For her birthday and our anniversary, and since we have never been to a really fancy restaurant, I took my wife to Canlis in Seattle.
The night started off well. I was warned beforehand that the restaurant only had valet parking but there was no one standing outside when we arrived (or more accurately, there was already a car in front of the restaurant occupying people) so I decided to try my luck. I drove right through the valet stand and into the parking lot, chased after by a surprised attendant.
The food was good, the drink surprising, but more interesting was the service. It was good. Really good. Annoyingly good. Over the course of our meal, there must have been at 30 to 40 waitress-client interactions. Clearing our plates, straitening our forks, poring water, asking how the food tastes. With each course, there were two waitresses bringing our food and one waiter giving us the rundown. At first, I made eye contact and said thank you to the waitresses as they finished their pampering. After 20 interactions, I switched to eye contact, smiling, and nodding. Near the end, it was just a slight smile and nod.
This got me thinking about the rich and how they treat servants. Living in these conditions for two hours created a disconnect between the waitresses and I. They no longer received the standard pleasantries from me because the pleasantries created a kind of social friction, degrading the meal experience and tiring me. If one were in this situation for any length of time, I would expect that the servants would become, if not invisible, simply not nodded to on account of their omnipresence.
I did not particularly enjoy this part of the experience, and prefer people to remain thankingworthy.
Before this experience, it was easy to believe that some rich people simply don't care enough to treat their staff with simple dignities. After this experience, however, I think it is not necessarily that the privileged lack a caring personality, but in their situation interactions would be greatly hampered by niceties. The choice then becomes deciding if you want to be in that situation or not. It may be better to not surround yourself with servants.
