Question

Hello,
I understood from various sources I saw online that if I eat pareve food in a meat restaurant, then I do not need to wait afterward before eating dairy.
For example, every day I eat in the dining room at a high-tech company where there is a station with bowls, and in each bowl there is a different pareve salad with tongs. Hundreds of people pass through there. It doesn’t make sense that not even one of them, when taking salad onto his plate, wouldn’t have the tongs touch a little bit (or a lot) of the meat foods on his plate, and then when he puts the tongs back it could get mixed into the salad. So why is that considered pareve?
Thank you!