“It seems like something here has resonated with a few people. And that’s kinda neat.” —Steven Slater
From FreeStevenSlater.com
There are monsters among us.
Every day we witness bitter, demanding, resentful trolls—so mired in their own misery—release their dyspeptic nature on innocent bystanders. They shop at our grocery stores and work out at the local gym. They are passengers on flights and sit at neighboring tables at restaurants. They drive the cars you avoid on the highway.
Woe to any who come near these intrinsically bitter people. To witness their pain is to feel it. They dish out their misery with abandon.
These male and female malcontents attack with a simple dispatch of a dehumanizing remark, an acerbic demand, or snippy comment. Their unhappiness is so vast, simple interactions become an emotional sinkhole that can pull unsuspecting victims—the passer by, cab driver, nanny, waiter, coffee shop barista, or flight attendant—into their wicked depths.
As someone who has worked in restaurants for decades, I can tell you from experience that the service industry gets more than its fair share of monster customers. Angry devils dressed as customers step through the door of restaurants, hotels, department stores and retail outlets every day. They bring their anger and their blood-thirst with them as they demand all sorts of things no normal person would ask for*.
Often, these malevolent beasts go without rival. Anyone in the service profession is required to be accommodating, no matter how difficult and unreasonable the customer. We silently take the venomous attack and hope for the ugliness to pass. What else can we do?
Yesterday, a Jet Blue employee offered another kind of solution to the “customer is always right” paradigm. In a controversial–and widely celebrated move–flight attendant Steven Slater snapped after being sworn at by an aggressive customer obsessed with overhead baggage space. He took his I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore thoughts to the loud speaker, told off the offending customer, inflated the airplane’s emergency escape slide, popped open a beer, and slid off the plane. He drove away, only to be arrested later.
Though tipping the waiter may feel like something that’s always been part of the dining experience in America, the fact is, the act of tipping is a borrowed custom from Europe.
According to Michael Lynn, a professor at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, tipping in the United States began just after the American Civil War in the late 1800’s. Lynn suggests that wealthy Americans traveling abroad to Europe witnessed tipping and brought the aristocratic custom back with them to “show off,” or prove their elevated education and class.
Tipping—which may have originated in the taverns of 17th Century England, where drinkers would slip money to the waiter “to insure promptitude” or T.I.P for short—wasn’t embraced by all Americans when the custom began to make its way into our country’s taverns and dining halls. A movement against tipping began in the late 1890’s as many Americans believed that tipping went against the country’s ideals and allowed a clear servile class that would be financially dependent on a higher class.
A servile attitude for a fee
According to an article that appeared in The New York Times in 1897, there was a movement brewing against tipping in America. The anti-tipping group believed that tipping was the “vilest of imported vices” because it created an aristocratic class in a country that fought hard to eliminate a class-driven society. In 1915 six state legislators from Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and South Carolina attempted and failed to pass an anti-tipping bill that would make leaving gratuities unlawful.
In 1916, William Scott wrote a stinging diatribe against tipping in his book, “The Itching Palm,” in which he stood up against the policy of paying for a service twice (once for the employer and once for the employee). He decried tips to be “democracy’s mortal foe” and creates “a servile attitude for a fee.”
In the American democracy to be servile is incompatible with citizenship. Every tip given in the United States is a blow at our experiment in democracy. The custom announces to the world…that we do not believe practically that “all men are created equal.” Unless a waiter can be a gentleman, democracy is a failure. If any form of service is menial, democracy is a failure. Those Americans who dislike self-respect in servants are undesirable citizens; they belong in an aristocracy.
Scott continues, “If tipping is un-American, some day, some how, it will be uprooted like African slavery”.
If a diner is unhappy with service at a restaurant they can voice their concern to the management or leave less tip for their waiter. As I mentioned recently about a recent poll on CNN’s food blog, Eatocracy.com, 49 percent of the people polled said they have left nothing for waiters, while another 34 percent said they have left a very low tip–as little as just a penny–to show their dissatisfaction with service. The amount of a tip, many respondents explained, gives financial reward to waiters for good work and punishes the bad ones.
But what happens when a restaurant eliminates the tipping structure out of their business model entirely? Does service improve or get worse?
Jay Porter, the owner of The Linkery in San Diego, says that his front of house staff and kitchen workers’ performance improved once his restaurant stopped accepting tips. The small neighborhood restaurant began its “no tipping” system in 2004 when they instituted a flat 18 percent “table service fee” on the final check for diners who eat at the restaurant.
“No other profession has the customer adjusting your pay scale according to performance,” says Porter. “That’s just not a circumstance when people do their best work.” Porter says this unique payment model brings his restaurant in line with other American industries. “It’s good for our staff to be seen as professionals, just like every other profession in America. No other profession other than the restaurant industry has people evaluating your work and basing payment on that.”
One thing is for sure, if you’ve ever paid a restaurant tab you have are more than likely to have a strong opinion about tipping. Maybe you always tip 20% of the total bill. Maybe you think a 15% tip is sign enough that you’ve gotten good service. Or maybe you consider tipping a kind of frosting on the cake. Poll a random group of diners on their thoughts about tipping and within seconds you’ll feel the temperature rise as ardent responses come hurling back at you. No matter what you think about tipping, just about everyone has an opinion about what constitutes a good or bad tip.
I’m always amazed at how downright heated discussions become when the topics of service, tipping, and restaurant policies are brought up. People who have never worked in the restaurant business, lifetime servers, part time waiters, and frequent diners all seem to have strong views on the subject. For someone like myself–a restaurant professional who has worked in the industry for decades–I definitely come at this subject from an insider’s point of view. Not only do I write about service, I also read quite a bit about the subject. What surprises me the most is the ardent online chatter (nay, SCREAMING) about restaurant service.
Recently, CNN’s new food blog, Eatocracy, polled their readers on their view on tipping. Practically overnight, 45,000 opinionated readers responded with votes and lengthy ALL-CAP rants discussing exactly why they thought it was right or downright wrong to leave no tip if bad service is rendered by the waiter.
49% of voters said they left servers no tip after receiving bad service
29% left a low tip for bad service
15% said they would never leave nothing, and would never leave anything less than 15%
Things are about to start tasting a whole lot different around here.
I’m pushing aside the canned tomatoes and Italian fettucini, and stocking my larder with bottles of fish sauce and dried rice noodles! Why? Because after more than three years working at Mario Batali and Nancy Silverton’s Pizzeria and Osteria Mozza, I’m starting a new gig at a pan-Asian restaurant.
What will I be doing? I won’t be bartending or waiting tables. I won’t be managing, either. My title? Service Guru.
(Cue: Sound of excited GIGGLING)
As Service Guru, I’ll be head coach of a big plan to get employees excited about giving great service every day. And not just take your order and get you out the door on time kind of service. We’re talking about creating a service program that gives employees the tools they need to put smiles on customers faces, turn them on to new and tasty foods, and makes customers want to come back to the restaurant again and again. My new gig is, without a doubt, my dream restaurant job.
Welcome to Service 101: a behind the scenes look at the food service industry. Today’s topic: restaurants as a business.
Lots of people pay for the luxury of eating out. But how is it those very same diners don’t think of restaurants as a business? Though the average diner understands the concept of paying the bill at the end of the meal, many see restaurants as a kind of public service for their neighborhood or city. For them, the restaurant is a public space put there to serve their culinary and social needs—rather than a place of business that is designed to assist them in getting sustenance in a pleasant atmosphere.
Take for example The Angry Late Guy. He books a table for four on a busy Friday night at 8 pm, but doesn’t show until thirty minutes after his reservation time. The restaurant holds the table for the gentleman and his guests for 15 minutes, but when he never arrives, the restaurant does what it must do: they give the table to someone else. Why? Not because the restaurant is spiteful, disorganized, or uncommitted to serve their guests. It is because they are a business, and empty tables cost restaurants money.
Over the years I’ve gotten a lot of so-when-are-you-going-to-get-a-real-job-attitude for the work that I do in restaurants from friends and acquaintances. I’ve taken that attitude with a grain of salt. But frankly, I’m tired of it.
I do have a real job. I am a professional server.
There’s definitely a misconception in the minds of people outside of the service industry that restaurant work is something that’s easy, good for a fast buck and a vocation for unprofessional types. Though restaurant work is not a 9-to-5 job and doesn’t require the fabrication of cubicles or the purchase of slide projectors, restaurant workers ARE professional.
I’m not sure what it will take to change people’s mind about this…but let me be clear:
There is nothing fast nor easy about restaurants. Restaurant work is mentally challenging and physically exhausting.
When will America’s dining public start treating servers with some respect?
Waiting tables requires many skills, talents and virtues.
A typical day
It’s Friday afternoon at 2 pm I’m at the ironing board pressing my dress shirt and apron. While I nibble on a late lunch, I scan the pages of three-ring binder filled with food and wine notes for knowledge retention. I listen to a recording I’ve made of myself reading tasting notes on domestic and international wines. I listen to myself describe a California chardonnay so that when a table asks me about that bottle, I already have a sound bite response.
It’s 4pm and my car is parked. I tie my tie before I cross the threshold of the restaurant. A double check of my uniform for any last minute adjustments, and then I give myself a moment for a deep, cleansing breath. It’s time for service.
By 4:30 I’m in a staff meeting where changes in the menu, service issues are discussed, and guest information is shared with the front of house staff. By 6, hundreds of napkins are folded, glasses are polished, and stations are stocked for the flurry of service that is about to hit.
7 p.m. the restaurant begins to fill up. By 8pm service has kicked into high gear. Tables are sat and resat. Orders are taken, menu items described in minute detail. Food is cleared and silverware placed. Dishes are run to the back kitchen for washing. Glasses are refilled and silverware is placed before courses hit the table. Menus are dropped and egos massaged. Checks are tallied, split, cashed out and rung up.
By 9pm–after 5 hours without food or drink—I’m dehydrated. A quick sip of water and I’m back on the floor with smile. Business roars. There’s a problem that needs attention, a table needs clearing, a manager is needed to help fix an error. I push through service like a boxer at a speed bag. My mind races with details. Did I deliver that wine? Check. Did I place that steak knife? Has that entree hit the table? Did I find out what city in France that cheese was from? Check, check, check.
No night is flawless. Something goes wrong. The only thing I can prepare for is my attitude, stamina and mental preparedness. Seven hours have passed since I stepped inside the restaurant. By 11 pm service begins to slow. Full dinner guests lounge in their seats and enjoy another glass of wine. Maybe they’ll have some dessert. Or another after-dinner drink. A back-waiter prepares a double espresso, giving me just enough time to drink a full glass of water and chew a handful of nuts. There’s still a few more hours left of work. I have to keep my energy up. I adjust my tie, tuck my dress shirt into my apron and hit the floor with a smile. There’s another cocktail to deliver, a menu to drop, a table to clear, a story to tell…
By midnight I’ve handed in my cash, tipped my support staff and clocked out. By 1 am I am in my car driving home. I’m starving, craving a glass of wine and wired from a night of speed walking 7,000 square feet several hundred times.
My mind races with the cruel barbs from a guest I artfully dodged, the selfish behavior of a co-worker that made my temper flare, the European tourist that gushed verbal compliments but only left a handful of dollars on a large bill, the joke that had me quietly giggling all night, the fiscally generous guest, the out of sorts guest that went out of their way to be rude and the sweet guest that went out of their way to be kind.
Every night is different. But every night ends the same way–with my head spinning from the millions of tasks and service issues. If I’m lucky there’s a glass of wine in my hand by the end of it all.
It’s true, there are other things I would rather do on a Friday night with my time. I’d love to write full time and have my nights free. But the fact remains that as an artist there are other things I have to do to pay my bills. And I love restaurants, the food culture and the people that work doggedly day and night to put food on the table. There shouldn’t be any shame in saying I’m a server at a restaurant.
Yes, I work in the service industry. Yes, I’m a writer AND a restaurant professional. And I take my job seriously. Very seriously. I’m a professional. Respect what I do.
