Bad service…a look at two sides of the matter.

By Princess B. Abuluyan

Is it always fair to be upset and make a scene with the waiter over bad service?

And over what scenario of bad service exactly? Because the “waiter” is taking too long to bring you your food? That is not necessarily the waiter’s fault. Oh, has it been over half an hour? Maybe you should have ordered an appetizer then. Well, not if you don’t want to. But perhaps, instead of mouthing off to the waiter, you should march your hungry self to the kitchen in the back and ask the people who actually cook and prepare the food about the delay. Or you could look around you, and suddenly realize how full of people the restaurant is packed with and will have to serve tonight. Still, the waiter maintains a positive attitude towards you, and manages to apologize anyway for the restaurant’s inconvenience of your having to wait a while longer for your food to be served.

Everyone has their own definition of what “bad” service is, built up on their personal experience. And there are no warning signals, no alarms ringing off in the distance. Bad service can occur anytime, anyplace. Dine at a restaurant, and you just may taste a little dose of reality—bad service is inevitable. It happens, so wipe the surprised look off your face because it definitely is nothing new.

Something new then, could be viewing bad service through a waiter’s eyes. Put yourself in a waiter’s shoes. Open your eyes to view the other side of bad service—the waiter who is automatically viewed as the cause of restaurant bad service in most cases. But hey, it is not always easy to please customers given some situations.

Turn the tables around and take a second bite out of reality. You may think that some waiters can be rude, and treat you poorly. But, in some situations, it is the customers who can be rude to the waiters, and treat them poorly. And what happens next, do they seriously expect to receive good service from their waiter after that? Waiters most likely let it go, and continue on with their job. There’s not much they can do about it, now is there? Except that they could spit in your food, and then serve it to you. No, that was only a joke.

But acknowledge the point here. Some customers can drive a waiter crazy. Some customers can be demanding. They can come into a restaurant after having a bad day or just having a personal problem on their mind, and whether they are aware of it or not, they take their frustrations out on the waiter. They don’t smile, they look completely upset, and give their order to the waiter in a commanding tone of voice. The waiter wonders, “What happened to the customers’ usual saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ at the end of an order?”

With that said, customers should keep an open mind about how they define what bad service is. Okay, so maybe a waiter gets your order wrong, or doesn’t check in on you to refill your empty glass while you’re eating. View both sides of the scenario before you open your mouth to describe the waiter’s service was bad. Does the waiter look like he/she is having a bad day? Waiters, just as much as customers and all human beings, have bad days too. They have their own problems that they’re going through too. And despite that, they still bring themselves to work when they’re supposed to, all just to serve the customers. Some waiters are juggling being a full time college student and working at the same time. So that could be taken into consideration also.

In some situations, it is okay to cut waiters some slack. They see probably over one hundred faces every day on the job, and cover countless tables, continuously taking orders and serving food—some days on the job can be so busy that the work can become overwhelming. And who knows if your waiter had to previously deal with a rude customer before moving on and becoming your waiter? They deal with a lot of different kinds of people and attitudes every day on their job.