> make sure it's not socially awkward for anybody who wants to just pay for
> what they ate to do so
In Switzerland, it's common for waitstaff to go around with the final tab; each
subset of diners says what they ordered and the waiter then checks it off the
bill and lets them know their subtotal[0].
Given that sometimes various shared appetizers wind up unticked at the end and
everyone chips in to square the bill at that point, although I don't have any
direct experience with the scenario, I'd guess it'd also be socially
unawkward[1] for younger broker people to ask to pay their share and the waiter
would then provide the remaining total for everyone else to split.
-Dave
[0] in french, literally "l'addition"; in german it's a little further from
english: the reckoning; but in italian it's the count. Waiting is considered a
semiskilled trade, and doing simple sums, especially for parties who may have
shared several bottles, belongs to the skillset. It may also be a
semicapitalist trade, in that I believe waiters are generally expected to be
able to provide change for thousand-franc notes without involving the
establishment's register?)
[1] as the culture is aggressively[2] pay-it-forward, sometimes I've resorted,
in an attempt to avoid my hosts picking up the whole tab, to sneakily going by
the register and doing so myself, while ostensibly having left the table to
visit the toilet. The younger broker person who wants to avoid having too many
locals pick up their share could almost certainly do the same to ensure they're
square before the tab ever arrives at the table. If one wishes to avoid even
the barest hint of awkwardness, there's always completely acceptable language
along the lines of: "Sorry all, ${ALIBI} had texted about ${POTENTIAL_EXCUSE}
and I was worried it might be an emergency, so I already paid up in case I'd
had to leave suddenly"
[2] two german comments on swiss culture:
- a german not of my acquaintance was surprised that the porn theatres in
Zürich offer senior discounts. (this should not be surprising, everyone offers
both student and senior discounts, because you wouldn't be so barbaric as to
expect either group to pay as much as you do, would you? Along those lines: I'm
not sure if it's part of the student meal deal, or just plain solidarity, but
I've often noticed students make things convenient for the waitstaff by doing a
fair amount of pre-bussing themselves?)
- a german of my acquaintance summed up the cultural difference as: "at home,
when you run into someone you know in Aldi or Lidl, they don't immediately
offer an excuse as to why they just happened to be in the area today and
thought they'd pick up something they desperately needed"
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