurant, one should go to the waiter and the manager and offer them your help. You should say, “Shame, I see you are struggling to make this restaurant a success, so come I will cook my own food and serve my own wine. I am such a good person; I will even help you serve the other customers. In fact if all the customers join in and cook their own food and serve themselves, this restaurant can be a new concept and a success. Everybody just needs to buy into the idea.”

One could go further. like build a house for the waiter, a school for the waiter’s children and a hospital. You should buy shares in the restaurant and expand it, without expecting any returns on your investment. No, the profit should be spent on the waiter who was originally too incompetent and stupid to serve you in the first place.

Yeah, right. Like that is going to happen. That restaurant can “rev up and get stuffed.

All you wanted to do originally was enjoy a simple evening with your family, have a nice meal and a good time, but no, the manager and his staff of incompetent idiots couldn’t even serve a dog a good meal. They just steal the money from the till and still expect you to tip their bad service and tip handsomely.

Stuff that! I have come to learn that the only thing that works in South Africa is to bitch and bitch loudly. In South Africa, nothing ever happens without someone first having to make a scene. It is unfortunate, but it is a fact of this country.

Here, being assertive is not enough. No, you must first become a total “Doos” before something happens. You must first spoil everyone’s evening, before you start getting proper service, but if it is the only way, then so be it. We can all play that game and play it very well.

Now I wasn’t always like this. This new South Africa has made me so. Anyone who stays here long enough will reach the point where they just say, “That’s it. I am sick and tired of bad service. From now on I will not tolerate it any longer.”

I was surprised at how effective it is. I was surprised how people jump and how bad service disappears, when you start throwing your toys out the cot and throwing it aggressively. Amazing how they remember you the next time you come and how they jump to give you good service. Try it…it works.

The question is not, “Should I stay or should I go?”

The question is, “How big a scene do I have to make to get this shit sorted out and for people to start doing their bloody jobs?”

The crisis should not be the bad service the customer is experiencing; the crisis should be the irate customer in the faces of the manager and his staff. The restaurant manager and his staff should realise that the customers are not just unhappy; they are seriously pissed off and rightly so. The crisis in the restaurant should be for the manager and his staff who should realize that if they do not start doing their jobs, they won’t have any tomorrow. The manager and his staff should realize that they do not own the restaurant, the customers do. Without the customers the restaurant is nothing and will go down the tubes. They should be the pro-active ones. The sooner they start doing their jobs, the better for everyone. They should stop complaining about how difficult the customers are and start doing what they get paid to do.

I am an angry customer, deal with me. If you can’t do your job, stop complaining about me being in your face.