I just work to get their attention and then acknowledge my request for their attention and then wait for them to show up after that.
Recognizing people’s flows is an art that many people have not mastered. Also if you’re off your own flow it’s hard to recognize others flows.
BINGO.
There is the kind of rude due to belching 2 vs 3 times (like you are supposed to in Belchistan) because you liked the food.
Then there is the kind of rude that is a consideration (or lack of) of your wants vs the aggravation that those wants cause to OTHER people so that you can have your wants meet.
An example. The dinner is very busy. Service is slow because of it. Takes forever to get an order in and then get your food for whatever reason.
You got 2 pats of butter and you wanted 3. It won’t kill you to not have that 3rd pat. Asking for that 3rd pat is gonna give the poor waitstaff even more to do and they can’t handle what they have already. If they DO go get that third pat, OTHER customers service is gonna suffer even more so you can have that holy third pat.
Thats inconsiderate of everybody but yourself. And IMO thats a certain kinda rude.
Not saying the OP actually IS rude. But the question came off as "how can asking for what you want be rude ? ". Well, in this post and others I have given examples of how asking for stuff, even as the customer IS being rude in a certain kinda way.
billfish I see it differently. One goes out to eat in order to be served. Expecting to be served is not such a big deal, and asking for extra butter doesn’t inconvenience them that much because they can bring it out with the other person’s order. Who knows, that extra pat of butter might make my dining experience pleasurable enough that the extra tip s/he gets will be out of proportion to how much that butter was actually worth. That’s the beauty of a tipping culture, there is that give and take relationship regarding every transaction. If the waitstaff is overworked that is the fault of management, and should not be put on the customers.
Nor should it put on the waitstaff.
Hey, they work there. If they want my business then they can perform the service. If they can’t then I’ll help reduce their workload by not eating there in the future. You’re making this out to be like it’s some kind of social/moral issue. It’s not. Either the business can service it’s customers appropriately or it cannot. The waitstaff is more responsible for it than I am as a customer, because they are a member of that business establishment, I am not. In a well-run business those sorts of internal issues should be opaque to the customer.
I’ve worked with customers before and the thing I learned is there ARE people who complain just to get free things. But the way to tell is a person who is genuine in their complaints will always give you a chance to make it right.
Tipping? You could leave a 15% tip and complain to the manager or you could just leave less. Anyone can have a bad day but when I’m paying for a meal, I expect you to be professional to not take it out on me. If you do, you will get less of a tip. If it’s really bad, your manager will hear about it.
I’ve worked in customer service and sometimes I am a “Bit” rude sounding but here’s my take. I called AT&T for an adjustment. I fully understand the CSR (customer service rep) has to go through a list of questions, so I said, “Excuse, I don’t mean to sound rude, but I am looking for a monetary adjustment, is that something you can authorize or should I save us all some time and ask for a supervisor straight off.” Now that sounds rude, and perhaps it is, but in the end it just saves everyone some time. The poor CSR can (as she did) immediately connect me to a supervisor and take the next call she CAN help with.
As for meals anyone can make an error, a waterspot on a fork or missing a fork is one thing, a roach in the food or a hair in the food is another. The latter would make me get up and leave.
Overcharge? Yeah it happens and I’ve even done it before, if it’s a matter of 5¢ I don’t care, some people might and I respect that, but for me I would just forget it, but I could certainly understand someone wanting all their money. If I was the cashier I’d just throw it in out of my pocket and worry later.
I think there are really two different arguments here.
Asking for things isn’t rude. Demanding them in an aggressive manner is rude. There may be times it is justified, but it is still rude.
Yes, it is their job to serve you. It isn’t the “right” of the customer to be a jackass and clap their hands several times together to indicate it should be done fast.
The waiter handing you the wrong food justifies you saying “oh, that’s not mine, that is his” and pointing to your friend/family member or whatever. Some people might think that is rude, but it is totally justified and most waiters wouldn’t bat an eye at somebody saying it in a friendly manner (i.e not aggressive or mean).
I’ve had a friend of a friend in this situation berate the waitress harshly (saying that she needs to learn to do her job properly next time and he is taking it out of her tip) because she mistakenly handed him the eggs when I was the one that ordered them. Big freaking deal. That hardly justifies that kind of attitude.
Being rude can be totally justified. It is the unjustified rudeness that I hate.
“I am the customer, you are the server. Your job is to serve me,” is technically true. On the other hand, “We are both equally valuable human beings, cooperating to complete a transaction,” is equally true. Try taking the second state of mind, and see how that affects your tone and actions. In many cases, the service you receive will improve, as the polite customers do receive better service quite often.
Also, undertipping is bullshit 99% of the time. I don’t know what you do for a living, but unless you are a robot, chances are you aren’t at your most productive every single day. You have a few good days, a few bad days, and a lot of mediocre days. If your boss tried to vary your pay on a day-to-day basis, based on his perception of how productive your day was, you’d probably hit the roof.
Undertipping is also very passive-aggressive. It’s a way to stick it to your waiter, without your waiter finding out until you’ve already left the building. What would you think of your boss if, during your annual review, he told you your performance was unsatisfactory so you won’t be receiving a raise, but he refused to discuss in any way how your performance was unsatisfactory. How angry would you feel about that? Any transgression worth undertipping for is worth bringing to your server’s attention, and giving them the opportunity to correct it.
I’m under no obligation to train the wait staff. If you don’t perform and I’m not in the mood, I’ll downgrade or zilch your tip without talking to you.
That, and I’ll blacklist the restaurant for several months, so you’ll likely be working somewhere else by the time I return.
I did have one waitress who got a 2 cent tip.
She failed to offer me a desert. The menu said that I got a free piece of pie if she failed to offer one, and I informed her I wanted my pie. She argued with me and said that wasn’t on the menu. She then left and ignored me for the next twenty minutes, at which point I grabbed the manager. He brought myself and the wife our free pieces of pie.
It isn’t the fault of the waitstaff either.
Don’t punish the waitstaff for management sins. Punish the management by not coming back and letting them know why.
B.S. IMO.
If the place is cronically understaffed TAKE YOUR BUSINESS somewhere else. Don’t screw the waitstaff outa a decent tip and AT the same time REWARD the stingy business owner for the understaffing. Go somewhere else (or at the very least complain to the management) where your money will reward someone who knows how to staff and run a business at a level you think is appropriate.
If you look around, there are “tells” that tell you whether its the waitstaff that are bumbling idiots that dont deserve a decent tip or its the owner/manager/cooks that are causing poor service.
Didn’t we have a guy here who once posted that he would write down the percentage of the original tip he planned to leave, and that when the waitstaff messed up, he’d get their attention, cross that out, and write a lower percentage?
Oh, but he’d justify it by writing a HIGHER percentage if they went above and beyond average?
:rolleyes:
Except this isn’t how businesses work, especially in the case of something as widely available as food. Them with the cash rank somewhat higher in the transaction. It doesn’t mean the customer can or should act like a boor, but his/her satisfaction is higher up on the priority ladder.
And you have to be real subtle about it, or you’ll get arrested.
That’s pretty much what I said I’d do. If they are too understaffed to get me extra butter, then I shouldn’t spend my money there. It’s certainly a tell. But ultimately it is part of the waitstaff’s responsibility to make sure my dining experience goes well. They are on that team, and as such I am going to hold the ‘team’ responsible. If I see that a waiter is trying as hard as they can despite having the cards stacked against them, I’ll notice their ‘tells’ most likely, and I tend to err on the side of being a generous tipper. However, if they are too busy to bring me condiments, well, if that becomes my problem then they are failing at their duties, regardless of where in the chain the difficulties began.
You should treat servers- like all human beings- with human kindness. That’s all there is to it.
Since my wife and I enjoy frequent dining out, this thread strikes near and dear to my heart.
My take on the subject is, the dollar value of the actual food on the plate is a small fraction, usually less than half, of the price of the meal. What you are paying for is SERVICE.
You have someone take your order, prepare your meal, serve it to you, and clean up afterwards. If the SERVICE is less than adequate, do they automatically adjust the price of the meal to reflect that? Usually not, but if you bring it to the attention of the waitstaff, they will frequently comp a portion of your meal price. Sometimes, you may need to ask to speak to the manager to get satisfaction.
If the waitstaff is overworked due to a management screw-up, how is that my fault? or my responsibility? I am still paying the full price for my meal, and have every right to expect it to be to my satisfaction. Rather than stiffing the waitstaff, I call over the manager to voice my concerns, as it is usually a management error in the first place. If it becomes a regular occurance in a restaurant I frequent, I will stop giving them my custom.
There is never any reason to be rude or snippy with people in a service industry, but they ARE in a service capacity when performing their job, and should have come to terms with that realization before applying to work in a service industry. A paying customer has every right to expect his or her dining experience to be satisfactory in every reasonable way, with a strong emphasis on “reasonable.”
Asking a person in a service job to perform the duties for which they are being paid can in no way be construed as “rude.”
I pay my doctor to perform a service. I pay my teachers to perform a service. If I had a lawyer, I’d pay that lawyer to perform a service.
In all of these cases, I would treat these people with warmth and respect. I would look them in the eye, offer a smile, use “please” and “thank you” and generally relate to them as another human being.
There is no excuse not to do the same to waitstaff.
True, but that’s because I don’t work tor tips. Those who do know that that’s how it works. With that knowledge, they can either provide good service or bad and tips will vary accordingly. It sucks that having a bad day can hurt a server’s income, but that’s how it works. Tipping is a payment for service; if the service is less valuable the payment for it is reduced.
Again, an salary-paid environment is inherently different from a tip-paid environment. If a waiter is rude to me, I seriously doubt that he wants me to run down a list of his transgressions before I leave, at which point what’s done has already been done and no opportunity to correct it can exist. Call it passive aggressive if you like, but I’m not going to pay as much for bad service as I would for good in much the same way that I’m not going to pay as much for a fast food burger as I would for a high quality steak.
Again, I’m not saying that waiters and waitresses are subhuman doormats to be mistreated and discarded. I am however saying that, under the tip system, a server’s pay varies based on the quality of service he or she provides so that trying to compare it to a fixed salary is pretty pointless; that’s just not how the system works.