The Most Negative Person I Know

I am always hearing negative comments about how people who look like them don’t get treated fairly. Yet this person never stops to consider that perhaps the way they treat others has more bearing on the way they get treated than the color of their skin. One time, we went out to lunch as a group of four to a nice upscale bistro. The front of the small interior of the restaurant was crowded and loud. The hostess seated us in a spacious table in the very back of the dining area and I was glad for the peace and quiet that table afforded as the busy tables had young kids and were too noisy for my tastes anyway. But no, Miss Negative decided right away that we were seated in the back because of the color of their skin. We were looking over the menu to see what we wanted to order and she kept making comments like, “I don’t see anything that sounds good, we should just leave and go somewhere else.” We all had no problem finding any number of yummy sounding offerings from the menu and said we were ready to order. Finally she calmed down and placed her order. The food did take an extremely long time to come out, during which we heard a steady stream of negativity coming from her mouth. She had no idea how miserable she was making the rest of us, it was all about her. I for one was glad we were seated in the back so nobody could overhear her constant ranting.

The food finally came and right away she starts looking for something to complain about. One of our co-workers had ordered fruit as the side item. It came out on the plate with his sandwich like any other side item might have. She jumped on that saying how the fruit should have been in a bowl so the grapes didn’t roll around all over the plate. She made some comment about not wanting to bring us any spare dishes probably thought we would steal them. Then the bill finally arrived and they put cash down to pay for all of our meals. There was some change due to come back, but apparently the wait-staff at this place was no better at counting change than those who work fast food, because she gave us at least ten dollars too much back. Miss Negative was complaining about that too, although the waitress was very thankful when she pointed out the mistake. Once we left she grumbled about how she should have just kept the extra for the terrible service we got and how they treated them so bad. Honestly, we were all happy to get out of there and get back to work. The only one who had behaved badly during that lunch was Miss Negative herself.