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BRAVE NEW ORDER
A man I worked for, a maitre'd/restaurant owner of the Old School,
once told me that he always ignored resumes and applications when
hiring servers. He'd nod, make polite noises as the applicant
presented himself, and then he'd ask the person to bring a folder or a
sheet of meaningless paper over to the bar. He would watch how the
person walked, moved, and generally performed this relatively simple
task. And he would base his decision to hire primarily on that.
On first sight, this is a pretty flimsy, if not downright pompous,
sort of interview procedure. But there's wisdom to it, and it's at
least as sound as the stats listed on any application which can tell
you nothing of how this person carries himself; which, in turn, is
pivotal in getting a sense of what this character is all about.
That man has since retired, although "retreated" might be the better
word. It seems he was hiring fewer and fewer people towards the end.
The walks he witnessed had become struts, and badly dressed kids, who
swore they needed a job, regarded the request he would make to carry
over the paper as burdensome.
I don't know what happened to the waiters of my youth. I only know
they are, for the most part, gone. I was their busboy. I respected,
liked, feared, and damn near killed myself for them. They combined
humor, energy and common sense with that most priceless of commodities
a waiter can possess - a sense of urgency. They were not stupid, mind
you, and knew no life was hanging in the balance during the average
lunch shift. But they knew as well that, to a good waiter, getting
those dishes down on time was as crucial as spinal surgery.
There were exceptions, naturally. The trade of waiting can be compared
to show business (it can, you know), and there's rarely been a dearth
of lousy actors. But the difference between then and now, between the
restaurant servers of twenty years ago and the tragically void blondes
in khakis you try to wave down today, is not cosmetic. No, no. Nor is
it a difference created by my aging eyes and distorted memory. It is
that the bad ones, in those days, didn't last. Today, they last. They
reign, in fact, and the general standard of service is not merely
lower: it is a new beast altogether. And it ain't pretty.
OK. Take that as a given, if only as a courtesy to me. I have worked
in this business for quite a long time, and seen...well, much. Now
comes the more difficult part, the part I should evade. The part Oprah
and her panels of waiters and unhappy customers never seem to resolve.
Namely: who's to blame?
My dear restaurant owner - you are! You have made the same mistake
parents make when they try a little too hard to understand their
offspring. And the same error other businesses make when they ride the
societal tide of humanizing corporate life, and end up accomplishing
nothing but the creation of a rather lazy work force bursting with
self-esteem and an astronomical assessment of its own merits. It's the
sad horror of believing you will get more by giving more.
In a word, you have mistaken your business for all the other
businesses out there. You now allow room for individual concerns and
needs waiters in the past dealt with by themselves, because you have
been encouraged to view your staff as other businesses see their own
people. You try to not bully anymore. You do not fire the no-show. You
nurture. And God help you, one may as well equip coal miners with
steno pads.
I deplore many of the kids I work with. They astound me. They accept
as their due, large tips, and are genuinely outraged when they must
work, and work hard, to get them. Yet the bottom line is that no
standard of quality service could have fallen unless you, the owner,
allowed it. And you allowed it the first time you turned to shake
your head when you saw that new waiter adjust himself in that
currently prevalent, awfully personal way in front of his table. Sure,
good people are hard to find. They always were. But you have settled
for bodies, often when all you needed to do was remove your coat and
bus the table yourself.
More appallingly, you are telling your staff that they are
salespeople, a trend as numbing and omnipresent as David Lynch
lighting schemes on mustard-colored restaurant walls. I could sully
hundreds of pages with Why That Is Wrong (the sales thing). But I'll
summarize, and give you Bottom-Line Two: any waiter who approaches his
table consciously anticipating a tip amount is no waiter. And this is
precisely what you encourage when you tell these kids that they're
salespeople. Yes, we're in it for the money. Of course we are. Any
decent server in any decent house knows he's going to make good
money. The waiter with the dollar signs in the eyes is a different
animal. You can see it in the toothy smile when he describes the
expensive appetizer. A true waiter is the Inn, offering comfort and a
fine meal. The salesperson waiter is Vegas.
Owners, managers: hearken unto me. You've screamed at me on occasion,
but I've screamed back, because my skill gave me that right. Trust
what I say. Avoid the role of tyrant, by all means. Yet shun, too, the
patronizing, good-guy image slowly destroying good management in 9-5
businesses. Remind yourself that you are not in banking, or
haberdashery, or car sales. They can afford to settle for poor help,
because the consequential damage is always on the next quarterly
report. And do not lose sight of the fact that the price you pay for
employing workers largely compensated by your clientele is the
struggle you must ever undergo in finding genuine servers.
Let's hear your thoughts on the current state of service in our
restaurants...write to newsletter@restaurantreport.com
Page One (John Berringer, Anonymous, Michael, Jack Mauro responds to Michael, Anonymous)
Brave New Order Revisted - By Josephine Mackenzie
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The State of Service in our Restaurants