Saturday, July 30, 2005

Customer Quality --> Excuse me Sirs. Leave the Waitress Alone! Idiots!!

It disturbs me when I see a customer (punk) in a restaurant get mad at the waitress when the food is slow coming from the Kitchen. Is it her fault or the head cook who did not schedule the proper amount of cooks for a busy Friday night? Did it do any good when the restaurant manager also showed his displeasure to the waitress in front of customers?



It’s not the waitress’s job to schedule employees; it’s not the waitress’s fault if customers are displeased with the system. It’s easy for management to blame the worker. Why? – Because they can.

It’s the stupid head cook and numbnuts manager who own the system. When the waitress served my food I asked her if she was OK (I was looking to do a coco butt)? Oh yea, this happens all the time, management tries to save costs by not scheduling enough cooks (they make much more than the waitresses). They have no idea when we are busy and when we are not, even though this place has been open for more than five years.

qualityg says… another example of a system out of control, workers know the cause in these types of problems, but management in many cases blames them so they don’t speak up. It’s management’s job to listen and react. It doesn’t always require a big problem solving effort, a few placed measures (time and resources); some observation (see the whole process from order to delivery of food) and training (if doesn’t change behavior, remove the managers, they are in the wrong line of work) for management should do the trick.

Cost to Management – waitresses get frustrated and quit, manager must recruit, hire and train replacements. Unknowable cost for loss of customers (do they come back, do they tell others). Who loses here? Everybody you IDIOT ---> MANAGERS.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Qualityg,

I used to be a waitress in my younger days. Everything you wrote about is so true.

Thank you for sticking up for the common worker.

Helen

Anonymous said...

Sounds like some very short term thinkers are running these places. Keep running a place like that and soon you won’t need to schedule any cooks or waitresses. Wow! Think about the money they’ll save then!!!!! A very wise man once taught me that some of the toughest jobs are those where you are the one at the end of the process that faces the customer. Regardless of where the process breakdown is (in this case the lack of cooks in the kitchen) you are the one who gets the brunt of the criticism from the customer. I hope people remember that the next time they feel like yelling at a waitress.

qualityg says said...

j-man,

Right you are, I also hope Management sees the input role they play as owners of the system, especially when they pressure customer facing employees to be friendly, courteous, etc... to customers.

Customer facing employees, day care workers, teachers are just a few groups who are grossly unapreciated and the pay is not conducive to the value they bring to others.

Thanks for your comment,

qg

Anonymous said...

I work in a restaurant and every time there is a problem my manager can't be found, leaving me to deal with the customer by myself. What a wus!

Kathy in Denver

qualityg says said...

I read somewhere being a "wus" is required to getting a MBA.