Self-service

Why doesn't the Malaysia restaurateur who put up the sign 'self-service' really stay true to their signage? They still charge us the 5% service tax and they still clean up after us. I mean, if you are a self-service restaurant, shouldn't you NOT hire all this people to do all this work which actually is supposed to be done by the customer itself. The problem with Malaysian not cleaning up after themselves are due to the restaurant pampering them too much and not asserting themselves well on these people. They keep on hiring immigrants to do this supposedly 'dirty' job but never think outside the box of cutting cost.

I think most Europeans and Americans understands that when you are given a tray to pick up your food, you are also expected to put the tray at a tray collecting trolley which is basically there all over the self service place. Some like McDonald's who have disposable cutlery, you can just chug all what you have bought into a bin and stack the tray on top of the bin. All this have been made easy by the industry. What is lacking is the culture.

When I was touring Europe, being Malaysian, I was also uncultured enough to put my tray away after I eat. The friend who became my tour guide then had to tell me where to put the tray. I then saw the tray trolley being wheeled into the kitchen making it easier for a very skeletal crew to run the whole restaurant with minimal cleaning staff. This self-service business culture may come out of a need for an efficient way to run a restaurant with as little crew as possible. It may not be popular at a time when people are looking for jobs but for a business owner, it is a need that they have to consider. Make do with the locals who can really man the counter and clean up if there are spills but for the cleaning up, the full self-service business model is the best cost-cutting measure. Come on, do it already...