Love/Hate

Any Friday (Sept-June) 3:10 PM: As soon as the school bell rings you and your 10 closest co-worker friends come barreling into happy hour to get your fried food and drink on. You rearrange the furniture to suit your seating pleasure and in the process giggle and apologize when you accidentally send condiments crashing and splattering all over the place. You yell over each other as if you are still standing in front of 30 bored kids. You have no idea how to order; each of you shouting over the other your staggered modified orders. Everyone MUST HAVE SEPARATE CHECKS! You YELP that your server is slow and miserable. Your server would be much more efficient and sweet as cotton candy if you followed a few simple guidelines that most of the general population in Philly seem to get.
1)Ask your work pals earlier in the day who's going to happy hour.
2)When the first person arrives to happy hour tell your server how many are in your party and he/she will be more than happy to set up a spot for you.
3)When your server asks you what you want to eat or drink, don't tell them to come back in a minute and expect that to really happen. There is a full restaurant and food and drink must be ordered and delivered to all of the other hungry and thirsty customers. Therefore, reality is it may be about 7 mins before a server's round gets back to you.
*Understanding this point should help you to understand that when your beer is at 2-fingers and the server asks if you want another, answer him/her because your server may not be back for another 7 mins and then it may take about 3 mins to order/make/deliver that drink, leaving you on empty for about 10 mins.
4)Use your indoor voice; that's for everyone in the building's sake.
5)10 people...10 SEPARATE CHECKS! REALLY! You are all friends, you each get the same exact thing EVERY WEEK. Bring some cash, some ones, fives and tens and throw your money down when you leave. Closing out 10 SEPARATE CHECKS, some cash, some credit takes a lot of time in a server's world and even more time in the world of the hungry and thirsty.
6)Don't YELP until you have successfully followed these civilized dining guidelines. I am sure that once you do, you will find that you and your server will have a pleasant experience.
Thank you and please never come again.