Dear salad restaurant: Just for the record, I am not a snitch

Most days, at noon- time, I take a walk. I head down Nicollet Mall, and sometimes I walk through Loring Park at the far end. On my way back, I often stop at a salad place for takeout lunch.

I get a kick out of the employees--several powerful-looking black women, and a handful of small, scrawny white guys who look like they just got out of methadone treatment. They stand in a long row, making salads like crazy. They all have to wear these goofy floppy chef's hats that come in one-size-fits-all; the hats perch on the tops of the women's heads and sag past the eyebrows of the undernourished men.

But the salads are good.

Last week I stopped by and ordered a small salad with romaine, tomatoes and chicken. The powerful-looking woman said, "We're out of romaine." Then she looked again. "Oh, there might be enough for one more salad."

She scraped it all into my bowl. It was actually a bit more than usual, but that was OK by me.

The manager was at the cash register. He's tall and young and square-jawed, the only one who gets to forgo the chef's hat for a more dignified baseball cap. You can tell just by looking; he is clearly A Boss.

He lifted up my salad, tested its heft. "This is a small?" he said. He sounded dubious. I nodded. Then he asked, in an ominous way, "Do you know who was helping you?"

The implication was unmistakable.

"No, no," I said hastily. "It is a small. She was just using up the last of the romaine."

He didn't press me further, and I walked back to the office in a crabby mood. What a nazi. Who does he think he is, with his baseball cap? Acting like the master over the serfs. Wanting me to rat someone out for giving me a little extra lettuce. Grrrrrrr.

On Monday I stopped by again. This time, one of the scrawny guys made my salad. We got to chatting--he explained why there were no tomatoes (salmonella scares) and wondered if I knew the weather forecast for the afternoon (sunny and windy).

The manager was nowhere in sight, and one of the powerful women was at the cash register. I handed over my salad and said, "Small, with chicken," and then, on whim, added, "Do you think I could get a breadstick?"

She stopped in her tracks. And then, once again, I got that ominous question. "Do you know who was helping you?"

Yikes!

"No, no," I said. "We got to chatting about tomatoes. It's not his fault." (They are all supposed to ask, every single time, "Would you like to add a breadstick today for twenty-five cents?")

So clearly, this was not just one power-hungry boss's management style. Clearly this is the management style of the whole restaurant chain.

Once again, I was crabby the whole way back to the office.

Salad place, if you are reading this: Bad idea. I do not want to be asked to rat out employees who forget to offer me a breadstick, or who put a few too many leaves of lettuce into my bowl.

I do not want to be responsible for getting an employee in trouble for some small transgression; I do not want to feel like I must take sides. If I'm going to take sides, however, I'll take the side of the cheerful salad makers, who almost certainly are not being paid a ton of money to make my lunch and wear those stupid hats.

If something is not to your liking, it's up to you to notice it and take action. Not me. I'm there for the food. I'm your customer. I'm not your snitch.