I got my hearing professionally checked today and all is normal. But I have difficulty hearing people I am dining with, talking in restaurants. Is it me, or is the music just too damn loud?!
Off topic, but related to unwanted noise. Why do white waitstaff/restaurants interupt you when you are talking to someone to ask you “How is everything? Everyone doing ok?”. removed look at the plate. I haven’t touched it since you gave it to me 30 seconds ago. Take a note from Asians. Silently fill the water, observe the vibe, and go if no one says anything. Or some Latino restaurants where they won’t do anything unless you explicitly call them over and ask. I’d take loud music you have to shout over if Cindi with a ‘i’ doesn’t interupt conversations.
It’s to ensure your food is up to expectations. Mistakes happen, and a busy dining room dictates a server will help you when they can, not necessarily when you try to flag them down.
You’ll want to smash both your arms as loud as possible on the table while dominantly starting at them.
Works for me every time.
Rant incoming:
“Fast casual” has ruined dinning. The concept is a volume play of moving as many customers as quick as possible while still giving “personalized service” with the least number of servers possible. Naturally this becomes a race to the bottom with “service” taking the biggest hit since it is the most subjective experience and thus the hardest to measure. The worst part is that most American diners we are slowly lowering expectations in which allows for further reductions in service and makes the experience even worse, but “with prices like these, what can you expect?”
'murica
Yes they constantly interrupt. Definitely feels like you are there for them versus they are there for your service. Whole new subject.
That shit annoys me too. I was just at a restaurant today where the waitress would not only interrupt but then linger to babble on and on. Like bitch I’m on a date, fill my drink and fuck off.
I agree, asian places have the best service. Super respectful and I do appreciate that.
Definitely an american thing. I always find it annoying when I travel there. Also, bringing the bill with desert. Let me finish my meal first before giving me hints to get the fuck out
I can understand where you are coming from, from the other perspective, I have gone into places gotten my food, got my dessert, they don’t bring the bill. 40 minutes later I’m asking a different waiter to get me my check because my waiter never came back.
I’d rather they bring the check right away so I can pay them leave when I want.
Most respectable places have music that is loud at the beginning of service when there are few diners, but then the music gets lower as time goes on and the place fills up.
…not that I reread this, I’m really not implying you dont go to reputable places…really
Tile or concrete floors, hard surface walls, glass windows all reflect sound. As people start talking, if they are drinking they get louder, so then each table is trying to talk over the tables around them. Without acoustic damping, it can get pretty loud.
Some bosses want to make sure you can hear the music at a decent volume at the back tables. Meanwhile the front tables:
That’s a big part of it, but some people are just loud and some restaurants just play their music way too loud all the time.
You guys don’t like the terrible cover band that comes and blasts their rockin tune?
They blast loud because if you start talking with your friends and eat slowly and spend a lot of time their eating little.
It’s to encourage you to eat faster and leave, so your table is available for the next victim.
This is it. It’s why seats/stools look nice but feel uncomfortable after 20 or so minutes.
As a person with digestive problems that lead to hemorrhoids, this one in particular feels like a big fuck you.
I remember seeing this on the news a few years ago. If I remember right, they were interviewing a design firm that does interior design for fast food and fast casual restaurants, and they were talking about all of this. I was really surprised at how candid they were being, since you would think that they would want this to be an industry secret.
The high stools with no back, the music that is too loud, the lights that are a little too bright and kind of hanging down in your field of view: all intentional, so that you’re just ever so slightly uncomfortable and you leave a few minutes sooner.
Explains why I don’t like eating out and never cared for paying for stuff like the ambiance even at fancy restaurants and prefer take out.
Take out sadly still covers the ambiance
Don’t they realize that once people leave such a place, they’re never coming back? There are only so many locals in a given area. Unless the place is a tourist trap this seems like a shitty idea for long term business.
If the food is amazing, then people will come back. The point is to make the location slightly uncomfortable enough that people want to leave sooner, not that they hate the place. The idea is you need to balance cost of food, and customer turn around time. If you make it very expensive, people won’t feel comfortable taking the food to go, even if it is an amazing item. On the flip side, a cheap menu that is very comfortable will be overly cost prohibitive.
- Create environment actively hostile to remain in for long periods of time
- Expect people to work and be productive in said environment for hours on end
Switched on Pop: Gastropod: Why are restaurants so loud? Plus the science behind the perfect playlist
Episode webpage: http://www.switchedonpop.com
I personally avoid such places. There are many who make live music a selling point, which always plays super loud to the point where any chat can only happen by shouting into someone else’s ear. How people like this is beyond me
Pro-tip: Even in a loud place you can (and should!) speak with your normal voice (e.g. no shouting) when having your mouth an inch or two from the other person’s ear. They will hear you just fine, even if you can’t hear yourself.
Apparently, these restaurants want to make your dining experience unpleasant, so you won’t linger over your meal. The sooner you leave, the sooner they can replace you with another paying customer. You probably shouldn’t give these places your business.
exactly, hence why coffee shops in particular play the same three obnoxious Christmas songs on repeat during the season. They don’t want you to stay, they want you pay and leave.
I will say that this tactic is just forcing people to invest in better headphones, but I lament that we’re now in an auditory arms race for merely existing in a public space
“Simply . . . Having . . . a Wonderful Christmas Time!”
/sorry
At one restaurant this week a woman was playing and watching a video on her phone very loudly, oblivious to bothering everyone, and a foodworker came and asked her to turn it down. The woman replied, “You can here THAT?!” She turned it down and the foodworker went back to her station screaming orders are ready out to other customers. The video-watcher proceeded to walk around and stand near people’s tables to watch her video.
What is going on with this world?I think the world has become decidedly louder, and people having TV on in the background all day every day has desensitized them to the idea that sound travels further than they think. I genuinely believe her surprise that she could be heard.
This could be solved by a system of reservations. You know… “Ok, one coffee and a sandwich. You have three seating choices: 15 minutes, 30 minutes and 1 hour. Which one do you want? 30 minutes? Ok! Here’s your hourglass.”
everyone would pick the 4 hour sofa slot though
So they’re all gone and isn’t an option til someone leaves, first come first served.
“Hey homeless guy, I’ll pay you 10 dollars if you get in line early at this store and claim the 4 hour sofa until my friends come a few hours later.”
Those scenarios can be solved. From “4-hour sofa slots are reserved for groups of three or more people” to “Sofas are reserved to 1-hour max.”
In the end, as it is now, people are overstaying anyway.
Let them. Either provide public spaces for people to just chill, or let them spend the entire day at a coffee shop after buying a coffee.
I’m sick of this “pay-to-live” society we’ve built around us.
I… actually agree with you. It would be nice to have a cozy indoors public space. Sort of like an “indoors park.” But you’ll have to yell at your city hall reps, not a small business owner who, like us, also has to make a living.
If the city provided a nice public space, I would happily just buy a coffee to go and then to chill there
That’s what I have done. Entered and then walked right out without ordering anything.
It’s not you. If I’m at a RESTAURANT and can’t hear my friends, I leave. I won’t spend money at a place I have to yell to be heard (unless there’s a band I specifically want to see or I’m at a bar, but even bars have limits).
I once read that it’s an epigenetic thing and it can be found across the animal kingdom. Some animals are born more sensitive and others less and this is important for the species or social group as a whole. This actually happens on a neuron level.
The less sensitive kind needs to actively search out stimulation, whereas you can leave the more sensitive one alone with a flower and they’ll be a happy camper.
And there’s so much more to it, for example developmental. Have you ever noticed the difference in sound levels in people’s homes? In some places it’s just like a warzone. TV on max, dogs barking, kids screaming. Imagine growing up with that. Like a fish in water.
And then there’s all the processing disorders…
You can train yourself though if you value it. I enjoy encounters and it bothered me a lot, so I just kept going to busy cafés and bars until my brain finally got the memo. It keeps surprising me how my hearing has become like a sort of precision microphone.
Because you choose to keep going to restaurants where they play loud music. No idea why you’re doing that
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Hmm. Processing disorders are a thing.
Some restaurants do have damn loud music, though. Most don’t where I live but that’s probably regional.
Everyone keeps mentioning them, but no one links to the information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder
One of potential symptoms is indeed “Difficulty hearing in noisy environments”
I have a nice workaround: good earplugs. They lower the overall volume, and all of a sudden I can understand spoken words again. Too bad they actually increase for me the sound of my own chewing.
Thank you. I would have linked it if I realised.
My work was evacuated once for a fire alarm (false) and we all kinda stood around waiting for the firemen to come and let us back in. While we waited we chatted. But I realised that I couldn’t understand what the people four feet away from me were saying. I could hear the noises coming from their mouths, but I couldn’t understand them. When the alarm was switched off, I could understand them.
Brain is weird.
Weird and impressive!
The article for this condition in German Wikipedia mentions that there’s a training which can help, but I have not looked into this yet
In some crowded places they do it, so it doesn’t feel like a central station.
