Been hearing all the stuff about how using tissue packets to reserve seats is ungracious?
I always thought it is due partly to how we view eating. It is a big BIG thing in Sg. We don’t just eat, we interact. Notice how everyone has to sit together at the same table? It isn’t cos we just want to eat, we want to spend quality time together. And the whole office goes out as 1 group, which aggravates the reserving issue.
From what i have seen and heard, in other countries, going out for lunch is just to get some fuel in the bodies so you can continue working. But in Sg, it is a social event. We make sure we chat, gossip, comment, even with our mouths full. You seldom see people just grabbing food and gulping it down. So, cos we want to spend quality time together, we need to find seats together. Hence, the mode of reservation.
I have seen foreigners just grabbing a bite and standing around at those small shared tables like at Tangs basement or at Takashimaya foodcourt. Very similar to people just buying a hotdog and chowing it down while walking back to the office. If we all became comfortable doing that, there will be no need to reserve. But we don’t just grab a bite, we have a communal feast reminicent of wedding banquets in other countries.
What my colleagues and i do is leave one rep to reserve our seats while the rest procure their meals. While this still involves reserving, i think people are a lot more amenable to people booking seats than tissue packets doing that job. There are also the cases where there are a few empty seats to spare at the table and when asked, we always tell them how many are occupied, so the requestors still get their seats when there are more than the group needs.
Just remember one thing … never leave me to do the job. Being extremely timid, i have ended up giving up seats at my table when another group insists on taking those ‘reserved’ seats. I am so much less useful than a pack of tissues, damn it!