Your opinion on this piece about food service professionals

In My Humble Opinion
41

[QUOTE=VCO3]
I knew that this post was doomed, because I’ve never seen such naked, unmasked hostility toward those in service professions as I have here on the SDMB. There’s a true hatred and resentment of people in service positions on this board, which is funny considering how liberal it skews. It’s like a weird reversal of the prosperity Gospel concept - “those filthy people must DESERVE to be waiters, so we’re going to treat them like human garbage.”

Posters who can’t handle hearing these complaints are the same types of people who believed in happiness in slavery and didn’t understand when they slaves didn’t “know their place.”
[/QUOTE]

The theorizing of a “type” who “hates” waiters and therefore must be in favor of slavery is perhaps the single stupidest thing I’ve read on this Board, and there has been some strikingly dumb stuff posted here over the years. Congratulations on further lowering the bar.

42

[QUOTE=Jodi]
The theorizing of a “type” who “hates” waiters and therefore must be in favor of slavery is perhaps the single stupidest thing I’ve read on this Board, and there has been some strikingly dumb stuff posted here over the years. Congratulations on further lowering the bar.
[/QUOTE]

I can’t help but notice that Jodi, who already spoke against waiters above, didn’t once actually deny being pro-slavery in that post.

ADMIT IT: YOU FANTASIZE ABOUT MAKING A WAITER ANSWER TO TOBY DON’T YOU! ANSWER ME!

43

I don’t specifically object to every point of the OP, but I dislike the general assumption that the convenience of the customer should give way to the convenience of the wait staff.

Best expression of this I ever heard was from an older customer to a snotty waitress -

Regards,
Shodan

44

[QUOTE=Shodan]
I don’t specifically object to every point of the OP, but I dislike the general assumption that the convenience of the customer should give way to the convenience of the wait staff.

Best expression of this I ever heard was from an older customer to a snotty waitress -

Regards,
Shodan
[/QUOTE]

Sort of but you are missing a basic point as are others. I will keep this brief. Restaurants are there to make a profit and any good management knows that “The customer is always right” is a poor business practice and bad customers can cost the restaurant money. No business needs that or wants that and I may be mistaken but I read years ago that Southwest Airlines which is one of the only consistently profitable airlines does not follow “The customer is always right” mantra in cases where the staff deems it is inappropriate.

There are bad customers in every business and they need to be told to follow the business processes in place or leave and hopefully never come back. It is somewhat rare but it has happened in every service job when I was younger.

Again, a business like a restaurant is in the business to make money overall. Sometimes this may mean appeasing a customer when they have a point or it may mean that they really don’t want them back again ever. Bad patrons can irritate other customers and do the restaurant itself no favors.

45

Man, I have thought so many times that I should write a book on restaurant etiquette, because so many people seem to be completely ignorant of it… but reading this thread, I don’t even know if it’d sell. People don’t seem to want to know how they can be more agreeable customers at all. Seriously, some of y’all are acting as though you’ve been slapped with a fish because someone dared suggest that there might be a right and wrong (read: courteous and discourteous) way to act in a restaurant setting.

Here’s the way I think of it. I’ve been a waiter, and I’ve been a customer. The bottom line is, as a customer, you are that waiter’s employer. Yes, officially they work for their restaurant, but damn near 100% of the money they actually take home comes from you. Thus, someone suggesting some guidelines for you to follow as a customer is basically someone telling you how to be a nicer and more understanding boss. Everyone’s had shitty bosses, and no one likes it, so the assumption here is that sometimes, people are shitty bosses because they really only know one way to be the boss, so maybe if we tell them how to be the boss and get what they want out of their employees without being shitty and completely selfish about it, life would be a little easier for all of us.

Sampiro, I do think your friend has a few good points. I also think the presentation could use a lot of cleaning up. It comes off more as a rant than anything, and people aren’t going to be influenced to change their ways by vitriol and insult.

Is there any other rational explanation for why so many people do it? I’m inclined to think that most people wouldn’t be intentionally difficult or rude. Is it so surprising that the average person really doesn’t know what goes on behind the scenes in a restaurant, and how certain customer actions or attitudes could affect that negatively?

That’s a little melodramatic. Are you that taken aback at the concept of right and wrong things to do as a customer? Or is it just the author’s tone? (Which I agree is overly contemptuous and spiteful.)

I don’t mean to be rude, but honestly, your position is arrogant.

Basically you have assumed that even though this is a situation this restaurant has undoubtedly encountered thousands of times, there is a better solution to this problem that inconveniences you which the employees of this restaurant are just incompetent to figure out. You as a customer need to learn trust as a basic principle of service. Don’t assume that just because something gets on your nerves, there is a way to fix it that is better than the method already in place. Trust that the management and the employees know the situation and are doing what they have found is the most efficient way of dealing with it. True, this may not always be the case-- there will always be exceptions-- but 99% of the time, whatever is annoying you has come up before and they have a system for dealing with it that effects the least amount of unhappiness for the greatest number of people. Restaurant employees do not like it when their customers are unhappy, because customers are their source of income, so they have a vested interest in figuring these things out. You have no idea what the circumstances are for those empty tables, or for your queso not being out in four minutes, or any number of situations which you might think could be handled better. Please don’t presume to know what’s best when you are seeing only one very limited angle of a situation-- whatever makes YOU happy right at that particular moment could very well make 5 other groups unhappy.

To muldoonthief and his/her “my-needs-always-trumps-the-waiter’s” camp:

Yes, of course dining out is about the customer and not the waiter-- but you conveniently ignore the fact that simultaneously, it’s about customers other than you. The point here is not that you shouldn’t dare ask for what you want when you want it for fear of inconveniencing your waiter, but that it is possible to get what you want out of a dining experience without making it unnecessarily hard for the waiter to provide that to other tables. It’s just polite to think about what you can do to make the experience go smoothly for your waiter, since he’s doing the best he can to make it go smoothly for you. Think like an employer, not a monarch. Above all, your employee should do his job, but there’s no reason for you to completely disregard whether or not you’re making it hard on him to do it.

46

Current server here - first of all, hallelujah to your friend.

[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
But what if you finished your dinner fifteen minutes ago and you haven’t been able to catch your waitress’s eye since then, and you’re ready to leave? That’s happened to me more than once, and I don’t know whether it’s because my eyes are terrifying to behold or because I really need to take a bath or because the waitress is overwhelmingly busy with ten thousand other tables or what. No matter what, it’s pretty irritating; there have been a couple occasions where I’ve wanted to get up and hunt the waitress down so we could get our bill and settle. What do servers prefer we customers do under such circumstances?
[/QUOTE]

This is a good question - it can be hard to gauge sometimes when a table is ready to leave, as some people get really into their conversations and will stay for long periods of time after they have finished (which can be a problem in and of itself when they sit there the whole damn night taking up the table and thus destroying the server’s potential to make more money), and others throw a conniption fit and leave a bad tip if it takes the server so much as 5 minutes to get them their bill once they are ready to leave (of course, they may have been sitting there an hour after finishing their meals chatting, but once they are ready, you better damn well know right away!).

Try to catch the server’s eye of course, but if you can’t, stack some of your plates up and put them toward the edge of the table. That will generally attract the attention of either the server or the busser, and if it’s the busser who comes just ask him to get your server for you (better yet if you mention you are ready for the bill so the server can come prepared). 9 times out of 10, this should work. If it doesn’t, you can flag down another server (which I wouldn’t recommend as a matter of course, but as a last resort it is acceptable) and ask them for yours.

47

Damn, Rigamarole, that’s TWO things I meant to say in my post! :stuck_out_tongue:

Your advice about what to do to get your server’s attention is good. Stacking plates is a subtle way of doing it. If that doesn’t work, just see if you can catch the eye of anyone who looks like they work there and say “Excuse me, I know you’re busy, but can you ask if my server could come by?” (It really helps to know your server’s name at this point, btw.)

And as for the whole sitting-there-until-dawn thing… I honestly don’t think people realize this is rude. If I were the one writing the rant, this would be at the top of my list. When I waited tables, I had nights where I made half what other servers made because one table sat there all damn night after they finished their meal. In the restaurant industry this is known as “camping”, and if anyone at all reads this, please don’t EVER do it. You’re likely to feel indignant at the suggestion that there’s an acceptable time frame in which you’re expected to eat and GTFO, but seriously, there is. You have no idea how much this can diminish the revenue of your server. Yes, you’re the customer, blah blah blah, but if it’s not just the slowest of nights, you’re being extremely rude by squatting on someone’s means of income. Please don’t.

(OK, I’m seriously done. Unless we want to get into tipping on the total before discount… no, I’m done. :D)

48

[QUOTE=nevermore]
And as for the whole sitting-there-until-dawn thing… I honestly don’t think people realize this is rude. If I were the one writing the rant, this would be at the top of my list. When I waited tables, I had nights where I made half what other servers made because one table sat there all damn night after they finished their meal. In the restaurant industry this is known as “camping”, and if anyone at all reads this, please don’t EVER do it. You’re likely to feel indignant at the suggestion that there’s an acceptable time frame in which you’re expected to eat and GTFO, but seriously, there is. You have no idea how much this can diminish the revenue of your server. Yes, you’re the customer, blah blah blah, but if it’s not just the slowest of nights, you’re being extremely rude by squatting on someone’s means of income. Please don’t.
[/QUOTE]

Of course, nobody ever does this on the slowest of nights. They only do it on Friday and Saturday nights when there are swarms of people waiting for a table. I think it is some kind of natural law. :smiley:

(and even if it is a slow night, servers are generally assigned sections and don’t get to take tables outside of their section just because they have one party that’s been sitting there 3 hours)

49

[QUOTE=VCO3]
I knew that this post was doomed, because I’ve never seen such naked, unmasked hostility toward those in service professions as I have here on the SDMB. There’s a true hatred and resentment of people in service positions on this board…
[/QUOTE]

Says the guy who started a thread about how if a customer pissed him off he’d fuck with their coffee, and then tried to claim it was a joke.

50

I worked as a waiter in an upscale restaurant for nine years. The restaurant I worked in seated 250ish and was often very, very busy. I’ve served everyone from movie stars to homeless people who’d soiled themselves and I’ve seen it all.

Now, there are excellent waiters and there are horrible waiters. There are excellent customers and there are horrible customers.

If you are a nice customer, I will find your credit card on the table five minutes after you have walked away. I will keep it in my possession until I get a moment to look your number up in the phone book. Then I’ll give you a call so you can come back and pick it up. You’ll say, “Oh thank you, thank you, I was so worried!” and I’ll say, “no problem” and give you a smile and a wink.

If you are a nice customer and I know you will be coming in later, I will hide a serving of a “limited dish” somewhere in the walk-in refrigerator so that when the restaurant runs out later there’s still one for you. Or, better yet, I’ll call you at your house to let you know we are getting a rare shipment of “XYZ” to be served on Thursday. That way, you can plan ahead.

If you are a very bad customer, I will find your diamond engagement ring on the table five minutes after you have walked away (silly, silly). I will pick it up and walk out back and toss it in the dumpster (true). Then, when you return in tears, you will eventually find yourself digging through the garbage can beside the dishwasher in your high heels. Wrong garbage can, too bad.

If you are a very bad customer, a customer who, for whatever reason, carries a giant keyring that literally contains 80 to 100 keys, a customer who insists on sexually humiliating my female coworkers (my friends) verbally, well, don’t be surprised if those keys go missing too (also true). Have fun cutting keys, fucker.

But this is the one that gets me. To this day it amazes me. My mind is boggled: Why on earth -why on earth- would a customer berate and belittle, insult or attempt to humiliate, or otherwise fuck with me when they know -they know- that I know that I’m about to bring them something that they are going to put inside their body. Something with which I can have easy, accepted, intimate contact with. Some alone time, if you will. I wonder why they would do that. Why would they do that? Curious.

Let me tell you a story. I went out for dinner with some friends. One of my friends was an asshole to the waiter. His girlfriend corrected him. The waiter said, “no, it’s alright” and smiled. Guess what I had for dinner. Nothing. Because I’m smart. I know the score.

So the next time you dine out, be nice to your waiter. You don’t have to kowtow to him, just be nice. “Civil”, I think it’s called. You might make a mistake in thinking: ‘I can treat this one like shit because he is smiling and polite. He has no spine and is therefore inferior.’ Wrong. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. We’re paid to do that. You can never know “who’s who”. The way you counter this? Be nice. If you don’t know what that is, you deserve every square foot of the minefield you lay for yourself.

51

Whoa. That was kind of foreboding, Shamazzole. :smiley:

52

[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
Whoa. That was kind of foreboding, Shamazzole. :smiley:
[/QUOTE]
Just trying to help, you know?

53

[QUOTE=Shamozzle]
I worked as a waiter in an upscale restaurant for nine years. The restaurant I worked in seated 250ish and was often very, very busy. I’ve served everyone from movie stars to homeless people who’d soiled themselves and I’ve seen it all.

Now, there are excellent waiters and there are horrible waiters. There are excellent customers and there are horrible customers.

If you are a nice customer, I will find your credit card on the table five minutes after you have walked away. I will keep it in my possession until I get a moment to look your number up in the phone book. Then I’ll give you a call so you can come back and pick it up. You’ll say, “Oh thank you, thank you, I was so worried!” and I’ll say, “no problem” and give you a smile and a wink.

If you are a nice customer and I know you will be coming in later, I will hide a serving of a “limited dish” somewhere in the walk-in refrigerator so that when the restaurant runs out later there’s still one for you. Or, better yet, I’ll call you at your house to let you know we are getting a rare shipment of “XYZ” to be served on Thursday. That way, you can plan ahead.

If you are a very bad customer, I will find your diamond engagement ring on the table five minutes after you have walked away (silly, silly). I will pick it up and walk out back and toss it in the dumpster (true). Then, when you return in tears, you will eventually find yourself digging through the garbage can beside the dishwasher in your high heels. Wrong garbage can, too bad.

If you are a very bad customer, a customer who, for whatever reason, carries a giant keyring that literally contains 80 to 100 keys, a customer who insists on sexually humiliating my female coworkers (my friends) verbally, well, don’t be surprised if those keys go missing too (also true). Have fun cutting keys, fucker.

But this is the one that gets me. To this day it amazes me. My mind is boggled: Why on earth -why on earth- would a customer berate and belittle, insult or attempt to humiliate, or otherwise fuck with me when they know -they know- that I know that I’m about to bring them something that they are going to put inside their body. Something with which I can have easy, accepted, intimate contact with. Some alone time, if you will. I wonder why they would do that. Why would they do that? Curious.

Let me tell you a story. I went out for dinner with some friends. One of my friends was an asshole to the waiter. His girlfriend corrected him. The waiter said, “no, it’s alright” and smiled. Guess what I had for dinner. Nothing. Because I’m smart. I know the score.

So the next time you dine out, be nice to your waiter. You don’t have to kowtow to him, just be nice. “Civil”, I think it’s called. You might make a mistake in thinking: ‘I can treat this one like shit because he is smiling and polite. He has no spine and is therefore inferior.’ Wrong. I’m going to let you in on a little secret. We’re paid to do that. You can never know “who’s who”. The way you counter this? Be nice. If you don’t know what that is, you deserve every square foot of the minefield you lay for yourself.
[/QUOTE]

Sorry, your thinking here is way out of line. Someone being rude, even obnoxious, does not justfy your criminal acts. Deliberately depriving someone of their property and purposefully contaminating someones food, are criminal acts and I mght add also cowardly. This is the same kind of logic that results in things such as road rage.
I’d strongly suggest you also avoid working in the service industry and perhaps get some psychological counseling, or at least an attitude check.

54

[QUOTE=Shagnasty]
Sort of but you are missing a basic point as are others. I will keep this brief. Restaurants are there to make a profit and any good management knows that “The customer is always right” is a poor business practice and bad customers can cost the restaurant money. …

A business like a restaurant is in the business to make money overall. Sometimes this may mean appeasing a customer when they have a point or it may mean that they really don’t want them back again ever. Bad patrons can irritate other customers and do the restaurant itself no favors.
[/QUOTE]

My bold. An individual customer could be a loss leader, could they not? People do talk, restaurants do have reputations, people do decide whether or not to go to a place (or rather, which place to go to) on the basis of what they’ve heard from friends and colleagues.

Put it this way. Serve a hundred customers a night. What’s the difference between pissing off five of them (a la the OP), or just one (because you’ll never be perfect)? Four repeat bookings lost? Nah. If each customer tells five others about what they thought of the place, you’ve made the difference of twenty good or bad reports, in just one night. Over a week, a month, you do the maths.

55

[QUOTE=Jodi]
The theorizing of a “type” who “hates” waiters and therefore must be in favor of slavery is perhaps the single stupidest thing I’ve read on this Board, and there has been some strikingly dumb stuff posted here over the years. Congratulations on further lowering the bar.
[/QUOTE]

He’s real good at that.

56

[QUOTE=A.R. Cane]
Sorry, your thinking here is way out of line. Someone being rude, even obnoxious, does not justfy your criminal acts. Deliberately depriving someone of their property and purposefully contaminating someones food, are criminal acts and I mght add also cowardly. This is the same kind of logic that results in things such as road rage.

[/QUOTE]

Bolding mine.

Yup, that about sums it up.

57

**nevermore ** - No, I am not going to think like an employer when I am the customer. When I go to buy a used car, should I be thinking like the dealership? When I settle an insurance claim, should I be thinking like the agency? When I am at a restaurant I am purchasing a meal from your employer, it’s your employer’s job to think like an employer–adequate facilities, equipment and staff. As staff, you need to think like an employer, too, although sometimes you need to think like yourself and get out of a bad situation. A customer will only ever think like a customer.

And regarding time at a table, sorry, unless a policy is posted I’ll stay as long as I need. And if a policy is posted, obviously there will be some times that restaurant will not get my business. The restaurant’s limited size or inflexibility in assigning you different numbers of tables is not the customer’s problem. If I continue to get good service throughout my use of the table, though, I will factor that into the tip.

58

[QUOTE=Shamozzle]
If you are a very bad customer, I will find your diamond engagement ring on the table five minutes after you have walked away (silly, silly). I will pick it up and walk out back and toss it in the dumpster (true). Then, when you return in tears, you will eventually find yourself digging through the garbage can beside the dishwasher in your high heels. Wrong garbage can, too bad.

If you are a very bad customer, a customer who, for whatever reason, carries a giant keyring that literally contains 80 to 100 keys, a customer who insists on sexually humiliating my female coworkers (my friends) verbally, well, don’t be surprised if those keys go missing too (also true). Have fun cutting keys, fucker.

But this is the one that gets me. To this day it amazes me. My mind is boggled: Why on earth -why on earth- would a customer berate and belittle, insult or attempt to humiliate, or otherwise fuck with me when they know -they know- that I know that I’m about to bring them something that they are going to put inside their body. Something with which I can have easy, accepted, intimate contact with. Some alone time, if you will. I wonder why they would do that. Why would they do that? Curious.
[/quote]

The only reason this post does NOT make me believe waiters are a bunch of untrustworthy evil little shits is that I waited tables long enough to know that most waiters don’t act this way.

Most people would never steal someone else’s property, throw away someone else’s property, or contaminate someone else’s food because they lacked the courage to deal directly with whatever issue was bothering them. I waited tables for more than six years all told, and I never saw anyone pull this kind of shit.

The person who would do this type of thing is the sort of person who would key someone else’s car, steal their dry-cleaning, or engage in any number of petty little anonymous slights to inconvenience or damage them. It doesn’t even qualify as passive-aggression. It’s cowardice: small-minded, meanspirited, vindictive cowardice. I choose to believe that the vast majority of people don’t sell their personal integrity quite so cheaply.

59

[QUOTE=nevermore]
To muldoonthief and his/her “my-needs-always-trumps-the-waiter’s” camp:

Yes, of course dining out is about the customer and not the waiter-- but you conveniently ignore the fact that simultaneously, it’s about customers other than you. The point here is not that you shouldn’t dare ask for what you want when you want it for fear of inconveniencing your waiter, but that it is possible to get what you want out of a dining experience without making it unnecessarily hard for the waiter to provide that to other tables. It’s just polite to think about what you can do to make the experience go smoothly for your waiter, since he’s doing the best he can to make it go smoothly for you. Think like an employer, not a monarch. Above all, your employee should do his job, but there’s no reason for you to completely disregard whether or not you’re making it hard on him to do it.
[/QUOTE]

I was responding to 3 things that the ranter was opposed to - asking for substitutions, changing seats, and asking for things serially, instead of getting all requests in at one time. I fully admit all of these can make life harder on a server. However, all of these are also things which IMHO are perfectly acceptable and expected when at a restaurant. Yes, when taken to extremes, they are assholish behavior. But when the OP says something like “Substitutions and alterations are a pain in the ass.”, I’m getting the impression he’s opposed to all substitutions, ever, regardless of degree of difficulty. I’ve been on the other side as well, 2 years busing tables and 2 years waiting at a mid-class restaurant, and I think his rant is way out of line. Especially since taking requests like that in stride are what can turn a 15% tip into an 18% or 20% tip. Trust me, after a server has dealt satisfactorily with a table containing my 3 youngsters, they don’t walk away poorer for it.

“his” BTW, though “his Imperial Majesty’s” would have been acceptable as well :wink:

60

I actually think the OP is kind of funny. Not all waitstaff have these expectations. Frankly, kitchen staff grousing about substitutions is part of the job, and a waitron worth his/her salt is going to be able to handle that.

My two sisters have both been waitresses while in college for years, and when we go out, we do ask for substitutions. The key is knowing how. You ask rather than demand - for example, “can the pasta be made without mushrooms?” You have a second choice ready in case the answer is no. Some items are almost always not able to be altered. For example, as a long-time vegetarian, I learned never to ask about making lasagne meatless; it’s always put together ahead of time. Also, expect for stuff to cost more if the food cost is higher. I’d never dream of asking for a “substitution” of cheesecake for fries, but it’s fair game to ask if fries can be subbed for steamed veggies or a salad. Again, the key is to ask if it’s okay, and take the answer gracefully. If people are trying to scam… well, the OP isn’t going to stop those jerks.

We also tip appropriately (usually generously if the meals are done according to what we asked for). And, we get steamed if we’re asked to wait around in the lobby for 20 mins with open tables. I’d rather a host be honest and say, “We’re very busy; I can seat you, but there may be a wait” rather than holding us in an uncomfortable position just for their convenience and workflow. In fact, I find that many restaurants will go ahead and seat you, explain politely, and the host will get drinks for the waiter. I return to these establishments.

Yes, it sucks that some people just don’t tip. There is a definite cultural basis for this - ethnic groups DO tip differently - and it’s frustrating for waitstaff to serve a group of 20 for an hour only to get stiffed. This comes down to lack of education and/or manners, and so I think something like the OP would be fair, if it wasn’t so whiny. Asking people to never alter anything on the menu or never change seats is just silly.