The customer is always right, right? Wrong. Sometimes the customer is so wrong. Maybe it's the way they order something that isn't even on the menu, how they try to combine two items that are on completely polar opposite spectrums of the menu, how they want to personalize their meal and "just pay extra" so we can make it work, or simply in their behavior to service workers. Yes, as hard as it is to believe - customers are sometimes the ones at fault when things do not go smoothly at a restaurant.
I chose to read Mirabelli's book excerpt "Learning to Serve" and found that I agreed with so much of what she was explaining in her introduction about service industry jobs. I used to work at a smoothie place that also sold food and it was quite ridiculous to me how often customers simply didn't understand the concept of ordering food from a menu RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM. They would repeatedly try to order items from other similar fast food branches and then, upon being informed that we do not carry or make those items, try to question us as to why we don't or even go so far as to claim "you used to carry it" or "you used to make it for me". Sorry sunny, hate to break it to you but you're getting us confused with someone else.
I've had customers try to break up parts of food or drink combos and create their own personalized version of an item. The thing is, this isn't their kitchen with ingredients on disposal - all menu items are priced a certain way and it's not up to you to just mix and match.
The worst problem, by far, was how they would react in all of these certain types of situations. Situations that they themselves created. Typical.
Times when their order would be messed up, however, and they had a right to (politely) complain was due 95% to that of inexperienced workers. And that should be expected! This industry has so many methods and procedures and shortcuts all going on at once that it gets very overwhelming for someone new to the job, let alone new to serving. You have to be quick on your feet ALL THE TIME, EVERY DAY and on top of that be in a chipper, darling mood even when you're being yelled at. It's a tough life.
Where I worked my coworkers were all very bright and educated. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that there were so many new people coming in and they needed time to learn the ropes. I feel like that's how it is for a lot of places in the service industry - there are a lot of inexperienced workers handling your orders. It's not that they're dumb, it's that they need more time to get things right and they also need to learn the lingo in order to get your food from paper, to production, to your pretty little mouth.
You try. You fail. You try again.
The way in which orders are communicated is very important in the service industry and it takes a while to "learn to read again", so to speak. Fluency comes with practice and is often the difference between a right and wrong order. Mirabelli writes that "literacy extend beyond individual experiences of reading and writing". It is very crucial to understand not only how a coworker will write down the specific item ordered, or how one will read the printed item, but also how the customer is going to order the item. You have to be able to have the knowledge to manipulate the POS screen (when orders are taken on an electronic screen) so that all of their specifications for their "personal appetites" are satisfied while giving them the right discounts/price increases so that neither the restaurant nor the customer is unfairly charged.
Communication is an integral part in serving food quickly, efficiently, and correctly and I am so glad Mirabelli wrote this article to explain to others (and not to mention confirm the beliefs of service workers everywhere) how hard it actually is to work at a food place and how difficult the language is to an outsider.
-Meghann
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