Visited a real Thai (family) restaurant today, not noodle street stall, and was served by a wee little boy.

I'd estimate age 8.

This boy was not only taking orders, but also responsible for maintaining the tables (which he didn't) and accepting money.

The actual food, it being too challenging for the boy to handle, was brought in by an adult.

This place was new to me. It had a full Thai food menu including Euro breakfasts, probably over 100 choices. The tables were filthy and there were two things wrong with my order. I don't even know if it was the boy's fault as it's just as likely he communicated what I wanted and the cook ignored it.

I think under 10 is too young to be a waiter at a real restaurant. While it may be cute, it doesn't add up to decent service. Not getting into the moral issues of child labor exploitation, that's something the Thais need to work on as if they cared.

Yes I know some will say, just don't go there anymore if you think the service was crap and the tables were filthy. But the food was half decent, cheap enough, and convenient for me, so I'll probably try it again sometime and hope they get it together to hire a waiter.

The last visit I made to a local seafood restaurant was when the owner turned over the deep-frying of my "seafood platter" to his two prepubescent girls--who fried every item (scallops, shrimp, fish, clams, etc.) into a little hard brown dry husk. Meanwhile the cook-owner sat and watched soap operas. Yeah, the service is bad, and it's even worse when the cooks should be doing their 3rd-grade homework instead of lazy-ass dad watching the soaps.

Yes, my last visit.

I'd have loved to help my dad at his job. Sadly, after the embarrassment of my brother dropping his lollipop in the lobotomy that was never going to happen...

He's really sorry, if you're reading this, and he hopes it's given you sweet thoughts...

SC

I was in a place once with the family near the local bus station where we usually eat and we were served by a young girl...actually, she was in full adolescent bud/flower in shorts and a t-shirt and I averted my eyes as I was ashamed...and I thought: 'why is she not in school, this is a disgrace...'

she was so wonderfully cheerful as she took our order and served the food, typical of a young girl who has no 'real' experience of her harsh, dirty surroundings...the food was wonderful per usual and I was enjoying being with my wife and family but I kept thinking: 'school, school, she should be in school'...and this continued as I ordered another beer after the plates were cleared...

the wife, who has a special wave length/frequency just for me watched her approaching with the second beer and sneered: 'thirsty today, are we...?' and I was unable to express my concern regarding child labor and low educational achievement and we left with the second beer barely touched...

swear to god, JT...this really happened...

My memory is gettin bad but i think i know of 3 children who doesn't want to go to school,

so their parents lets them stay with their mother and help out in her work.

In one of the cases, it was either the mother or the child who had some illness, man i've had too many beer here

I did make some snarky comment to an adult there about SCHOOL upon leaving but it wasn't appreciated. It was in the context of him joking to me about how the little guy does all the jobs there, including cashier, so I suggested SCHOOL would be good. I know, I know, very white of me ...

Bit of a sad [email protected] of us WANTED to go to school but at least the choice was there....

<br />I did make some snarky comment to an adult there about SCHOOL upon leaving but it wasn't appreciated. It was in the context of him joking to me about how the little guy does all the jobs there, including cashier, so I suggested SCHOOL would be good. I know, I know, very white of me ...<br />

<br /><br /><br />

Schools are on holiday this month, so maybe just keeping the little one from getting bored.

If he's working during term time agree with you completely.