Has it ever occurred to you, Mr. Hitchens, that maybe you're being a little insensitive? Maybe you should take a moment to stop griping about how rude those waiters and waitresses are, and begin to think about why.

While it may appear rude when the wait staff seems eager to intrude on your conversation, or hastily pour out the last remaining dregs of whatever bottle you bought, consider this for a moment: Many of the waiters and waitresses surrounding you are actors, artists, dancers, writers (few of whom pull in a salary from Vanity Fair, mind you) and if they don't move the customers along, they don't get paid.

Waiting is a thankless and brutal profession--the tips are often below "standard" rates, the hours are long and exhausting, the attitudes from customers are often degrading and demeaning. Waiters don't have offices or secretaries, insurance plans or 401Ks; They just make twenty bucks every time you buy a bottle of vino.

Waiters need to encourage you to finish that wine, remind you that there are other folks who may want to come in and eat. And frankly, there is nothing more rude than a group of loudmouths who stake out a six-top for three hours, refusing to purchase anything else or settle the check while they regale each other with sparkling repartee. Newsflash: This is not your living room, this is a restaurant. This is a business. If you want to take hours to trade bon mots with Biffy and Buffy from the Hamptons--do it on your time, not theirs.

Maybe you should take your wine snobbery and your jacked up bottle of pino grigio, and just stay home.

There's another group of people right behind you to take that table anyway,

Not every restaurant runs on the model of churning tables many times during the course of a shift. When I waited tables at a semi-classy place, two parties per table per evening was very common. When everyone sits around talking after their meal, they digest their food and start thinking about the outrageously marked-up desserts that can pad a check just as effectively as a bottle of wine. If it's so important to flip that table, the restaurant needs to post some rules about how long you are allowed to linger. Otherwise, let people enjoy themselves. Some tables are going to rush off to the ballet, others are going to hang around longer than the waiter would like. Some are going to tip big, others will be misers. That unpredictability is just part of the game. Waiters who piss off their wine drinking customers aren't doing themselves any favors...those people are less often the misers when it comes to tipping time.

Is there another model for compensating waiters, btw, other than the demeaning tipping model? I'd be happy if we could find it.

I'm rather surprised to find myself agreeing with Hitchens.

Generally, restaurants that speed people through don't serve expensive wine. I've always wondered why this doesn't happen with other drinks. I suppose it does at certain bars, like those with overpriced watery beer & scantily-clad waitresses.

I waited tables in a variety of restaurants, and rushing a customer out the door to seat someone else is a guaranteed way to get a crappy tip. Some moronic waiters do this on their own, some restaurants make a policy of it, but no matter who's behind it, it's obnoxious. You'll note that those places don't have a lot of regular customers.

One example. Several years ago, three couples, including The Boy and me, my in-laws, and my brothers-in-law were at one of "the" restaurants in Toronto. We had ordered and finished four bottles of wine, and were choosing a fifth, when the owner informed us that we had to leave. He wanted to seat three parties of two and had decided that two hours was enough.

We left. No dessert. We gave a tip of 5%, when normally we would have left 20%, on a bill that was over $800.00. We made sure that everyone we knew heard the story. The restaurant is gone.

While I'm usually the first one to say that the customer is not always right, I think that overt rudeness, like dumping wine in the glasses of people who haven't asked for it, is unforgiveable. If that sort of nonsense really is a matter of policy, then the restaurant deserves a figurative smack on the wrist and a bad review in Chowhound.

Why on earth would you blame the waiter and leave only 5%? It was the owner's fault. Not to mention that you were a large party and after that many bottles of wine you were probably starting to disturb other guests at the restaurant.

Four bottles of wine among six people? T'ain't nuthin, son! Two people can (and frequently do) drink a bottle of wine over the course of an evening and go home stony sober.

As for the lousy tip - the waiter was the one that went running for the manager when my FIL asked for the dessert menu and wine list, which would have been at least another hundred bucks for the table. I can assure you, they didn't make anywhere near the money per table that we spent.

If that's how you perceive your customers at your restaurant, please be so kind as to post the name of the restaurant where you work so that we know to avoid it.

This is the response that waitrons always have when it is not their fault that things went poorly. The sad fact of the matter is that the tip is the basic way that the customer has to indicate his or her overall pleasure from the meal. Waiters take it on the chin in cases like this but they also benefit from the positive emotions brought on by high quality food that they had nothing to do with. It is a sword that cuts both ways.

"Waiting is a thankless and brutal profession" Then what are tips? Are they not the way in which customers give "thanks" or show their appreciation for the service they received? Or have you like so many other waiters come to see tips as a right and not a privilege? And I'm afraid that calling waiting a "brutal profession" is a bit tough to swallow.

Ijaugust, I have a suggestion for you: Please dial 1-800-WAAH. Dining at a restaurant should be a relaxed enjoyable experience, not being rushed by an over educated under paid lacky, um, excuse me, waitstaffer, especially when I am paying at least 2-3 times the retail price to enjoy the wine you are forcing down my throat. I will continue to patronize establishments that treat me graciously and don't rush me; I usually tip quite well when treated as such. Should I through some terrrible misfortune accidentaly find myself awaiting dinner in your eatery, I will not burden you with my presence for long I assure you. I won't leave you much of a gratuity either, just enough to let you know your attitude really ticked me off. Just remember that SERVICE is an integral part of customer service.

But really, I've noticed that people who never had to carry plates have a very unrealistic view of wait staff. It's like the wealthy who are surprised that their maids and butlers aren't actually "happy" to serve them.

Ah so much to bitch about here, among which the failed ac-tor, artiste, danser, writer showing that he is going to be a failed waitron as well...

But if I slip you a twenty, will you just please go away?

Perspective. Hitchens is likely to go to a high-end restaurant of quality and leisure, his group, likely known for hours of chatter. The waiter, wherever the restaurant, is afterall a waiter and can't expect guests to pay a handsome final bill, with the waiter in mind. We don't go to restaurants for the benefit of waiters, but for our pleasure. That said, technically, the waiter is there to serve to our pleasure, at our pace, and at our cost. Call me silly, but many of us go to restaurants for the time with others, the talks, debates, and frankly, lots of red wine which of course makes us more inconsiderate than usual anyway. Its unfortunate that those who are waiters don't particularly like their role, but frankly, that is their role.

Let me add to Hitchen's call to revolt: No thank you, I don't want to swish the wine around before its served. I'll live on the edge, POUR!

And yet, the choice of one's job is just that; a choice.