…naive?
I’ve been in the hospitality trade since 1994. I’ve washed dishes under the shadow of Mount Cook at the Hermitage Hotel, surpervised banquets at the Auckland Park Regency and the Stamford Plaza, waited on tables at Fortuna Restaurant and the Airport Hotel, managed conference centres at Sky City and the New Zealand Parliament, co-ordinated events for Te Papa and my own catering company.
I’ve managed at least seven State level functions for visiting Heads of State, including the Rt Hon John Howard and HRH the Queen. I am Papa Bear of the Sacred Order of the Banquet Bears, and it is particularly galling to be called naive about what goes on in the hospitality industry by somebody who considers it good form to throw away their customers engagement ring and can see nothing wrong with serving food picked up off the floor.
“Excuse me sir, I don’t appreciate you speaking to me in that manner.” is an entirely professional statement for a waiter to say to a guest who is behaving like a jerk. I’ve said it before, and when my staff have said similar things I have backed them up.
The hospitality industry is all about illusion. Its about not having to worry about cooking dinner for the night. Its about having that perfect evening with your partner. It is about going to a pizza place and ordering the greasiest most unhealthiest pizza possible. Its about spending a last night with friends, not knowing whether or not you will see them again. Its about sitting alone at a bar, enjoying the company of a Glenfiddich 40 Year Old Scotch. It is sometimes about escaping from the real world for a while: and it is our job to provide that illusion.
The good waiter knows that the person on table 12 is in a bubbly mood and wants to engage in flirty banter, but also knows the lady on table 6 has had a rough day and just wants to be served their meal and beverages and be left alone.
The good waiter knows that when Mr Smith in the corner table was abrupt when he gave his order seconds ago, he had probably just lost a major business deal, had just had an arguement with his girlfriend, or somebody had run over his cat. The good waiter will conduct himself with the utmost professionalism, serve the food with a smile, and walk away to take the next persons order.
But there is a line that can be crossed, and just like this message board that line is crossed when the guest acts like a jerk. Intoxication, swearing, abusive language, sexist behaviour, are all deal breakers. The smart waiter will talk to the jerk’s colleagues, and ask them to calm their friend down. But that doesn’t alway work. So the professional way to deal with the situation is to be direct and up-front.
In all my time in the hospitality industry I have never seen anyone spit in guests food, pick food up off the floor and served it, or any of the other horror stories talke about in these two threads.
I have no doubt that it happens on rare occasions, and it upsets me because what we essentially have is a few dickheads tarnishing the reputation of millions of servers, cooks, chefs, waiters managers and kitchen hands for the sake of their own over-inflated egos. I’ve worked bloody hard to get where I am in the industry at the moment: I’ve worked 60-70 hour weeks (I once worked a 25 hour day with no breaks!), worked nearly every single weekend up until 2002, and spent the better part of my working life going to bed at 5 in the morning. The life of this Banquet Bear has been absolutely brutal…but would I trade it in?
Not on your life. What you are missing out on Shamozzle is the natural buzz you get out of doing a professional job. For every jerk that walks in the door of your restaurant there will be a hundred absolutely fantastic individual people. If you are surrounded by jerks at work, be the one to stand out. If your boss doesn’t back you up if you have to tell a jerk to treat you with respect, then its time to look for a new boss.
My advice? Embrace your job, work to your own high standards, do the absolute best that you can, treat every aspect of your job (including the jerks) with the utmost professionalism, and when it comes time to go home, leave work at work and go and enjoy your life. Commit yourself to doing that, and I guarentee the motivation to seek “revenge” against customers will grow weaker every day.