Sorry, but as a customer I find this objectionable. You’re making me suffer for your incompetent planning.
First, if I have to wait, I would rather wait sitting comfortably at a table (even unserved) rather than standing in line.
Second, if you were to tell me honestly that there was going to be a lengthy wait, I would at least have the option of going to another restaurant where they did have enough staff to seat me promptly.
Making me wait in line may be convenient for you, but how is it ‘serving’ your customers?
I’ve worked as a hostess, and then moved up to serving and the like. I can remember playing the game of, well, there’s no server in that section, but I’ll let you sit there and wait. And ya know what? People would sit for two minutes, and then get angry because they are still waiting. Maybe you are a minority, but it is a very slim minority.
As for calling it poor planning? Well, if you have ever worked in the restaurant business, you will know that for absolutely no reason at all, the restaurant can get slammed, no warning or anything. If restaurants staffed every night as though it was going to be the busiest, than food prices would have to go up to cover the extra wages. And then people would complain about that.
But I think that is restaurant life. People complain about the stupidest things. Tonight, people complained that the food was going to take too long (this started before they had ordered. It was 7:30 on a friday night. There’s a 30 minute wait. Yes, the food will take a while, but if you are in a hurry, you should have gone to McDonalds. Sorry, but I kinda consider that common sense), and people complained that they could “barely taste” the alcohol in a daquiri. It’s a freakin Daquiri, if you want to taste the alcohol, get something else.
Despite that though, I honestly enjoy waiting tables. Not as a career, I’m a student with hopes of other things, but I like it now. I have the coolest regulars, I enjoy making people happy, and without sounding too conceited, I’m very good at what I do. It really doesn’t take too much to impress people, and I like doing it.
Don’t want to put too fine a point on this, CheekyMonkey613, but have you ever considered that you might be, um, totally nuts? As in, completely fucking crazy?
Ah, see, here is where we’re on two different pages. I don’t consider any type of customer service work as being subservient; I don’t consider any of the things customer service people have to do to, well, serve customers as subservient. You’re doing a valid job like anyone else, and getting stuff for customers is what you get paid for. Maybe part of the problem is the wording; maybe customer service should be changed to “customer helping” or something less loaded.
I don’t see where anybody lied to you. The lady had two sets of silverware. The man had none so he asked you for a set. Did they say you didn’t put enough silverware on the table? Perhaps the woman is a little OCD and likes to use clean fresh silverware with each course (appetizer and entree). If she had let the man keep the other set and asked you later for an additional set of silverware would that have been better? Or would you have made a comment about her using what she already had? Should she have to explain why she wants two sets of silverware?
I waited tables for near on ten years. I have lots of sympathy for what servers go through. And if the OP had been an expression of frustration only, I would have sympathized with it. All that little stuff, it beats you down, I know just how that is. But any sympathy was lost when I read about the OP’s behavior.
While I understand the annoyance of having to make an extra, ostensibly un-needed trip during a busy shift, unless the customer is being downright abusive the proper way to deal with that request is “Sure, I’ll bring it right away” with a nice smile, and then, well, bring the extra silverware right away. Then you go back to the kitchen and tell the fry cook about what a bitch you’ve got on table 3. Once that’s off your chest, paste that smile back on and go out and do your job.
That’s not being subservient, that’s doing your job. No, the customer isn’t always right, but when they’re wrong, you still don’t have carte blanche–just because they’re rude doesn’t mean now you can be, too.
I guess I find it interesting that giving someone a look is considered incredibly rude. From my point of view, I’m risking my finances(my tip) based on my behavior. I’ve never been the type of waiter who has always been smiley all the time, and I will fully admit I’m not the best at what I do. Not the worst, but not the best. Almost all of my customers go away satisfied, and I do have the core of regulars that most good waitstaff have.
Rude, in my mind, would have been reaching next to her plate, and moving the silverware to the other side of the table. “There we go. Everyone has silverware now?” This would have made the woman look foolish in front of her friends, and the people really wouldn’t have had anything to complain about. I’m sure she wouldn’t have complained, because it would have made her look even more silly than she was. I said what I said to give her a chance not to look foolish later on, and to save myself time. Bad idea, ite seems.
So, you’ve been waiting tables a long time and don’t know to keep an extra set of silverware in your apron pocket during busy shifts? It really does save a ton of time on extra trips if someone gets short-silvered, or drops their fork, or whatever. When I was waiting tables, I usually also kept some butter and jelly packets and sometimes a bottle of ketchup, too. Saved me all kinds of running back and forth. Then again, the aprons at some places don’t have pockets.
In any case, if you didn’t have extra silver to hand over at that moment, the correct response is, “Oh, gosh, I’m so sorry. I could have sworn I’d put down four, but I guess I’m having one of those days. I’ll have that extra silverware out for you in just a second.” Then you finish up whatever you were in the middle of doing, grab the silver and whatever else you need for your other tables, and drop it off on your way to the next table.
I am with Elret on this: If they had 4 sets, but still asked you for another one, then something wasn’t all right. I wasn’t there, so it’s hard to tell, who’s right and who’s wrong on this, but I suspect that the customers aren’t so imperceptive not to notice there are 4 sets of cutlery. If they politely ask for another one, then I’d give them the benefit of the doubt (after all, it is possible that one set fell on the ground) and fetch another one.
I completely agree that this is rude, bad service, and uncalled for. However…
To him, it may very well be that you are the one lying to save face. I worked in customer service for a long time dealing with credit card transactions, and even when a card came back saying directly “DECLINED - INSUFFICIENT FUNDS” a customer would NEVER agree it was declined. To be gentle, I would usually just tell them that their card was declined. They would hem and haw and say what bad service it was, because they had so much money in their account. Often, they would start screaming and getting upset and asking why it was declined, and I’d tell them – they’d always deny it. We’d run it again, and it would happen again and again. In all the transactions I ever dealt with (hundreds, possibly thousands) I only ever had one customer who admitted there might not be enough money in the account. Every other one was absolutely, positively, one hundred percent convinced (according to what they said, of course) that it could not be the account.
At the place I worked (not a restaurant), all it said was “CARD DECLINED”, which was a BLESSING for those arguments. You can just play the dumb retail clerk, swipe it a few times, while making soothing “Gosh, I don’t know what’s wrong, it’s probably something wrong with their system” noises.
I feel your pain, because I was a server for a while. Like you, I wasn’t the best. I may have even been the worst. I made plenty of mistakes, but I was always courteous to my customers. It would have been easy to have an attitude because I was frustrated, but I refrained. I believe I made money for my pleasant attitude when I couldn’t always make it because of my superior serving skills. haha.
That said, I do think certain looks are incredibly rude.
I’ll tip 20% to anyone who waits on my table, unless they are rude. The food can be late, he/she can spill my drink, etc., but if he/she has an attitude towards me I will cut that tip in half and probably complain to the manager. I’m not a terribly demanding customer, but I want to be treated kindly and without looks or sarcasm. I don’t dine out to be treated like a nuisance.
I don’t understand why you didn’t just point out that she had two sets of silverware. Did she slip one into her lap or her purse? Why couldn’t you politely say, “Oh, ma’am, perhaps you didn’t realize you had two sets of silverware in front of you” instead of playing the passive-aggressive power struggle game?
Here’s the thing, though - First, as Intent already pointed out, you can’t always plan when you’re going to be busy. You also can’t plan for half the staff catching strep throat or deciding that it was too fine a night to have to work, or the kitchen being slammed with to-go orders, or the dishwasher getting fired. No matter how well you plan, shit happens.
And there are instances of poor planning. Nights when there weren’t enough servers scheduled or when people were sent home prematurely. However, the person putting you on a wait list is generally not the person responsible. When I was a hostess, I had no authority to schedule people or let them off early. That was all management. And when shit went wrong, management had a weird tendency to disappear.
Most people who work in restaurants - servers, hostesses, whoever - are not out to screw the customer. If you have to wait, we will do our best to make it as short and pleasant a wait as possible. If something’s the matter, we’ll try to fix it. We really do care. But we’re not gods or miracle workers, and there’s only so much that we can control. So please don’t hassle us about things that we can’t change. It doesn’t solve anything.
Hmm. After a few second’s reflection, I’ve realized I may have been a bit hasty in some of my comments about management. There are lots of lovely managers in the world, who when things go wrong, will be right there in the trenches helping to set things to rights again. I simply did not work for them.
However, I do think that the sort of management who frequently understaffs, or sends staff home when no rush appears by seven o’clock, are probably generally inattentive to the actual needs of the restaurant. As such, they are less likely to be bussing tables and getting drinks when they are really needed, and more likely to be down at the bar chatting up the cocktail waitresses. These are solely my opinions, and should not be taken as the opinions of ABC News. Your Mileage May Vary, and all of that.
I don’t think he was saying you’re delusional, he was just pointing out with some justification that habitually ragging out a manager before anything has even gone wrong because you’ve got some sort of complex about your neighbors thinking you don’t have any money definately falls on the “kooky” side of the sanity spectrum.
I completely agree. But that’s just it, when there isn’t enough money in the account, it says: “DECLINED - INSUFFICIENT FUNDS”. The reading on the machine in my case said: “TRANSACTION INCOMPLETE”.
The guy must see a difference between the two. The way they spoke to the manager when they called in, I think they were scared. But if I’m wrong about that, even if he thought I had no money in my account, he could use a little more discretion ~ like you do.
I made plenty of mistakes, but I was always courteous to my customers. It would have been easy to have an attitude because I was frustrated, but I refrained. I believe I made money for my pleasant attitude when I couldn’t always make it because of my superior serving skills. haha.