Help?/Vent
Rebecca2024
member
This will probably be long... sorry in advance.
We go out to lunch with my husband most every Tuesday.
We do sit down places like O'Charley's, Logan's, Longhorn, etc. Not quite fast food but still fast enough for his lunch hour usually.
There's not too many restaurants to choose from, so we became "regulars" fairly quickly even though we rotate through them.
My problem is with our local Logan's. We have been going to this particular location since before DD1 was born, so quite a while.
We used to have a pregnant server that would sit down at our table to take our order - no big deal to me; I can only imagine being pregnant and on my feet all day is quite rough.
DD1 was born and pregnant server would bring other servers over to ooh and ahh at the baby. Whatever, I thought she was cute too. 
Now we're at almost 17 months old... Pregnant server had her baby and we haven't seen her since (probably a year at this point).
There are several different servers we see now. The most awesome is the gay gentleman; he makes enough small talk to be friendly but otherwise leaves us alone. The second one was the bff of the pregnant server and came to know us quite well. If she's our server, she'll linger a bit for conversation but in general, knows when to leave so we may eat.
The third one... I don't even know where she came from. She's only blipped my radar for maybe 3 months now that I can recall. She does not know when to leave, and it is becoming so frustrating.
She touches my daughter's cheeks, she tickles my daughter, she tries to get her to dance, she colors on her paper, she feeds her peanuts, etc. (It's not even the "germ factor" of touching my daughter, but DD has a personal space bubble too and judging from my daughter's reactions, this server has not been invited in.)
Toddlers are hard enough to control at the table at this age (or at least mine is); I don't really appreciate the extra distraction this lady is providing - especially since my husband is on a time limit of sorts. And my daughter doesn't seem to want it either.
How do I politely get this server to back off? I don't want to come across rude (or involve a manager) because we do tend to go there with regularity.
I just dread when it's "Logan's Day."
It's "Logan's Day" today... so I'll probably post and run. I'm just stressed out about it already.
ETA: My husband doesn't get home 'til 7:30/8ish, so we use this lunch time in place of family dinner together. It's not something we'd like to drop.
Re: Help?/Vent
My suggestions:
1. tell her it's annoying
2. ask to be seated in a different section
3. stop going there
I so want to vote number one too!
I've tried CJ's indirect method in the past and it worked for maybe five minutes; I need to be more blunt. I'm just a wuss I guess.
Part of our problem seems to be that my daughter is still in a high chair which, at this particular restaurant, puts us in the middle of the floor at the tables. All the booths are on a platform type thing with a step up, so not high chair usable. We can't yet use the booster seat because my daughter sits too far from the table; in pushing it up to the table, she's falling off the front end of the bench.
Because of the table setup this undesirable server has to walk by us, through no fault of her own, to do her job regardless if she's our server or not.
Today she kissed my daughter - kissed her. Ugh!
(And drug a dirty napkin through DD's hair in an attempt to play peak-a-boo.)
She was not our server.
I guess I feel like option 3 is the "easy" way out.
I need to say something; I do.
Gross. Say something to her for crying out loud. I don't care how often you eat there, kissing your child is totally inappropriate. That was your perfect opportunity to say something.
What do I say??
I feel completely stupid/rude telling another ADULT, "That's not appropriate behavior. Please don't kiss my daughter." I feel she should know this; she doesn't seem socially awkward in any other way. I'd put her in her upper 40s, maybe early 50s.
It doesn't help that my husband doesn't seem nearly as bothered by this woman's behavior as I do. He thinks she's annoying and bothersome, but he apparently wasn't phased by her kissing DD even though he also saw it.
I guess I should care less about what is rude and what other people think of me and stand up for my daughter's personal space.
Thanks for the call out; I needed it.