Being a server is the perfect practice ground for learning poise under pressure. The kitchen and the dining room are two very different places--one a calmer place where the appearance of composure is key; the other loud as Tarzan's camp when the gorilla's find the dishes and just as fast and crazy--and you are in constant interchange between the two. Orders get messed up, the kitchen is running behind, customers are getting impatient, the printer isn't working, you have six sauces and three drinks you are trying to keep in your head, four people are trying to cram along an isle barely wide enough for the shoulder span of Dwayne Johnson, a precariously balanced pile of dirty dishes are coming through behind you, and trays of food to go out are lifted over your head. It's a little like an entire boy scout troop trying to learn how to square dance. In a bathroom.
The customers can never know this. Before turning the corner to the dining room, I pause, breathe out long and slow through lips shaped around an imaginary straw, smile, take a deep breath, and deliberately slow my steps as I enter the dining room. Everything is fine. We aren't almost out of warm bread. Your salad isn't ready before your appetizer. The ice isn't coming out of a broken machine in clumps bigger than your nonslip shoes. And certainly the new host knows better than to seat two or three tables in your section at once. Smile. Everything is fine.
And, usually, it is. Despite, and sometimes even because of, the craziness, I like serving. I like greeting my tables, chatting with customers, laughing at the crazy antics of the kids. One of my favorites was a little kid--probably three or four--who was so excited to come to Outback and get fries that he couldn't wait for me to finish my customary greeting before shouting out his order. And just in case I didn't get it, after each person in the party finished their order, his excited voice would pipe up, "And fries!" Don't worry, he got his fries. I even brought out an extra plate with the drinks.
As a server, there is a lot you can do to really make someone's day--and that is my favorite part. Just last night the cutest little girl came in with her parents. I grabbed one of the plastic koala floaties (disfigured rubber ducks in my opinion) that we put in the Pina Koala drinks and brought it to her. The big smile on this little girl's face almost made up for the mediocre tip.
But there's also a lot you can't do. You can't fix an over or undercooked steak without ordering a recook or cook-up; you can't speed up the wait time when there are twenty orders ahead of yours. You can't bring warm bread when it only cooks so fast and the restaurant is slammed full; and you can't make their alcoholic drink for them--only the overworked bartender can do that. This may seem obvious, but all of these things contribute to a customer's overall satisfaction. And all of these contribute to the responses they give on the survey that the convenient table-side kiosk prompts them to take after they tap their card. For all these reasons and more, it is debatable how reliable these survey responses are in representing good or bad service on the part of the server. Yet it is these very surveys that, for the servers, determine which and how many shifts you are scheduled for each week.
Last week, noticing that the closer is given the best section in the restaurant, I asked our assistant manager if I could possibly be scheduled for more week-night closing shifts. Yesterday he told me that I wasn't able to get those shifts because my survey scores weren't high enough. "You're a great server," he told me, as I had likewise been told a couple days previously by our manager. "So here's what you can do." He then advised that when it came time to for the customer to pay, I grab the kiosk, navigate to the payment, ask for their card, tap it for them, show them the screen where they put in the tip, and then, taking back the kiosk ask them if they would like their receipt and then take the kiosk back with me to fill out the survey myself while the receipt prints. It was similar to what our server of the month told me shortly after training--if a table has a bad experience, she doesn't let them pay on the kiosk so they don't have the option to fill out a survey. Instead, she takes their card and makes the payment at the bar on the only cardreader still in the restaurant--even though we have been asked to not make payments there when possible. Our manager believes in these surveys.
Part of me wants to take our assistant manager's advice. I've never agreed with the surveys anyway. I don't think they are a very accurate reflection on the server, and for that and other reasons I don't agree with scheduling based on them. I certainly don't agree with having your survey scores posted on a large screen in the kitchen for everyone to see. And if I don't take his advice, I'll never beat the fabricated survey scores of those who do. But if I do take the advice, then I am cheating all the honest (or ignorant) servers who don't take it out of the better shifts, not to mention the disrespect to our manager and my personal values. I dropped my shift tonight because I still don't know what to do. I hate to quit another good job, and one I like decently too, but nothing about it seems right. While I am stuck in my own dilemma, here's what you can do: don't take the surveys. Stick to google reviews.
