No, you're right, it's rude. Just because someone gets paid to do something doesn't mean that you shouldn't thank them for doing it.

I've never been out to eat with anyone who didn't interact with the wait staff. But, southerners always talk to everyone within earshot.

I can't imagine completely ignoring someone coming to your table and bringing you food/drinks/whatever. Strange.

Yeah, once I noticed it, it really started freaking me out...

...maybe it's an LA thing? Everyone here in Texas is so friendly towards strangers!

During my many years as a cater-waiter you could always spot the inexperienced guests 'cause they thanked you every time you did anything. I remember being mildly annoyed by it. Nowadays I am that person- if you do something for me I am going to acknowledge it. I think the annoyance was displaced from the hosts/checkwriters and their circle. It simply would make the job unbearable if you expected to be acknowledged all the time (because it would not happen).

I thank them. Profusely, sometimes. I go out once a month with a group of women (used to be a book club, but we stopped actually reading books awhile ago) who are insanely demanding. One will not touch cheese of any kind and has to grill the server about every dish to ensure there is nothing resembling cheese in her food. Another is terrified of anything considered "spicy" and puts the server through the same thing to ensure that there isn't even freakin' PEPPER on anything. And there's invariably an unfamiliar ingredient (like "quinoa" or "chervil" or "rice") that requires 40 bizillion questions. Then the poor thing has to go through the side dish and salad dressing choices over and over. By the time the server gets to me, I overcompensate with a million pleases and thanks and apologies.

Of course it's rude.

As someone who has waited a lot of tables, it can get old when people say thank you every single time you do something at the table. But it's not a bad thing, really. I'd much rather have an overthanking table than an underthanking one.

the inexperienced guests 'cause they thanked you every time you did anything.

I don't think it has much to do with experience/inexperience. I am a big dining-out foodie type of person, and I overthank. It's just habit. It's like a knee-jerk thing response someone does something for me. I guess my mama raised me right -- but even I hear how annoying it is, and I can't help doing it.

Well, I'm from Wisconsin, so I'm automatically nice to everybody. But when I'm at a restaurant, engaged in conversation and such, sometimes it's the wait staff's job to work invisibly. The more successful, the better the tip.

I mean, at the verrrry best restaurants, the idea is that everything magically appears and disappears at the appropriate moment. At theme restaurants, though, it's often "Hi, I'm here to develop a strong waitperson-customer bond over the next 90 minutes!" False cheer of the "more flair" variety. Do I really need to match that?

Went to this fancy Manhattan place once (forget the name) that was great at refilling my water glass while I wasn't looking. Of course, I was drunk, so...

WTF?

I thank them any time they bring me ANYTHING. Menu, drinks, food, dessert, straw - whatever. Of course, I also drink about 2 gallons each time I eat out so I feel like I'm a pain in the ass and they deserve the extra thanks and a good tip. It really doesn't take that much effort to say THANK YOU, though. Geez.

I thank them all the time, but what annoys me is that instead of saying "you're welcome" or whatever, they end up saying "thanks". Atleast here in Australia.

Do I really need to match that?

God, no, I hate that shit too. If I had ever had to work in one of those chain mills, I would have run screaming up the walls. That stuff is horrible.

But I worked in fine dining, where you take your cue from the customer. Some want to be social, some want to ignore you.

The customs and behavior of people in restuarants -- kitchens, front of house, customers -- is fascinating stuff. I'd love to spend a lot of my life writing and studying about it. It's all pretty interesting, watching different people react to a very standard set of customs. And also the different service and menu choices restuarants make, as noted above.

Another point you can make, muddgirl, is that the other really good reason to treat servers warmly (smile at them, thank them) is that you will get better service at that place now and in future. The server will develop a pleasant feeling toward your table and be that much more motivated to take good care of you. And when you return, they'll think "Oh, good, I've got a good table, those people are nice."

Of course you're honor and duty bound to give everyone a good experience, yadda yadda. And proper servers do that. But it's still very true that the better you treat people, the better you are treated, generally.

It always amused me that people thought that by playing royalty they were somehow getting better service. They weren't. They got just the polite and reserved service they were paying for and could expect, nothing more. It's not as likely I'd go above and beyond the call of duty for them. To those sorts of people, it was a transaction, so it stayed a transaction.

For my regulars or for new people who were just very pleasant, I'd do all sorts of things like arrange for special preparations, or go down into the wine cellar to see if we maybe had one more bottle of that wine they loved that we were apparently out of tucked away somewhere. It just pays to be pleasant. Being in a restaurant doesn't remove you from the social contract.

Thanking people is common courtesy. I don't work in food service, but when I drop a hard copy of the TPS report on my manager's desk, he thanks me. If he didn't I'd fucking quit.

Now, of course if the server comes to the table when your mouth is full, you have to give the nonverbal acknowledgment of thanks. What I hate is when they come by when you are eating and have your mouth full and ask "how is everything?". Good waiters know that people sitting and obviously enjoying their meal usually is an indication that everything is OK and to wait for a moment when the customers aren't inhaling their food to see if they need anything else.

Also having worked fine dining, like Miko, my habits as a guest are to find a happy medium between being obtrusively thankful and ignoring the waitpeople. What I do is a quick smile and "thank you" that is clearly meant to be a private communication between myself and the waitperson and doesn't involve the rest of the table.

When I waited tables at one very high-class fine dining restaurant where many of the customers expected (and I expected of myself) exactly what stilicho describes--invisibility--I did appreciate a subtle look of acknowledgement from someone at the table when I'd done something.

The interactions among veteran diners and waitstaff are sort of ritualized. The courtesy can be sort of ritualized in the same way you might think of European aristocrats and their servants.

Anyway, a lot of this just comes down to the ancient arguments about hot to treat service people. Being from the small town southwest, my sensibilities are to be very friendly (but not obnoxiously so) with all service people. For me, it's a very important part of acknowledging their humanity. When people treat service people like they're robots, I find that offensive.

I thank everybody: servers, bus drivers, grocery store checkers and baggers, the dude who just passed me the bowl...

Sometimes I feel like I over-thank in restaurants. But I suppose that's a good thing.

People's boorish behavior in restaurants can be helpful though. A couple months ago I got over a crush that was headed nowhere after she was a bitch to the waitress and busboy at a restaurant. She actually did the slow-talking thing with the Spanish-speaking busboy, which is bad enough by itself but this chick fucking speaks Spanish!

I always thank, unless someone I am with is in the middle of saying something, in which case I give a quick nod and smile.

I'm a thanker, and like mullacc, I would be less attracted to a non-thanker, and a haranguer (¿una palabra o no una palabra?) would be exterminated from my list.

I find people who use temporary tyranny over service people to work out their aggressions/dreams of power to be utter scum.

I thank, unless doing so would disrupt the flow of conversation and therefore (presumably) make the waiter feel like he had been intrusive. But even then, I usually at least give a quick smile.

I'm a thanker, but I try and do it in an unobtrusive way. I just can't understand why some people ignore the waiters/waitresses. On the other hand I hate people who force fake chummy relationships onto the restaurant staff. It smacks too much of "I come here all the time, and I'm friends with everyone here and let me recommend this meal. Oh, and did I mention, I'm really urbane and sophisticated."

I like to keep it professional, but friendly.

I've been out to eat with a guy who scolds the waitress if, for instance, she only brings water to the person who requested it.

I was like, you know, a lot of people wouldn't want to eat with some one who acts like you do. And he says, yeah, that was one of the big points of contention with my ex wife, but I deserve proper service when I'm paying for it.

What an ass, stickycarpet! I've been out to eat with a guy that wouldn't hesitate to complain to the manager when things weren't extreme perfection. It was embarassing. mrs chewy and I are thankers for everything, & even though we're poor, we are also generous tippers b/c lots of waitstaff are just trying to survive.

I am also a thanker. I just think a little bit of courtesy can make even the most mundane of situations a little nicer. I remember genuinely friendly service for a long time. I have even been known to develop crushes on waitresses who seem to enjoy their jobs and as a result are genuine. It's so rare!

There's a breakfast place/diner near my place that my friend and I eat at about once every other week.

One time I needed something from the waitress, I forget what exactly, maybe I spilled a bit of coffee or something, said "sorry" and she said "oh, that's ok, you guys are always so polite" and after she left we were like "we are?!"

I guess saying please and thank you and not treating the wait-staff like stray dogs are uncommon courtsey in this day and age.

I find people who use temporary tyranny over service people to work out their aggressions/dreams of power to be utter scum.

Beautifully expressed, taz, and yes, they're out there.

Not thanking someone for something rendered in the course of a job is okay. I thank people all the time, but that's me. I know lots of people, many older, who have lived very different lives in very different places and to whom "common" courtesy is unusual. For me, it would be going out of my way not to thank people, and I do just that, on occasion, to wait staff who flout common courtesy themselves. But I don't project my standards of behavior onto others just because almost everybody in the [restaurant, town, city, state, country, hemisphere] behaves the same way. It's presumptuous, like hugging everyone you meet, and assumes that everybody knows and does the same things, which we don't.

It reminds me of one of the most important lessons my mother taught me, as a bickering little kid (a lesson I've been trying hard to learn ever since): it's ruder to point out rudeness in others than it is to be rude in the first place. That goes for the receiving end double what it does for the peanut gallery.

That said, I always thank people, and if I'm with someone who isn't a thanker (for example, my father), I make it clear to the staff that I'm giving more than enough thanks for the pair of us. If there was a problem, that solves it.

I think you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat waitstaff.

If you perform a service for me you'll get a thanks that usually includes a quick smile. And if someone else is being less than polite I try to compensate for that.

And I was also going to say what Specklet said. If you can't treat people who are doing their jobs with respect, I won't have much respect for you.

Dammit, treat people how you want to be treated!

It's rude to point out rudeness to the person being rude. It's perfectly acceptable to go to a third party and discuss rules of etiquette and trends in society.

Anyway, I remember reading about a different culture/locale where it was considered annoying for customers to thank waitstaff. The waitstaff are just doing their jobs, and why would they need special thanks for this? I can't remember where this was, perhaps an Asian country?

I found an article that suggests that whatever I'd read in the past, assuming it was about China, could have been misleading:

Situation: In a restaurant, a customer thanks a waiter for his service.

A. xie xie ni de fu wu. (Thank you for your service.)

B. zhe shi wo ying gai zuo de. (This is what I should do.)

The above examples demonstrate that the responses are associated with a sense of duty, which is regarded by the Chinese as a moral obligation. Since the responses indicate that one need not to be thanked for what one should do, they are polite and modest. This kind of social convention is very often transferred into cross Chinese and English interactions, which results in negative consequence, for example,

Situation: An English tourist thanks his Chinese tour guide for his service.

A. Thank you very much for the wonderful trip.

B. That's my duty.

Situation: An English customer thanks his Chinese waiter in a restaurant.

A. Thank you for your excellent service.

B. That's what I should do.

In these situations, even though the Chinese believed that they showed their appropriate courtesy and respect for their customers, the English people would feel very upset and offended, since according to their cultural rules, both the guide and waiter were rude. Their interpretations would be that the Chinese were obliged to serve them rather than do it willingly.

Dammit, treat people how you want to be treated!

You know, it's funny you say that, deborah. That's exactly how my father explains his not thanking the help. (For the record, he's never rude, and is scrupulously patient with either incompetence or effusiveness. He just doesn't go out of his way to thank people for adequately performing the duties of the job).

But like I said, I disagree with him; I thank everybody out of habit, but mostly because it's a good way to make friends.

I can see your father's point, Hugh, but I like being thanked when I help people (even if it's in my job description) and will continue to thank people for helping me.

it's a good way to make friends

And to avoid having foreign substances introduced to your food.

Kidding! Just kidding!