When did this start? I go into a little local place last night and the waitress comes up to the table and squats down so that her chin is about even with the top of my table?
No, lady, I’m not the king. You’re allowed to make eye contact with me and your head doesn’t need to be lower than mine. I’m quite comfortable by now with the server/diner relationship.
Come to my table, take my order, bring my food. There’s no power issue. You don’t need to be my pal. That’s the way it is.
My wife indicated that this was something they do in those places that require the staff to wear “flair”. Beats me.
So, what’s up with THAT? Do you like a squatting waitress?
The squatters tend to be overly chatty and buddy-buddy. This annoys me much more than the squatting itself. I don’t need the stress of pretending like we are friends when we aren’t–I came to the restaurant with people who I really do want to talk to. But I can see how they might make more tips. They have been ultra friendly to you, and you have been more-than-usually friendly to them in response, and now you feel obligated to leave them a bigger tip. Don’t fall for it, people! Resist the squatters!
I found this a few minutes after you did. The passage about squatting says,
There are too many uncontrolled variables for this to impress me. I don’t believe the servers can “treat all their tables identically” without special training–there is a psychological bias. That’s why clinical trials are double-blind. The article does not say how many tables were waited on by each server, how many were squats/non-squats, other statistical info about the tips (note that we’re looking at averages, which could skewed by a single stiff or a single big tipper), total check amount, profile of customers (men, women, families with children, couples, large parties, etc.), amount of alcoholic beverages ordered, or whether a difference from 15 to 18 percent is statistically significant.
I would want this experiment to be conducted by 100 servers at 100 different restaurants every day over the course of a month with a paper showing data.
I do it as a server sometimes for exactly one reason - it gets pretty loud in my restaurant with the combo of overhead music and a big room full of people talking, and it’s easier for me to hear what you’re ordering that way. Most people are fairly soft-spoken, and I want to make sure I’m getting your order right.
Depending on the setting of a particular restaurant, YMMV.
Many servers at Outback used to sit down at the table to take orders (if there was room). This can be uncomfortable with opposite sexes and dates and the like. However, this is how mrs.gnu and I met Villa, a very nice and very hot (don’t tell mrs.gnu) waitress that we’d always request* until she moved away.
*: This made for faster seating, as well: policy was that if you requested a specific server, you’d get his or her next open table, regardless of the open list.
Maybe they’re just comfy like that? Having to walk around all day, constantly moving, I’d probably take advantage of the rare moment when I could stand still for a minute or two and see if I could get a nice stretch in by squatting at the table.
I went to a management seminar once where one of the “tips” we were given about managing a crisis was to get down to the other person’s level when requesting something or giving an instruction. We were told to either pull up a chair or squat down, however we could get to that person’s level. The reasoning was that it drew the other person into the efforts to resolve the crisis by making them feel part of the “team.” It also supposedly calmed the situation by allowing the manager to talk more softly.
A publisher I worked for gave me a similar tip years before about working with female colleagues. “If you have to look over her shoulder, don’t stand next her chair,” he said. “It makes her feel like you’re about to stick your dick in her ear.” To this day, I sit down when talking to female co-workers – it’s just become habit.
On the subject of earning higher tips, one of my sons worked as a server for Olive Garden for a few years and said OG provided bits of chocolate candy to be deposited with each check. Olive Garden execs claimed they’d done a survey that showed the candy pulled bigger tips. My son swore by it; he said when the candy would run out in the middle of a shift, tips went down by about one-third.
Heh, that would so not work on me. By the time the check arrives I have already decided the tip level. I may not have settled on the exact amount, but if they’re getting a decent tip, that’s settled long before they bring a chocolate mint thinger with the bill.
Ever spend a whole day on your feet? Squatting eases the lower back (and the knees somewhat, if done right). They probably do it to grab a little relief.
We had a waitress the other day that was rather short and quite busty. Two physical traits that I am not at all against. The odd thing was that she stood so close to my seat, that when I turned my head slightly to be addressing her in order to give her my meal order, if I had nodded my head I would’ve been nibbling nipple. Not that I really minded, see, but everyone else at the table also noticed it and commented on it. No, I don’t think she was ‘hitting on’ me, nor do I really think she was doing it for tips or even consciously at all. I just figured she had different personal space issues. Or maybe the floor is wired in such a way so as to tingle her feet if she stood in any other place but that one spot. And with her body oriented so that her wonderful breasts were mere centimeters from my face.
Maybe, but it doesn’t seem like that. It seems like “hey pal” or like a coach talking to little league team or something. It was coupled with a chatty, “hey folks, what can I getcha this evenin’?”
Besides, it wasn’t that busy. She had plenty of time to squat in the back.
This is the second thread today to use that term, and I have no idea what that means…to wear “flair”. Enlightenment, please. I can understand wearing something with flair, but not to wear flair.
