One experience of cultural confrontation that I faced within my first month abroad was to do with the service industry in the UK compared to that of the US. A few weeks ago I was out at dinner for a friend’s birthday. We went to a popular italian place nearby. We had made a reservation weeks in advance, and when we arrived they told us that our table was not ready yet – there was another party still using it. We had to wait 30+ minutes for our table, which already had me feeling a bit frustrated. Then, once we were seated, the waiter did not come over to take our order. Nobody came to offer us water, or bread, and we were sitting ready to order for nearly an hour. I was feeling extremely impatient at this point, since we had our reservation time for nearly two hours before that and hadn’t even ordered our food. Our waiter was nowhere to be seen, and we didn’t know that we had to get his attention if we wanted to order. I spotted him walking by near the bar and called him over, telling him we were ready to order the food. As my initial reaction, I was frustrated and annoyed. I felt like he wasn’t attentive to us, didn’t care about us as customers or care that we were paying customers. Looking back, I now realize that it was just a difference in culture. In the US, waiters are very attentive and take your order nearly right away after being seated. It is custom to sit down and right away look at the menu and order as quickly as possible – everyone seems to be in a rush. Sometimes the waiter even asks too early, and you still need “a few more minutes” to look over the menu – but not too long, or you become impatient. It’s quite a strange phenomenon in the US, as everyone sees time as a commodity and never want to be left waiting. We are quite impatient, in my opinion, because we are raised in a culture that values time. In the UK and other countries, though, people may take their time and aren’t in such a rush, especially when meeting friends for dinner – something that is supposed to be calm and enjoyable. I was reflecting on the restaurant interaction later that night, and I now realize that I had let my lack of cultural acceptance get in the way of just enjoying my time at the restaurant!
