10 Most Annoying Restaurant Trends

The time has come! to give you the latest batch of restaurant-world developments that really get under our skin. Which one of these irks you the most?
1. Dogs in Cafes/Outdoor Restaurants
Sometime during the early aughts, toting around your dog in your purse became acceptable social behavior (along with texting during dinner and talking about Twilight). As a result, it seems more and more restaurants started bending health code rules to please overly entitled "pooch pushers" who insist on dragging their smelly mutts around with them 24/7.

2. Tables Ridiculously Close Together
Unless you have a 22-in. waist à la Lara Flynn Boyle, squeezing out of your seat is nigh impossible in most restaurants these days. We appreciate that eateries are often dealing with high rents, tiny spaces and a need to squeeze as many seats into a space as possible - but seriously, guys, could we space the tables out a little here?

3. Overzealous Wine Pouring
If there’s one thing we definitely don’t need help with, it’s pouring our own alcohol. We hate when servers are constantly topping off our glasses (clearly in an effort to sell more booze) when they’re already mostly full - leaving our wine/beer to get warm and stale in the process.

4. Designer Ice
While bigger, fewer ice cubes help keep drinks cool without watering them down, we're really not a fan of those giant ice blocks that knock against our teeth as we’re sipping.

5. Enormous Wine Glasses
What’s with the humongo glasses? We realize a bigger glass makes for tastier wine, blah blah blah, but when the table is barely 12 in. across, those gigantic wine glasses leave little room for the more important stuff - the food!

6. Ketchup Snobbery
We don’t care if your homemade ketchup was hand-squished from eight different types of artisanal heirloom tomatoes. With a burger and fries, just give us good old-fashioned Heinz.

7. Sparkling, Flat or Filtered Tap?
Is this a trick question? We realize that the dreaded water question must be asked - but seriously, there’s gotta be a better way to phrase it, because restaurants that make their servers say this seem to be trying to trick their customers into ordering a pricey bottle of water.

8. Unisex Restrooms
Restaurants with unisex bathrooms are just asking for a lawsuit (or some raunchy bathroom situations at the very least). It’s one thing if it’s a unisex, single room kind of situation, but personally it really weirds us out when we’re doing our business in the stall and we see a member of the opposite sex washing their hands just outside. Awkward!

9. Excessive Punctuation/Lower-Case Letters in Restaurant Names, Menu Items
Wh.at is up wi.th all the pe.ri.ods? When you’re trying to look up a restaurant name that happens to have a few extra periods thrown in, the excessive punctuation can make it a little bit tricky.

10. Wood-Infused Food
Lately "wood" is having its moment in the spotlight as some rustic New American restaurants are offering dishes prepare using various "wood infusions," some going as far as to spotlight a different type of wood each day. Interesting idea, but in reality the food comes out half-cooked and smelling like a humidor.

iPad a solid education tool

More and more schools are jumping on the digital bandwagon and adopting iPads for daily use in the classroom. Apple's education-related announcements last week will no doubt bolster the trend, making faculty tools and student textbooks more engaging and accessible.
But today another data point emerged, demonstrating that the iPad can be a valuable asset in education. In a partnership with Apple, textbook publishers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt performed a pilot study using an iPad text for Algebra 1 courses, and found that 20% more students (78% compared to 59%) scored 'Proficient' or 'Advanced' in subject comprehension when using tablets rather than paper textbook counterparts.

The study was conducted at a Riverside, California, middle school from Spring 2010 to Spring 2011 using HMH's Fuse: Algebra I app. Similar pilot courses and iPad programs have cropped up all over the country, primarily in private and boarding schools, and select universities. In the public school sector, more than 600 school districts have adopted a 1:1 iPad program.

Read more about iPads in schools:  http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/23/tech/innovation/ipad-solid-education-tool/index.html

Working Through Lunch

Imagine being fired, like this Chicago woman was, for working too much.

A report on Time magazine's website tells the story:

"Back in January 2010, Sharon Smiley, who worked as a receptionist and administrative assistant at a Chicago real estate company, clocked out of work but stayed at her desk to finish a project assigned by her manager. Another manager told her to she had to leave her desk and go to lunch. But she said no and continued working. That turned out to be a bad move. She was fired.

The company required that all hourly non-exempt employees take a 30-minute lunch break, and the issue was complicated by the fact that, as a receptionist, Smiley’s desk was at the front door of the company’s office. It seems that her managers felt it was unprofessional for her to eat in front of clients and potential clients who walked through the door."

When she tried to get unemployment benefits, she was denied them because she had been fired for cause. She fought that decision, and last week an appeals court ruled she could receive unemployment because she was not fired for gross misconduct.

Many people work through their lunch break. A good many of them eat at their desks, too. Maybe it's due to a special project; maybe they need to leave 15 minutes early, or maybe it's the only way to get all their work done and still get home at a decent hour.

Do you work through lunch, and/or eat at your desk? And does your employer have some kind of policy on such behavior?

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/talk-of-the-day/do-you-work-through-your-lunch-break/article_12e9c4d0-42a3-11e1-94be-0019bb30f31a.html#ixzz1jvHvvTO9