Time poor? Constantly watching your seconds and minutes? Well get your questions in quick – Pete’s on the clock!
Hi Pete, our favourite restaurant has just introduced two “dinner sittings” – at either 6.00pm or 8.00pm. Look, I’m neither a pensioner nor Gen Y, I’m an adult. 7.00pm is dinner time – isn’t it?
Tristan, Yarraville (via email)
Tristan I’ve said this before, but I’ll take dinner anytime I can get it. If someone else is going to slog away in a hot kitchen, or drag plates around and drop them on my table, well who am I to complain? But I see your point, at 6 I’m still in the public bar chugging down, reliving the days of the 6 o’clock swill, and at 8, well I’m usually falling asleep – probably due to the effects of the 6 o’clock swill! So what’s the solution? What you should do is… book for 6pm! Bear with me… most establishments will hold a table for 20 minutes, so at 6.20, sneakily call and apologise and say you’re running “a few minutes late”, which will buy you another 20 minutes minimum. Then just turn up at 7 o’clock! Your waiter will be grumpy and the service may suck, but hey, you’ll finally get to eat like an adult, even if you aren’t behaving like one!
Pete there’s no Wi-Fi in my favourite cafe anymore. When did this become a thing?
Joni, Seddon (FB Message)
Joni I assume you’re not in your favourite cafe now then? Did they pave paradise to build this Wi-Fi free concrete edifice? Bummer for you! But to answer the question, this became ‘a thing’ for perhaps a different reason to what many believe! Some seem to think Wi-Fi has slowly been withheld from cafés in an effort to promote ‘real’ social interaction, you know, like ‘conversation’? Pfft! Yeah right! The real reason you are being denied Wi-Fi Joni is because you are a table hog! Do you think your local cafe wants you hanging around, sipping and surfing on the strength of one, lousy $3.80 latte? No – they want you to drink up, pay up, and get out! It’s all about turnover baby!
Hi Pete, I’ve joined the cashless society and downloaded one of those parking apps to make it easier to pay the council for parking. But the other day the app froze and wouldn’t let me ‘stop’ the so called parking session. I had to pay for a full hour when I was only there for 50 minutes!
Simon, Williamstown North (via email)
Wow I’m really bummed for you Simon. Sounds like a stressful moment has been compounded by the fact that you’ve probably overpaid for parking by… what maybe 20 cents? Which to be fair probably more than covers all those times back in the days of coin-operated meters when you “quickly nipped into the shops” or performed the classic motoring manoeuvre “I’ll just wait here for you for a few secs” without paying your way. You’re the guy who deprived paying customers of a parking space all those times while you pinched your pennies! My decree? This app has dispensed Karma – all hail the app!
