Your edited version is good. Conveys the feeling of the situation well without seeming smug at all

Thank you.

The sentence they are most likely talking about:

> It was apparent on the faces of the staff that this was most unexpected ... members of the public weren't supposed to know how the system worked ... how could I possibly have known ?!?

Implies that you know more (about the system) than the public. The problem is you are assuming you know why the waiters were shocked. You also don't need the last sentence, it's implied by the first two. Here's an alternative version:

> it seemed like the waiters were shocked. I'd wager that the general public wasn't supposed to know how the system worked

Editing something in the middle of a discussion about it seems counterproductive to me. Now that I have read this comment I am uncertain whether my own other comment makes sense.

At least leave the original in place but struck out.

Leaving the original in place but struck out is really hard on the platform I'm using. Possible, but non-trivial, and it seemed better simply to "fix" it for anyone reading it later. If it was mis-leading then I wanted to fix it. I do, by the way, agree that it might be a difference between cultures. Some things don't translate and come across differently.

For reference, at the end the original read:

It was apparent on the faces of the staff that this was most unexpected ... members of the public weren't supposed to know how the system worked ... how could I possibly have known ?!?

But it was a real-life example of a finite-state machine, beautifully designed, and extremely effective.

Until I did something unexpected, of course. But they didn't seem to mind too much.

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Edit: I wish people didn't down-vote you, I think your comment is perfectly reasonable.