The Guest and The Waiter

By sgkeat, 8th Feb 2011 | Follow this author | RSS Feed
Posted in Wikinut>Business>Ethics

What happens when the service at a restaurant is not up to your standard? This is not just a guest-waiter scenario but one that happens in many businesses.

A man brought his lovely date to a restaurant for a dinner. They were led to their table through the dimly lit dining area where other couples had already begun their romantic evening. It seems to be a full-house on this particular evening, and no wonder, it's Valentine's Day. As they both sat down at their table, a waiter promptly stepped up to greet them and handed the menu to the guests. After taking some time to peruse the menu, the couple finally placed their order, and started whispering sweet nothings over the candle-lit table.

After waiting for more than twenty minute, the lady started to feel her stomach growling and signaled her displeasure to her partner. The man got angry at the poor service of the restaurant and signaled to the same waiter who had waited upon them. Before the waiter could reach the table, the man had already begun to shout loudly about his unhappiness having to wait so long. This somehow made his lady partner startled her date would behave this way, but she just kept quiet. The waiter conveyed his apologies and quickly made his way to the kitchen to check on the status of their order.

Being new on the job, the waiter made his way back to the table again, and fumbled as he served the food. He spilt the lobster bisque on the table and nearly soiled the lady's fine clothes. Nearly but it did not. She shrieked up in panic, and this made her partner blew his top. He stood up and began shouting at the waiter, pulling him by the collar and ready to throw the first punch. Just then, the lights came on because of the commotion.

Just then, another guest in the restaurant shouted over to the angry guest "Are you not the waiter at the restaurant down the street who served me last week? I remembered you toppled the bottle of wine and messed up my fine tuxedo. You asked for forgiveness and your manager was about to fire you. I stepped in and assured him that everyone makes mistakes and not to fire you. How could you bring your anger on someone in your industry when you yourself are no better at what you are doing?"

This shamed and shocked the man, and pulling his date by the hand, they quickly excused themselves and left the restaurant, apologizing profusely as they made their way to the exit.

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Does the above situation seem implausible? Try removing the title of "waiter" and "guest" and put in the words "employee of organization A" and "employee of organization B". Many of us are employees to our companies. In different situations, we may be the contractor and in some situations we are the customer. Do we behave like as if we own the world when we are the customer just because the customer is always right? When others make mistakes, do we give them a run down while we pray to be forgiven when we are the erring contractor? We have a tendency to ignore the log in our eyes and pick on the specks in others. We have been warned by the bible to first remove the log before we handle the speck. Let's learn to self-examine before we criticize others. Let's learn to walk a mile in the other person's shoes. If all of us do that, the world will be a much better place to live and work in.

You might want to enjoy the following youtube video on a lighter side of a restaurant situation:

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Meet the author

sgkeat
I am here to contribute to the body of writing in the cloud. I hope to focus on topics of encouragement and slowly moving towards different genres. Join me at http://www.wikinut.com/in/tlnnm/