For my norm violation, I went to Donna’s, a restaurant by the airport, on Sunday, October 11th at around 5pm. I was accompanied by my friend. When finished eating, the waitress took our plates and brought the checks. Instead of the usual of paying, tipping, and then leaving soon afterwards, we decided to stay for a while to see what would happen.
The Norm Violation
The norm I violated was leaving right after you pay for your food at a restaurant. This is important because restaurants need to provide tables for business, and when you don’t leave, they can’t give the table to the next paying customer, causing the restaurant to lose money.
Everyone that I know follows this norm. Some people stay a little longer at restaurants than I do, but …show more content…
People in other countries take longer to eat meals than we do, and they tend to have more courses and smaller portion-sizes. Meals in other countries are also seen as an important social aspect of their daily life. People in other countries would probably not consider staying after paying to be a norm violation.
Results
I didn’t get as many responses as I was expecting. After a few minutes, the waitress came back to ask if we needed anything else, and after we said no, she helped other tables. Apart from a strange glance at us every once in a while, nothing happened. I don’t think any of the other customers noticed anything strange either, because they weren’t focusing on us. I hadn’t told my friend that I was doing a norm violation, but he didn’t seem to think anything was strange, even after we were still at the restaurant 30 minutes after we’d finished eating.
We might have gotten different reactions if we had gone at a different time. There were very few customers in the restaurant, so I don’t think the staff was worried about getting us out of there quickly. If it had been busier, they might have actually kicked us out or at least made more of an effort to get us to leave.
The Norm Violation
The norm I violated was leaving right after you pay for your food at a restaurant. This is important because restaurants need to provide tables for business, and when you don’t leave, they can’t give the table to the next paying customer, causing the restaurant to lose money.
Everyone that I know follows this norm. Some people stay a little longer at restaurants than I do, but …show more content…
People in other countries take longer to eat meals than we do, and they tend to have more courses and smaller portion-sizes. Meals in other countries are also seen as an important social aspect of their daily life. People in other countries would probably not consider staying after paying to be a norm violation.
Results
I didn’t get as many responses as I was expecting. After a few minutes, the waitress came back to ask if we needed anything else, and after we said no, she helped other tables. Apart from a strange glance at us every once in a while, nothing happened. I don’t think any of the other customers noticed anything strange either, because they weren’t focusing on us. I hadn’t told my friend that I was doing a norm violation, but he didn’t seem to think anything was strange, even after we were still at the restaurant 30 minutes after we’d finished eating.
We might have gotten different reactions if we had gone at a different time. There were very few customers in the restaurant, so I don’t think the staff was worried about getting us out of there quickly. If it had been busier, they might have actually kicked us out or at least made more of an effort to get us to leave.