Mara Vey's pellet: are we seriously doing this at dinner now?

Our service team is split on this. One colleague says a sealed pellet is no worse than an earpiece left by a plate. Another says she doesn't want either object there and would ask the guest to put it away. Both would bring the bin. People keep appointing ‘the staff’ as a single witness for whichever opinion they already had.

hallshift · #51 Both would bring the bin.

Right. Doing the job isn't a vote for the guest's choice. If the person in that photo brought a bin without flinching, some of you would call it consent. If they flinched, the other half would call it proof of contamination. You have all made one worker's face into a ballot paper.

trayreturn · #52

hallshift · #51 Both would bring the bin.

Doing the job isn't a vote for the guest's choice.

This is why I use my bag and ask for a bin. It is a tiny inconvenience to me and one less argument someone else has to have during a shift. I trust my own unit's check; I cannot inspect another guest's pellet or what their hands touched from a photograph. Apparently saying that makes me either a model citizen or a collaborator in oppression, depending on which reply I opened last.

For the late arrivals: nobody has reported a nicked polymer coat. A nick might leave dry crumbs to clean up, not release live gut bacteria; the core is sterile lignin and minerals. The published picture gives us one intact grey object, not an assay. Hand contact can leave ordinary microbes on the outside. The arguments about table manners and workers don't need an imaginary leak to stand up.

sealcheck · #54 one intact grey object, not an assay.

Nobody asked for an assay! That is the thing making me lose my mind about this thread. Half the replies act as though I need to prove the packet leaked before I'm allowed to prefer dinner without it. Do you demand laboratory evidence before moving a used napkin off the table too?

trayreturn · #52 You have all made one worker's face into a ballot paper.

and half the replies act like the waiter was forced to scrape it up with bare hands. we don't know. for all we know the person brought a bin, vey put the pellet in, and service continued.

you can say the table was a mistake without turning every unknown second into a little horror film.

velvet_underground · #56

trayreturn · #52 You have all made one worker's face into a ballot paper.

we don't know

Correct. The photograph catches the waiter approaching with a bin. It tells us nothing about whether the waiter touched the pellet, what they thought, or what happened once the bin reached the table. That is where the visible record ends.

mod_sable · #58 The fact that a person appears in a news photograph does not make them available for interrogation.

Thank you. I posted as a waiter, and somebody still tried to go find that waiter. We have reached the point where people are arguing about whether staff deserve a choice by trying to take away a staff member's choice.

trayreturn · #59 somebody still tried to go find that waiter

that wasn't my post. i said we DON'T KNOW what happened. if your reply to that is to go hunting for the person's account, log off and have a glass of water.

velvet_underground · #60

trayreturn · #59 somebody still tried to go find that waiter

that wasn't my post

I believe you. Perhaps tell the people treating you as their spokesperson. Your usual contribution is to call every objection a witch hunt, so don't act surprised when someone with even less judgment thinks they're joining one.

trayreturn · #59 somebody still tried to go find that waiter

I know how tempting it is to ask a worker what ‘really’ happened. They might lose shifts for answering, or have to spend those shifts answering again. If you want a venue to plan better, ask for a disposal plan. Leave the person who carried a bin out of your fact-finding expedition.

hallshift · #63 If you want a venue to plan better, ask for a disposal plan.

The practical fix is still boring: a receptacle where guests can reach one and a collection procedure staff agree to. Nobody needs to know the waiter's face to make that happen. I keep saying this because I expect the venue's eventual solution will somehow involve a beautiful object on the table and no fewer trips for the people clearing it.

We could have argued about the bin and gone home. Instead someone tried to identify a stranger at work, and the original fundraiser has vanished entirely. The Borough got one photograph. We supplied the rest of the spectacle for free.

smallmercies · #65 the original fundraiser has vanished entirely

Tomorrow someone will tell this story as a dispute between brave modern bodies and squeamish old ones. There was also a worker carrying the bin, and people still directed to a service-entrance toilet. I want those details to survive the headline, even if they make both sides here sound worse.