I'm Upping My Standards... Up Yours!

by Kris Mason

 ​If a frog is dropped into boiling water, it will immediately react to its condition and jump back out. If a frog is placed in water and the water is brought to a boil, it will never perceive the change of its conditions and stay there until it is dead. I’m not sure what future serial killer came up with this first; but I am totally on board with the findings and how it pertains to how we stumble around the planet.
 
I think that the current state of customer service in general and hospitality specifically is similar to the experience of the previously mentioned frog. Service and hospitality have deteriorated for so long that we seem complacent to sit in the pot and cook to death. I feel that it is time to take the mindset of the first frog, and jump out before we all perish.
 
I don’t know where the relationship between the customer and the service provider diminished. It has become so adversarial. Customers feel as if they are being taken advantage of, and won’t hesitate to complain about how they feel they are being treated; while the provider feels like there is nothing they can do to keep everyone happy, and their customers just want something for nothing.
 
Working as a waiter for over thirty years I’ve seen some of the co-workers my age become jaded and the new batch of twenty somethings start out quite cynical. Today, some of them take no responsibility for what they do or how they treat their guests; they are defensive, combative, argumentative and condescending.
 
When their tip is less than generous, the customer is cheap or can’t afford to go out. A growing number of waiters today are too comfortable complaining about making $2.00 an hour and completely ignore the fact that with tips, they earn $20.00 or better (depending on where they work).
 
The industry is caught in a downward spiral where each party’s bad behavior perpetuates the other’s worse behavior. If you are a jerk to your table, it gives them the power to be rude the next time they go out to eat. If they show up and are rude to you, you feel justified to continue being a jerk to your tables.
 
 
There are some restaurateurs who think that they have solved the problem. The growing trend is to eliminate tipping. The industry leaders of this movement want to then raise their rates (to equal what your check would have been if you had left a tip) so they can distribute your money amongst the cooks and managers who have been seemingly underpaid in the past.
 
In all the variations of the new socialist restaurant model, servers are reduced to a minimum wage position. The last time I made minimum wage was before I started working in restaurants. As soon as anyone goes from earning over $20.00 an hour to just making minimum wage, that person is gone.
 
We have all experienced customer service at the minimum wage level. If you have visited a drive though at a fast food restaurant or stopped at a convenience store or shopped at a mall, you will catch a glimpse of the lack luster future of dining out.

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"Now. If you come with me, this will be
         the moment of something new and fun 
             and inspiring in this GOD FORSAKEN business."

                                                                                          ~Jerry Maguire

​The water is boiling and I want out; but I’m not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’m not interested in leaving restaurants. I like the hospitality industry. I enjoy making someone’s night. I was always drawn to creating an experience that made people feel special. I learned early that by controlling my own actions I could influence the generosity of the people I waited on.
 
I now nominate myself to be the official Voice of Customer Service as well as the new Ambassador of Hospitality. I will now take my thirty years of accumulated experiences and apply them to saving the experience known as Dining Out. Although I’m self appointed, I would like to be joined by any waiter who isn’t interested in seeing their job disappear. I will keep sharing my service philosophies publicly and look for anyone who is willing to join me in this industry saving crusade.
 
I’m like Jerry Maguire, standing in the middle of the office cubicles, shouting out, “Who’s coming with me!?” The only way to keep my wages high, the way I like them, and not be replaced by the minimum wage (or worse, by a self-serve, touch screen) then we as waiters have to change our side of the relationship so that we can change the way a person walks into a restaurant and treats us.
 
I am no longer interested in who started the bad behavior. I’m more interested in drawing the line in the sand and changing the bad behavior moving forward. I will do this alone if I have to; but I would much rather be part of a movement of people who want to keep their wages intact. When somebody brings up the idea of running a restaurant without a wait-staff, I want the loudest voice to be the customers who are not interested in seeing another customer service industry filled with disconnected, disgruntled minimum wage earners.
 
Then let this movement begin. “Now. If you come with me, this will be the moment of something new and fun and inspiring in this GOD FORSAKEN business.” (That’s a Jerry Maguire quote, if you’re keeping score at home.) If you are truly coming with me, then let’s announce our intention and asks our brothers and sisters of this great and noble profession to proudly do the same. Stand up and proclaim, “We’re upping our standards! Up yours!” 
 
Oh, and go easy on the frog experiments.

I do Waiter Boot Camps at your restaurant. Contact me to schedule a meeting. 480-600-6973