The poor server had quite a difficult time politely extracting herself to get back to serving others.

Beside us was a lady rolling through umpteen pictures on her phone to show the server from the previous day's excursion. On a HAL cruise last year, we were in the Explorers lounge I think midmorning (busy but not crazy), where the servers in there do seem to have a bit more time to engage in chats. There are plenty of guests who enjoy conversation with strangers and they have the free time to do so. I try not to engage in conversation with the crew, other than a polite greeting.They have enough to do without conversing with the guests. Not a great idea for either passenger nor crew. Reminds one of something done during the 1940's. Maybe we could get the line to also put the passengers name and nationality on a name tag. Other lines do this, it would seem to take little effort and would be a plus for me. On one HAL cruise, up in the buffet, I said, 'Terimah kasih!' and the server corrected me that he was Filipino. But not always, and with so many Indonesians and Filipino on HAL, it really would be nice to have that indicated in some way. Sometimes I can guess the nationality by a common first name. On our last cruise (another line) we had a waiter from Macedonia I saw the flag on his tag, and was able to remember the appropriate word. It was like magic: He perked up, asked if he could help with anything else.and my sisters started at me-what was that word? When we got to the end, I said 'Salamat,' knowing that the company's customer service hires a lot of Filipino workers. When my older sister had an issue with her cell phone, we made the call on speaker so that all three sisters could listen and advise as necessary. I thought that was a very good idea, and so I have tried to apply it throughout my life. It was a silly, sexist book in many ways, but one of Podkayne's goals in a resort setting was to be able to say 'thank you' in the language of everyone who serves her. When I was younger, I read Robert Heinlein's book, PODKAYNE OF MARS. re: Podkayne, How the Story Should End.essay by Brian Maranta and Carol Maranta.I Like Heinlein (his ending, too) (The Winners).

Podkayne of mars by robert a heinlein