Sunday, April 22, 2007

Serving Assumptions

As an ex-server, I often sympathize with waiters. I understand what they are going through when they are busy, or when someone orders a million modifiers, or when they fuck up. I understand what it's like to deal with pain-in-the-ass customers; the type who have a problem with everything or who are just outright rude. I understand how it makes your day when you have a really pleasant table who you can joke with or when a customer gives you a compliment. But what I really understand is good service vs. bad service or even better yet, stupid service.

The entire goal of a server is to communicate. A server is supposed to communicate what the kitchen has to offer and what the customer's wants and needs are. They are the liason between the client and the bar and kitchen. So, when a person is not a good communicator and listener this poses a problem. This weekend I had an issue at two different places due to the lack of listening and communicating skills of the servers. Fortunately, the way things were handled after we voiced our concerns was done so in a positive way and really reflected the client service of these two establishments.

Last nite the first place me and and A.Duh went to was Divine Bar, as we were looking for a low key night to just chit chat and have a couple glasses of wine. Maybe it was my stupidity for not realizing the wine costed $20 a glass and not $20 for a bottle or half bottle--but there were no labels in the dessert wine section. However, when we asked for this particular wine, I clearly said, "Can we have this..." I think rarely do two girls in their 20's share a glass of wine in a grapa glass. So when he brought out 1 glass of wine and set it in the middle of the table, I stared back at the waiter blankly. "Umm, uh...we didn't realize this was just a glass...we thought it was bottle or half bottle...?" "Yeah," he uttered back, "this is some of the expensive stuff." I mean c'mon, how can one make that sort of assumption? Do you assume a customer wants their burger rare? Can you actually assume that when two people sit down at a table at a wine bar that they are sharing ONE glass of wine, especially when there is a TWO drink minimum. WOW. It's really simple to just ask or clearly state what something is just in case a customer isn't aware. Anyways, he was cute and nice about it so no harm no foul. I guess it's not his fault that he didn't have much common sense. It's ok...he had one thing going for him; at least he was pretty.

The second communication problem of the weekend happened today. A.Duh and I had just walked 10 miles in the MS Walk and wanted to sit down, relax, and get some beer and grub. We went to Heartland Brewery which A.Duh gravitated towards for the popcorn shrimp. Needless to say they were busy-- they had overflow from all the walk participants, not to mention their regular tourists in the South Street Seaport. So when our waiter came over to shmooze with us and take our order, he got halfway through our order and started to help another customer. He managed to ring in 1 salad and two beers. Not quite what we intended to order. When he came back we said to add another salad to the order. Because he was so all over the place we decided not to confuse him with the popcorn shrimp (a big letdown by the way). But then 5 minutes later one salad came out that hardly looked like the Taco salad that had been ordered. And 20 minutes later, we still hadn't recieved the second salad. When we finally got the second salad--again it was merely lettuce and chicken. None of the ingredients listed on the menu were part of the salad. Our waiter came over to ask us how our food was and we were frank. "Well, its not really what it said it was on the menu--there's no pico de gallo, corn, avocado or tortillas. Is this what the taco salad is?" Our waiter blinked his eyes. I think he seriously had no idea what anything was. "Yeah, that's it. " And walked away. He clearly didn't know what to do. I don't think he's used to people being honest about their food. A manager came over to see if we got our food okay as she saw us waiting for a while. Again, we were honest. As I replied, "It's fine. It is what it is." She said, "No it's not okay. You're missing all the good stuff." And she trecked into the kitchen to go get what was missing. When she arrived back with the rest of our salads she apologized and was very nice about it. It was the right thing to do. Our waiter soon followed suit, stating that the kitchen must've read the dressing on the side and assumed not to put in those ingredients either (what?). Umm ok, that's the most retarded thing I've ever heard. Then he tried to redeem himself by telling us he would give us our 2nd beers on him. We opted not to get another round. Our salads still weren't that good and we just needed to get out of that place, but when our check came he left our original beers on there, which totally defeated the purpose of his attempted gesture. Whatever --he had already lost the battle with us especially when we watched him take back our check with our credit card and do a shot with other staff members before he swiped our cards.

Again, I loved my days as a server and understand the entire experience and trust me, I did my share of shot taking and having fun with my co workers--but if a table was already having issues and I was being a major dumbass I wouldn't stand in front of their table taking a shot while I held their check in my hand and they waited impatiently. Not only did he make bad assumptions and have problems communicating clearly but he had problems fixing his mistakes. His manager was his saving grace.

I think waiting tables is an extremely hard job. You have to wear a smile even when you're not happy, appease customers even when they are assholes, and fufill needs even when too many people need fufilling--BUT if you don't know how to communicate maybe you should consider another career or at least be smart enough to never assume and ask twice.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

finally! a post! what about my duck tacos?

Unknown said...

sorry I have a lot of posts to catch up on! I will write about your duck tacos...mmm

Lo said...

Well said Melis. I feel the same way about the service industry in general. People can fix any mistake by just knowing what to say and the right way to say it.