Yesterday I had my first experience of ordering at Chipotle. (/tʃɨˈpoʊtleɪ/) The food itself was great, but the process of buying it was frustrating because I could barely hear what the servers were saying. It was kind of loud in the restaurant, and the acoustics didn’t really help: we were basically speaking to each other through a piece of solid glass, absorbing everything either of us said.

One possible solution would be for all the servers to carry loudhailers and speak to all customers through them. This would be a little patronising, not to mention loud. It could well make the situation worse, in fact, since multiple concurrent orders would be interrupted by the noise of each other.

Another solution would be to aim microphones in the general direction of the servers, install a hearing aid loop system, and issue all customers with free hearing aids. This would be prohibitively expensive, though. (Do you know how expensive hearing aids are?)

My solution is to issue every server with a pocket microphone, and an RFID card reader attached at waist level. The edge of the counter on the server side has uniquely-identified RFID cards attached at very regular intervals. On the customer side, the same number of speakers minus one are attached.

As the server walks along the counter, the reader registers the cards, sends a wireless signal to a control computer, which activates the two speakers corresponding to the server’s current position, and connects them with the server’s pocket microphone. (It also deactivates whatever speakers the microphone was previously connected to.)

This way, wherever the server walks along the counter, there are speakers amplifying their voice and nothing else, out to the exact point where it’s needed.

Questions you might be asking right now:

Why not put RFID readers on the counters, and cards on the servers?

There are probably more attachment points on the counter than servers, and RFID cards are cheaper than readers.

But you could eliminate the control computer if you did it that way, and computers are expensive!

Not this one.

Why not just attach microphones regularly along the counters, each connected to one speaker?

This would amplify all noise behind the counter, including the various noises that make it hard to hear in the first place.

Why not just ask the server to speak up?

I’m shy.

Why specifically Chipotle?

I’ve never had this problem at Subway or any other fast food chain with an ‘assembly-line’–style ordering process. But it could work anyway.

1. Where I live now is not far from anywhere, really. Market Street (and the rest of the Financial District) is in walking distance, or you can take the bus which gets you there is 5 or 10 minutes; Chinatown is essentially on my doorstep; there’s a bus to Fisherman’s Wharf; the cable car runs just a little up Russian Hill, and further up from that is the famous wiggly bit in the road; in the other direction you can walk down the Filbert St. Steps right down to Levi’s Plaza and the Embarcadero. The walk up Russian Hill affords views over the Golden Gate to Alcatraz, while the summit of Telegraph Hill offers a look over the Bay itself to the Bay Bridge, Yerba Buena Island and the city of Oakland beyond.

   Not to forget the neighbourhood of North Beach itself, full of fantastic independent stores (local planning laws dictate that no chain store with more than 11 branches may open up shop here) and characterful buildings. (My apartment is certainly characterful, and not without its quirks, but it’s very liveable.) Not to mention the fact that this is San Francisco’s version of Little Italy. It’s pizza neighbourhood: just poke your head outside in the evening and you can smell it. North Beach is truly one of the greatest places I’ve ever been, in what may be the greatest city I’ve ever been to.

2. I love this city more with every step I take. I can honestly say, much-missed family and friends notwithstanding, that if the stupid immigration services told me that I could live the whole rest of my life here, I would unreservedly accept.

Point, counterpoint.

• Aaron Swartz: the Existential Terror of San Francisco. I can certainly feel this walking around on Friday or Saturday evening, or near the shadier parts of town. That said, Swartz seems to indicate that he was living in the Tenderloin, which is kind of like living in a tree and complaining about the monkeys.