There's a college near Saranac Lake, Roger Smith or something like that, that runs a hospitality program, and students are assigned to work in their hotel/restaurant in Saranac - much like the CIA in Hyde Park, NY.
We had a yeah/boo experience in that restaurant one evening a few Summers ago. We were greeted and seated immediately with real graciousness. Then we waited and waited and waited until my wife literally grabbed a passing waitress by the arm and asked if we could get some service. The girl seemd startled by our request, but went away promising some help would soon come, so we waited and waited and waylaid the same girl again. She apologized and explained that no one was assigned to wait on our table, but that she would bend the rules and take our order- which she did. We ordered an appetizer, a bottle of wine, and our entrees.
Soon enough another girl appeared with our appetizers and the wine.
She explained that she was under 21 and could not open the bottle for us, so we offered to open it ourselves using my wife's always present Swiss Army Knife. She demurred and walked away with the bottle. Soon the Maitre D who had seated us appeared with a "waiter's friend" opener and proceeded an epic struggle with the bottle. The woman had no idea how to use the device and became increasingly flustered and all thumbs - we felt sorry about even ordering the wine, we offered to instruct her in the use of the device,we offered to do it ourselves, we made little jokes with her to relieve the tension while she continued to struggle. She was as nice and charming as she was untrained and inept so we completely empathised with her. When the cork somehow popped, at last, from the bottle a small cheer went up from a few tables around us.
The food arrived in the hands of the underage waitress in short order thereafter and it was excellent - cant remember exactly what we ate, but it was some kind of veal dish and was well worth the wait, We also had a berry cobbler type dessert and coffeee - this was served to us by a twenty-something man in US Army khakis. Turned out he was just out of the Army a few days before, had no civilian clothes and had taken a temporary job bussing at the restaurant.
After dinner we stopped to talk to the MaitreD and explained that they had a wedding party of 150 in another dining room. That the management had failed to hire some extra help for the wedding party service and that all of the experienced and trained students were working that party - leaving the restaurant front room (not the kitchen)
entirely in the hands of rank amateurs. She said she had never acted as a MaitreD before, had no training or instructions, and was handed a wait staff of totally inexperienced people - all of this on a weekend night!