How to Cure a Bad Waiter

"He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish."

Those opening words of Hemingway's masterpiece The Old Man and the Sea can easily be modified to befit your last lamentable trip to your neighborhood restaurant.

"He was a hungry man who fished a long time in his booth trying to get his waiter's attention and he had gone eighty-four minutes without taking a glance."

You've been there: restaurant prison. A forced hunger-strike where you are paying a lot of dough just to be ignored, avoided, misinterpreted, and trapped in their world where food and drink rules are biased and strongly in favor of the home team. You barter for your fare with obsequious banter and exaggerated appreciation while paying homage to the troll who alone wields power to grant or deny your dinner dream.

When it comes to dining, most of us lose common sense once the check is dropped or simply don't want to buck the faulty system. I’m here to give you ammunition in the battle for fairness and common sense.

The restaurant industry sometimes confuses convenience as luxury, supposing that having a human take your order and bring the food to you is worth its hefty price in the form of a gratuity and should be construed as desirable. This indulgence feels as fitting as the plastic covering on your grandmother's couch when service is tepid or lackluster; there is little volition once that check hits the table to counter the bland service. You want to leave a 10% tip as a zinger but you cower in self-doubt because you don’t want to look like a creep or a miser. The other option is your best bet: look both ways until the server isn't looking and bolt out the door. Once you get in your car you can lick your wounds and convince yourself that you were heroic, but then who wants to go back to that same restaurant next week and stumble upon that same dreary delivery boy?

What we need is a way to make a statement and to offer a cure, and here is a solution to this dilemma: the Tip Card. While this is perhaps impractical, consider this a tongue-in-cheek suggestion for how to solve the problem of an unkind, uncaring server.

Simply hand this contract to your waiter before your meal and the card says it all. What happens next is certain to get a reaction, but as a hospitality expert with nearly 20 years of 5 star service training experience as well as upscale casual restaurant experience and a server even to this day, I can defend and explain why this concept can do much good because I know the mindset that governs servers. If you want to FIX your dining experience as well as FIX an industry that needs a revolution, you can use this system to educate both server and patron simultaneously.

Tip Card

Dear Server,

I know you work for tips, and I work for a living as well. Here is my tip scale that I will use to pay you at the end of my meal:

10% basic service—you noticed I was sitting here, you brought me what I ordered, you retrieved what I requested, and not much more. You pushed some buttons and carried food to my table. You succeeded in the most basic way but missed opportunities for making me feel special.

15% better service—your service skills are good and you were pleasant; you made me satisfied I came here today; you demonstrated your ability to be efficient and accurate; you realized that I was in your station and you made me smile at least once or twice.

20% excellent service—you performed heroically and were memorable. You have excellent knowledge and a style that enables you to elevate my experience to something far better than simply eating or drinking. You seemed like a mind-reader or a psychologist who perceives without asking. You made this fantastic whether the food was or not. You are accomplished and one of the best.

25% fabulous service—you have honed your craft to an art form; your mastery of one-liners and techniques are stellar; you are the best part of the experience and you deserve praise. You were my advocate and created what did not exist by your shear skill and brilliance. Congratulations! You will be bragged about as one of the best I have ever seen!

Here is why it works for waiters:

1.   You define your expectations. Not only does this qualify what is good and bad service, but it is an agreement between the two of you and it offers a standard to strive for.

2.   Waiters often wonder if a patron will actually reward their extraordinary efforts. This kind of prejudice demonstrates that each table represents an emotional roller coaster where both parties put faith in the other to “do their job.” Now that the job is defined, the server has a clear goal because you said you would honor the agreement.

3.   Waiters who don’t understand how their micro mismanagement has impacted your overall experience will better evaluate and possibly even correct their bad habits. Everyone needs a mirror and feedback. Usually servers without either continue on their course of bad service because they don’t understand why they were so bad. The card helps them think about what matters to you, the payee.

4.   Waiters love a challenge that comes with a reward. When we learn what you want, we are motivated to complete that explicit task like a dog fetching a stick. Sometimes the extraordinary mission (beyond reasonable) is met with a huge gratuity as a sign of gratitude but sometimes we receive a “verbal tip” instead with no financial remuneration for the extra work. This creates a tension whereby wearied waiters input the challenge into their data system and run a risk assessment as to whether it is worth the emotional hazard for that particular guest. Patrons seldom understand that waiters experience euphoria with a great tip and an emotional zap when the tip is bad. Too many of these experiences and then unscrupulous waiters will size you up before they put out for no pay, thus spoiling the experience. You feel it, they feel it, and no one wins.

5.   Waiters see the experience from your perspective instead of theirs. After all, empathy is often lost when we experience repetitive actions with comparable results. So when you begin with the Tip Card you will startle them like a young calf looking at a new gate. They will notice it and it will make a difference. I promise.

6.   Waiters will see you as a good tipper, not a bad one, even though you haven't tipped them yet. They know that everyone has the potential to leave a lowly gratuity but this card says, “I am willing to tip big if you are great at what you do.”

7.   Good waiters are emulated by their junior team members because they have more cash in their pocket at the end of the night. The Tip Card will help them train others to see what is most important.

Here is why it works for patrons:

1.   You commit to your contract. You were bold enough to explain your expectations and now you will be fair enough to follow through with your deal.

2.   You will empathize with the server who may actually take your challenge. You will also create a fiduciary relationship where you hope your server will connect with you. In 20 years of service training I have learned this is the most important concept for servers to learn--connecting emotionally with the guest. But this endeavor can feel like a personal rejection or acceptance at every turn. Hence, great waiters are emotionally secure people who get a benefit from interaction with people and are willing to risk giving of themselves and then being "rejected" by a bad tip (but it still stings). This can actually happen a dozen times or more each shift.

3.   You might recognize that you have been part of the problem in that your unrealistic requests aren’t fair to them. Yes, the server is your server, but they have other guests with requirements as well. I have seen scores of diners who think they are the only ones in the restaurant. Their demands may actually be selfish because they can distract the server from being able to offer the same great service to all their guests. When they serve your quirky needs (admit it) they may give inferior service to their other guests and their tips suffer for your outlandish demands. When you put your money where your mouth is and promise to reward a superstar, you create a positive force that can recharge the batteries of your server who is energized to go the extra mile.

4.   You develop realistic expectations for yourself while becoming more conscious of what you say, how you say it and whether you made yourself clear. You will learn to reward the people who do it right and you will possibly impact an entire restaurant by simply declaring how your reward system works.

5.   You will feel great when you see a marked difference in the service that you've been given. And the $1 or $5 additional fee will be more than a fair price to pay for one of the best meals you’ve ever had at that restaurant.