Table cleared!

What is this obsession restaurants have with clearing tables, without even checking to see if customers are done?

I eat alone. I am always afraid to get up to use the bathroom, because when I return, sometimes my table is cleared off! I get so pissed!

It is really bad at buffets. Because I must get up to get more food!

Today, I filled a plate with four pieces of pie, and left it on my table. I thought surely the servers would not be dumb enough to think I had left, with a fresh, untouched plate of pie.

I went to the restroom. When I got back my table was cleared, and a tall stack of dirty plates was there. One of them had my pie, now squished.

I got so pissed and bitched to my server. She said she could not tell if I was still there. I said do I need to leave a big sign?

I was so pissed, also because this happened to me twice only a week ago, at the same place, in the same sitting, but with a different server. She cleared off my table twice! And for that, all I had done was get up and get more food!

It has happened before that at this place, too.

I almost want to boycott.

In the future I will start explaining to my server what keeps happening, and to please wait until I say I am done.

I had to get 4 new pieces of pie. Gosh, I hated to see those squished pies go to waste!

Hurry hurry hurry clear those tables, chop chop! I need those tables!!!!