The One Question I Can’t Stand at Restaurants. “The idea of a restaurant I’d never been to using a dossier on me to decide, say, where I should sit, what I was likely to order, even whether I should be given a reservation at all, gave me chills.”
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"How is everything tasting?" is a far worse question.
“Still working on that?”
I've got into stand-offs at retail stores for refusing to give them my phone number, because the staff don't know how to complete the transaction without it
Why not just give a fake number and not spend a second more thinking about stuff like this?
I'm 100% aligned with the response in the article by Rugpool: "This was a bewildering read; I've literally never had a restaurant ask for my phone number outside of needing it to place a reservation or let me know when my carryout is ready for pickup. Maybe I'm eating at too many family-owned Thai and BBQ joints, and not enough places rated by a tire company."
I've too have never encountered this, and any other time someone asks me for my contact info during a retail transaction, I give my best "oh, bless" expression and simply say "No thank you". It's amazing how effective it is to graciously but definitely shut down these kinds of excessive asks. If things get saucy, "You first" is another useful response.
I'm with you about the "No thank you" being magic in these situations!
Ugh, I also feel this way about being asked my number at the same time I appreciated Brett acknowledging that maybe it's one of those "I'm old and why is everything changing so fast" feelings.
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