The Waiter Chronicles: Coach Seth Godin

Marketing Guru and blogger extraordinaire Seth Godin wrote a post awhile back about what waiters can teach marketers. I'm interested in what that post can teach me.

The essential point is that when a customer asks for something specific, they have a reason for it and should be listened to. Right now, for me, that's difficult because rather than listening for what they're asking I'm thinking ahead to the angry chef, how he's going to receive their request, and what kind of strain that's going to put on me.

But sometimes it's really simple. Like this guy, last night, who ordered a diet soda. I brought it to him, then, some time later, brought him another. He said to me, "I'm kind of an ice freak. Can you bring me just a glass of ice?"

Things were picking up. A party of 11 people was arriving all at once, and tasks were piling up in my mind. And this guy wants me to get him a glass of ice?

"Sure."

It was no problem, and he demonstrably appreciated it.

Listening is an important skill for a waiter, maybe even as important as for a pastor?

Naaaaahhh.

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Windell Middlebrooks Update

Let's take a quick break from the drama of learning to be a waiter to check in with our famous acquaintence, Windell Middlebrooks. The TV was on at the ristorante bar last night, and his commercial came on, so I looked for him on Facebook.

Friends, I give you the "Windell Middlebrooks Fan Club" on Facebook. Enjoy.

Windell will make an appearance on Entourage this Sunday, August 5th, if you're a fan.

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The Waiter Chronicles: The Week of Reckoning

With Grandpa on vacation, I'm going to get most of his tables, starting today.

Here's how the week looks: double shifts on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and dinner on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

I think it's safe to say that by the end of the week I'll either be a bona fide waiter or I'll be fired.

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The Waiter Chronicles: Grandpa's Vacation

Grandpa leaves for a four-week vacation to Mexico tomorrow. After last night, I won't work with him again for a month.

The restaurant closed a couple of hours early last night, owing to an empty dining room and no reservations. As Son-of-Grandpa and I closed up shop, re-setting places and bringing tables and chairs back inside, I noticed that Grandpa was sitting at the bar. He had changed clothes already. He had been on his way out the door when the owner caught him and made him sit down, where the owner promptly fashioned a place setting for him and pulled up a chair.

A moment later I noticed the chef bringing a plate to serve Grandpa. He set it before him, then asked if he could get him anything else--"some bread? Anything?" Grandpa politely declined and enjoyed his dinner.

I paused in the midst of my busywork to take in the scene. But I quickly turned my glance away and got back to work, thinking only how much Grandpa, in 20 years as a waiter, had earned a moment like that.

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The Waiter Chronicles: Protected or Played

I feel like I took a step backward in my quest to become an excellent waiter today.

During lunch, Grandpa explained to me that I would be the busser while he and the another waiter (his son) would wait the tables. After taking tables on my own for two nights in a row, this announcement burned me. And the more I thought about it, the worse it got. The more I listened to Grandpa and his son commiserate in Spanish, the worse it got.

Those two weasels are conspiring against me to get all the tips.

Now, Grandpa's explanation is that he doesn't want the owner to get upset at me. My recent table-waiting experience has come in his absence, and, now that he's back in the restaurant, Grandpa fears for what might happen if I try to take a table and screw it up. Grandpa says the owner would yell at him. Son-of-Grandpa says Grandpa just doesn't want the owner to yell at me.

So I'm either being protected or played.

If I'm being protected, then how unhealthy of a situation is this? I said to Son-of-Grandpa that there seems to be a pattern at this restaurant of waiters getting hired and fired; he corrects me that the patters is, instead, waiters getting hired and then quitting because they don't want to take the owner's abuse.

"He's Italian," Son-of-Grandpa explains. "He has those words, you know?" He rattles off a few, just in case I've never been sworn at.

I want to believe this scenario. I want to believe that Grandpa is looking out for me. I want to be the kind of person that assumes the best motive in people.

But there's a nagging lack of trust. That wasn't helped by Grandpa's announcement at the end of the night that he wold "pay" me tomorrow for tonight's tips (I helped with all his tables). Of course, I never got to see the checks from those tables, so I have no way of knowing what the tips actually were.

I won't be surprised if he "forgets" about it completely.

Then what?

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The Waiter Chronicles: Angry Chef

"Six months ago I would have kicked your [expletive deleted] ass. Then I would have kicked him out of the restaurant. I didn't train twenty years for this!"

The chef is gesticulating wildly, glaring at me and raising his voice, even as he excuses my taking of a bad order.

The gentleman wanted the antelope, which is served either with a nice porcini mushroom sauce or a lovely fig port wine sauce and comes with some roasted potatoes. The gentleman opted for the fig port wine sauce, only, he didn't want the potatoes, he wanted penne pasta. When asked what kind of sauce he would like on the pasta, he looked confused.

"I thought we decided on that. I said I wanted the fig port wine sauce."

"Oh," I explained, "that sauce comes on the antelope. You can pick a pasta sauce for the penne, like a pomodoro sauce or a carbonara--" he cut me off.

"Let's just do the same sauce on the pasta as is on the antelope."

Now, that seemed weird to me. But I figured I should give the guy what he wanted. Wrong move. As soon as I showed it to the chef, he clenched his fists and exclaimed, "F-ing disguisting!"

Chalk it up to learning: don't let people put a sweet sauce meant for meat on their pasta.

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The Waiter Chronicles: News of Note

Here's a story that applies to me.

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