Payment at restaurants

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I have visited (different) restaurants recently where the server forgets to ask for payment and has said goodbye etc to my table. I’ll prompt them, of course and say we haven’t paid yet. On one occasion, staff jokingly made a comment like “you could have walked out then and I wouldn’t have noticed!” On another occasion, I was given a 10% discount for “honesty”

does this happen to anyone else? It has occurred 3 times in recent months now, with different people, so often enough to be unusual! Wondering if there’s a pattern or something behind this. Maybe I look trustworthy or maybe the staff are under pressure or something?

I've never been to a restaurant where staff have to come and ask for payment, usually we just ask for the bill when we are ready to go

Eh? Why do they randomly come up and say goodbye?

Or are you all standing up and getting your coats on?

Most people ask for the bill long before doing any of that.

I eat out at restaurants a lot. Probably 2-3 times per week, more if you count lunch at work. So this doesn’t happen that often in the grand scheme, but often enough that I’m thinking about it

Normally we ask and pay for the bill with nothing remarkable. The occasions I’m referring to have been where they’ve cleared the table early. We’re not putting coats on, just sat at the table chatting. When getting the attention of the server to get the bill, they’ll say goodbye etc and I’ll say “we haven’t paid yet”.

I think for me it just came across that they genuinely didn’t realise we hadn’t paid. I was wondering more from a staff perspective what’s going on there! I’d have thought they keep tabs on who needs to pay etc.

When getting the attention of the server to get the bill, they’ll say goodbye etc and I’ll say “we haven’t paid yet”.

So you'll wave and say, "Excuse me, can we have the bill please?"

And they'll say "Goodbye"?

You have to ask for the bill, always been that way. Never had staff say goodbye without me paying first