Do you ever get weary?

[Starseeking]

Sitting in a restaurant with colleagues this evening, 8 of us in total; 3 women, 5 men. Oblong table, 2 ladies sitting opposite each other, one at the head of the table so all women together.

Waitress comes to put (empty) plates down for starters. Starts with the lady to my right, who she walked around me to get to. Then waitress proceeds to move anti-clockwise setting the plates for the lady next to her, followed by all of the men, then me last. She did the same thing with the glasses. And the drinks. We didn't have main meals. Perhaps I'm just paranoid.

I nearly stopped going to one of my favourite coffee shops as one of the baristas in there used to make drinks for the two people behind me, before mine. I had to complain on two separate occasions, that she should be making the drinks in order of the queue at the till. So now this barista makes a big song and dance of getting my drink ready even before I've ordered it with the person on the till, so I probably get it 3 people ahead of when I should. It's even annoying me that these people are occupying my brain this evening!

Why can't people just let us be, and treat us the same as everyone else? I don't have a DP to offload to, just my two DC (both under 7). Sometimes I find this stuff exhausting, and it leaves me feeling a little bit sad.

I hear you! I am definitely getting more and more weary. I think I've just become less tolerant as I've got older as I'm tired of fighting the same thing everyday all day.

I hear you as well. Once I was in a shop, and the lady at the till was serving a customer. She looked over and saw me standing in the queue waiting to be served next. When she had finished serving the customer, she decided that rather than call me over straight away, that she was going to walk away from the till to fuss with some hangers that she had picked up from the counter. As I watched her doing something that could have waited, I could feel myself getting angry. I should mention that there was no other customer behind me. She obviously felt my time is not important, and I could just wait while she busied her self, instead of just serving me. I called out rather tersely, if I could be served. The woman had the audacity to purse her lips and look at me, as if I was being unreasonable in asking for service. I left that encounter feeling upset, and fed up. It just ends up being another erosion of my confidence. It is damaging.

I am so intolerant of this kind of thing. I always speak up, and then I leave as these racist basics are not getting my money.

I agree, it's very wearing. I cant count the number of times ive stood in a queue and the person serving has ignored me and flicked their eyes to someone else standing behind me.

I was reading somewhere about this kind of thing being a micro-aggression. Stupid term. Aggression is aggression however it's delivered.

Yeah had this recently in a coffee shop where I waited to be served and was ignored until the other guy serving had to point out to the main lady serving that I was waiting. It always seems to be the women who do this and always in affluent white areas (I live in Winchester). I of course left a negative google review.

I've had this happen on many occasions to the point where they have tried to serve the person behind me.

In that instance it's pretty straightforward to say "Excuse me, I was next in the queue"
Then when they respond "Oh sorry I didn't see you" (as they always always do)
I always respond in my clearest, loudest, RP voice, "That's funny, I was standing right here, in front of you" and give them a hard stare.

I also once had someone in a Tesco queue push in front of me, ignore me and ask the cashier if he could go ahead as he only had a couple of items. Again, I had to speak up and said "you should be asking me, not the cashier" (I was quite tempted to tell him to get back behind my big trolley!).

It's much more difficult when the slight is as subtle as the instances my OP referred to. I doubt any of my restaurant group even noticed (I appreciate they should have done!).

Thanks all for sharing. I really felt ground down when I wrote this, and your solidarity has really helped.

This is so sad to read but not unsurprising. My daughter has a good friend, who goes way back, and is black. I was talking to her last week as she's back from uni and about to start a MSc course in colonialism. I said that it would make tough work, for obvious reasons, and we got onto racism. Her mum is from Ghana and she says that she always speaks for her in restaurants etc. as the treatment she receives is totally different, because of her accent (in addition to being black). As the daughter has an English accent she at least gets the bare minimum.

I think this is disgusting but am used to different levels of BS (I'm east Asian). Typically I get the look of disappointment and (f#ck I drew the short straw) as they look at me and expect me to talk Engrish like Jackie Chan or something. Then the light relief when I actually sound like Henry Golding. "Oh you speak really well for an Asian". Oh thanks.

Sorry I don't have any ideas for solving these instances but just to take your money elsewhere.

I started getting fed up of it over 15 years ago. I started speaking up, complaining to management and even better leaving carefully worded online reviews.

The latter really pisses shops and restaurants off.

Some have asked me to edit the review of them, and so my response is to always say I can edit it to make it worse. 😂

Came across this thread by chance this morning and it really struck a chord (and hello @Starseeking , think we were on another thread a while back in the Property section!). Just visited Bristol and went to a hotel restaurant with DP and DC. Stood waiting to be seated and the waitress walked past us four times, completely ignoring us. Wouldn’t even entertain eye contact. On the fifth occasion I asked if we could be seated please - the restaurant was half empty - and she said “look, we are short staffed” and walked away. A white family sitting nearby looked at us gobsmacked (they were greeted with smiles and seated moments before us). I complained at Reception and they apologised profusely, said they would speak to the waitress and find us a table immediately but we’d seen enough and left. I have left a review online.

I’m just so sick and tired of this crap.

Barista here. We don't make drinks in order most of the time. We make the quickest along side the hardest if the makes sense

Hey @Eastie77Returns! Hope you have settled in nicely, can you believe I'm still on our same series of threads??? Fingers crossed it'll all be over soon. See you around

That might happen in your shop, it's not the same in the regular one I frequent.

So a black coffee takes ages to make? And a pint that is on tap takes ages to pull?

Yeah right.....

Oh well that didn’t take long. Every thread I’ve read on Black Mumsnetters about a lived experience of racism is interrupted by someone eager to offer up alternative explanations🙄 I’ve worked in coffee shops and the process you describe isn’t something I’ve ever come across.

Starseeking Not quite settled in (see my thread about my absolute shambles of a renovation and terrible builder) but getting there! Keeping fingers crossed your house purchase is sorted soon, I completely understand how draining it is.