That salad bowl looks delicious and the place cozy. Too bad about the service. Like you said, she might've been having a bad day. Who knows what secret battles she was fighting? Or maybe she was just being a grumpy cat.
In places around here, service staff can be overly friendly and interact with you in an highly upbeat attitude that some may find off-putting. I was surprised on a trip to Eastern Europe when people just seriously went about their business at restaurants, stores, and cafes. When I smiled at one, they lifted their heads and smiled broadly, awkwardly, as if not quite sure what to do. Then I read that they don't have the same culture of overly cheerful service we do in North America. From the sounds of it, in Australia you also expect a friendly smile or even small word or two. This makes sense given the similarities in cultures.
Australia is much the same as North America by the sounds. I found the same in UK - when I first moved there I found it so odd that shop staff didn't really interact. I love chatting to them as it's sometimes the only company I get in a lonely day.
Utterly agree - I do practice compassion. But I also think people need to be mindful about how their mood might affect others.
My hubs has a hard week at work. His colleague who shares the office with him, a friend who is usually chatty, has been ignoring him all week, like picking her stuff up and leaving as soon as he gets in. I said she might be super stressed and busy but he said she was particularly blatant in utterly ignoring him and was convinced he'd done something wrong. Pretty horrible. Anyway via texts (we are also friends and surf together sometimes) I gently got to bottom of it - she is indeed utterly paralyzed with stress. We utterly empathize... BUT. BUT. No matter how bad things are, your behaviour impacts other people. You need to say 'sorry I can't talk, I have sooo much work to do" or at least 'hi mate, morning, sorry, just busy'.
I know what you mean. My mother is really great at being charming even when facing adversity. Her trick is that she genuinely means it. I'm more erratic in my behavior and don't have to be facing adversity to bring on the chaos 😁