I really need out of this business
Poll
As many of you are aware, in THE REAL WORLD I am a server. So while the rest of you are doing end of the year reflections, thinking about New Year's Resolutions, and playing with your Christmas toys, I'm thinking about how much people suck. XD;
I'd love to publish a little handbook about being a good guest but it would have to be posed as utter and complete facetiousness/humor or the people that should actually read it won't read it, baaaaaaaaawwww.
Anyway:
Three Important Things to remember in a restaurant:
1. Your server wants you to be happy. I KNOW. It's like ... the moment when you realized that Mr. Coleburn, that Algebra teacher who flunked you on six tests in a row actually wanted you to succeed. (That's why he called the parent-teacher conference, the jerk.)
Guess what? Servers are paid to care what you think. Actually ... you pay them to care what you think. So when a server has to tell you 'we can't do that' or 'your food is going to be ten minutes late' or 'we sold out of your favorite dish', they aren't actually doing it just to piss you off. Ninety percent of servers are going to do their best by you with their limited resources and time.
If making you happy means having a tiny pinata on every meal, though, most are going to disappoint.
(In a corollary to the above: Unless you eat at a restaurant every day for every meal, your server has most likely logged more hours in the building than you. So when a server says, 'I can't do that' and you say 'But you did it for me before!', chances are pretty high the server knows what xe's talking about. Just ... consider the possibility you may be wrong.)
2. You're (almost) never your server's only table. It depends on where you're dining, but from casual to fine casual dining, your server may have anywhere from 4 to 8 tables to take care of, and as many as 30 individual guests. That's like having thirty bosses, all demanding stuff from you all the time ("Where's my tartar sauce, Mr. Anderson!? That was supposed to be on my desk yesterday! Now the Fish and Chips proposal is going to be late and WHAT THEN, MR. ANDERSON? WHAT THEN?") This doesn't mean you're not a top priority. It just means you're a top priority amongst 30 top priorities.
Trust me: when duplication machines are invented, the first industry to make good use of them will be the restaurant industry.
3. Servers are only human. While the industry would have you believe that servers are Asimov robots, complete with the Three Laws, they're not. Sometimes they mess up. They forget things. They have moods.
I'm not saying you don't have the right - or that you shouldn't - punish a server monetarily for screwing up your order or for being less than cheerful while serving you. It's their job to make you happy (see number 1). I'm just saying that working yourself up over it is silly, because it's not personal. Your Server is just a person, and this is just their job. Sometimes, just like you, they have a bad day at work. (It just hits their pocketbooks a lot harder than it probably hits yours.)
As many of you are aware, in THE REAL WORLD I am a server. So while the rest of you are doing end of the year reflections, thinking about New Year's Resolutions, and playing with your Christmas toys, I'm thinking about how much people suck. XD;
I'd love to publish a little handbook about being a good guest but it would have to be posed as utter and complete facetiousness/humor or the people that should actually read it won't read it, baaaaaaaaawwww.
Anyway:
Three Important Things to remember in a restaurant:
1. Your server wants you to be happy. I KNOW. It's like ... the moment when you realized that Mr. Coleburn, that Algebra teacher who flunked you on six tests in a row actually wanted you to succeed. (That's why he called the parent-teacher conference, the jerk.)
Guess what? Servers are paid to care what you think. Actually ... you pay them to care what you think. So when a server has to tell you 'we can't do that' or 'your food is going to be ten minutes late' or 'we sold out of your favorite dish', they aren't actually doing it just to piss you off. Ninety percent of servers are going to do their best by you with their limited resources and time.
If making you happy means having a tiny pinata on every meal, though, most are going to disappoint.
(In a corollary to the above: Unless you eat at a restaurant every day for every meal, your server has most likely logged more hours in the building than you. So when a server says, 'I can't do that' and you say 'But you did it for me before!', chances are pretty high the server knows what xe's talking about. Just ... consider the possibility you may be wrong.)
2. You're (almost) never your server's only table. It depends on where you're dining, but from casual to fine casual dining, your server may have anywhere from 4 to 8 tables to take care of, and as many as 30 individual guests. That's like having thirty bosses, all demanding stuff from you all the time ("Where's my tartar sauce, Mr. Anderson!? That was supposed to be on my desk yesterday! Now the Fish and Chips proposal is going to be late and WHAT THEN, MR. ANDERSON? WHAT THEN?") This doesn't mean you're not a top priority. It just means you're a top priority amongst 30 top priorities.
Trust me: when duplication machines are invented, the first industry to make good use of them will be the restaurant industry.
3. Servers are only human. While the industry would have you believe that servers are Asimov robots, complete with the Three Laws, they're not. Sometimes they mess up. They forget things. They have moods.
I'm not saying you don't have the right - or that you shouldn't - punish a server monetarily for screwing up your order or for being less than cheerful while serving you. It's their job to make you happy (see number 1). I'm just saying that working yourself up over it is silly, because it's not personal. Your Server is just a person, and this is just their job. Sometimes, just like you, they have a bad day at work. (It just hits their pocketbooks a lot harder than it probably hits yours.)