just for today, i will sing. . . .

just for today, i will remember that i'm a very special person. . . .

just for today, i will be thankful for the sun. . . .

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Eyes Wide Open
tom walsh

What She Expected

My wife and I went to a restaurant recently to get something to eat.  It was after lunch time and we weren't all that hungry; we just wanted to get a piece of pie and some coffee.  Our waitress was friendly enough until we ordered.  As soon as we told her what we wanted, though, we saw a huge difference in the way that she treated us.  All of a sudden, I guess, we weren't worth nearly as much effort as somebody else who was ordering a full meal.  The only thing that we could guess from the change was that she saw the small order as an indication that she was going to get a small tip.

So while she spent a lot of time checking up on people at other tables and chatting with them and asking if she could get them anything else, she had only five words for us when she brought us our pie:  "Here you are.  Anything else?"  Then she left us our check and we didn't hear from her again.

If it was about the tip, then she experienced the perfect example of a self-fulfilling prophecy.  She got a very small tip, but it had nothing to do with the size of our order, and everything to do with the fact that we got truly awful service.

The shame of it is that my wife and I are very generous tippers.  We've both worked at jobs at which tips were very important to us, and we've both tried to make ends meet while working jobs that are demanding and low-paying.  I enjoy adding something positive to someone's day by leaving a larger-than-normal tip, and it usually costs me only a dollar or two.  For a couple pieces of pie and two cups of coffee, we usually leave a three-dollar tip.  But not that day.

The waitress made the decision that she was going to give a different quality of service to different people based on what she thought her reward would be.  And while this strategy may be effective in some cases, I think that it truly undermines one's ethical base, for one is deciding not to do one's job fully simply because the rewards may not be what one thinks they should be.  But if I'm working as a waiter and representing the restaurant, shouldn't the service that I give to everyone be just as good?  Shouldn't I serve the poor person who I know can't afford to tip at all just as well as I serve the wealthy person who probably will tip much, much better?  (Though people in service industries will tell you that that definitely isn't always the case.)

Before you start thinking that I'm putting myself up on a pedestal here, I'll tell you that one of the reasons that this incident resonates so strongly with me is that it hits very close to home.  During one of my stints in grad school, I worked in sales at a major department store.  I was paid a regular hourly wage, but I also earned commissions on sales.  I remember more than once being impatient with someone who wanted to buy a box of nails while there was someone ten feet away looking at some big-ticket items that could have earned me much more in commission.

More than once I found a reason to leave someone on their own while I pursued the larger reward, which more often than not didn't even come.  I was young, I was poor, and I needed money for school--to me, the potential gains justified the means.  What I didn't realize then was that what goes around comes around, and while in the short term I did make a few sales with larger commissions, in the long term I lost potential return customers who saw clearly what I was doing, and even though they spent only a few bucks this time, searched out a different salesperson when they came back to make a big purchase.

Once we decide to differentiate between people based on what we think they're going to be giving us back, we're no longer focused on service--we're focused on rewards.  We're focused on what we'll get back rather than on what we give, and then the service that we provide is greatly diminished.  I would say that we could make the argument that it's no longer service at all, but self-service.

In the case of the waitress, her attitude did cause damage.  We won't go back to that restaurant, not for another piece of pie, and not for a bigger meal.  There are plenty of other places where people will treat us well.  She lost a couple of dollars in tip money, which is of course very small, but in an economy in which every dollar counts, could have been very helpful.  The shame of it all is that it wouldn't have taken much to turn us into satisfied customers--simply not ignoring us and asking us how things were would have been a very welcome gesture, and wouldn't have cost her much in the way of time or effort.

Her choice to ignore and neglect us, though, is an important lesson to me.  Do I do the same thing to other people?  Do I make a judgment about what I might get back from someone before I commit myself to serving them?  Do I ignore and neglect other people who may benefit from my attention?  My hope is that I don't do these things, but unless I look at myself honestly and objectively from the perspective of others, I may never know if I do or not.