Some words on food service March 2, 2010

I read a lot on the Internet. I read a lot of blogs, including Consumerist and Serious Eats, to name a couple.

A topic that comes up fairly regularly on both these sites is some aspect of food service/dining out. I usually have an opinion on these topics, having spent years in a variety of food service venues (chain to high-end dining).

Yesterday Consumerist posted a story from a reader who walked out on a $90 tab after a horrendous restaurant experience.

While I don’t think the reader and his party were justified in walking (more on that later), it was actually the comments section that struck a chord more than anything else. As I read comments from people who suggested anything other than speaking with the manager about adjusting the bill, not leaving a tip and then not coming back, I was shocked. One person said they responded to sub-par restaurant experiences by writing about their displeasure — on the table — in ketchup and mustard. Passive-aggressive, much?

Look, you have to consider who you are really punishing with your actions. Most of the time, you’re not making an impact with the entity that really matters: THE RESTAURANT.

• No tip: This should mean you didn’t like the service. In nearly all of the restaurants I worked at, the servers don’t tip out the kitchen staff, so not tipping because you didn’t like the food accomplishes nothing. You not tipping only hurts the server … who usually has to tip out a certain percentage of their sales to the bartender, expo and bussers (not a certain percentage of their tips.)  If you didn’t like the food? Talk to your server or a manager.
• Messing up the table, etc: The only person you are hurting here is the busser (maybe the server or hostess depending on how the restaurant is run). And really, most bussers I’ve worked with have been very nice, hardworking people. They haul ass because bussers are fairly easy to replace. A lot is asked of them, and their action is often required in less than 30 seconds. The manager and the owner certainly don’t clean the tables, and they’re often the ones making the decisions regarding how the restaurant is run. Why are you punishing the busser?
• Filling out a comment card: I’m guilty of this one on the server side. If you fill this out and give it to anyone BUT a manager, it’s not getting there. Just sayin’.
• Verbally abusing restaurant staff: You may scoff at this one and call me dramatic, but take your shenanigans elsewhere unless you’ve worked in a restaurant. It happens far more often than people think. While it’s never acceptable to say hurtful things to anyone, being mean or yelling at a server accomplishes nothing. Why? Besides the human instinct to avoid abuse, if you’ve reached this level, we already know we’re not getting a tip. Anything above basic service is wasted on your table. It’s not very fair, but it’s economically sound. 
• Walking on a check: This is probably the most misguided retaliation method. As one person in the comments of the Consumerist article pointed out, the OP probably wasn’t hurting the restaurant with that move. He screwed the server big time, because servers are generally expected to cover walk-outs with their own money. Another commenter asks if this is legal — I have no idea. But it’s common practice. As they get tables, servers create “tables” on a POS (point of service) system where they input your orders, cash people out, etc. Those tables are under the server’s name. At the end of a shift, they are responsible for anything under their name. If you walk on that $90 tab? Yep, it’s still open under their name, and the restaurant holds them accountable. It sucks, and it’s why servers have been known to chase people out the door.

In closing, what should the OP at Consumerist have done? It may have been a pain in the ass, but get with the manager to get the check fixed. The manager may even have comped something (either to try and amend the situation, or just to get them out the door … sometimes the latter is just easier). If the manager didn’t handle the adjustment well, write a letter to the owner, or put a call in during a non-busy time (usually between 9 and 10, or between 3 and 4) to speak to the owner. Leave a bad review on Yelp, UrbanSpoon, whatever.

Just think about how far your actions actually go towards creating the change that you want.

image by discoverdupage

image by poiseon bild&text

Making good decisions February 17, 2010

When I’m stressed, I do four things:

• Eat
• Grocery shop
• Bake
• Clean

I am pretty stressed out at work right now. One of my friends and coworkers is leaving, and I’m taking on a lot of her role. Also, some projects are starting to pick up, and I’m scrambling to get my ducks in a row before they really hit full-force.

I’m stressed at home because moving sucks — even before you break out the boxes. Trying to make sure that our current landlord doesn’t try and screw us, as well as finding an apartment complex that will work with us on our move-in date.

We had a 2-hour department meeting today, which resulted in a bunch of brilliant ideas (I really have some of the best coworkers around) and new directions to take. I’m excited about them. But I was also overwhelmed by them.

Said meeting let out right at noon, and not having had any sort of mid-morning snack, my stomach was growling like crazy. I ate my pre-packed lunch like a good girl (2 brown rice cakes topped with sun-dried tomato pesto mayo, a slice of ham and a small square of raw goat cheddar) … and then promptly got sucked back into work again. And more calls between BF, the apartment complexes and I flew around amidst this.

Seeking serious relief, I GTFO of my office and headed for Whole Foods at around 2. Originally I went just for some juice from their juice bar (the carrot/apple/ginger/wheatgrass one is my fav!), but vices one and two got in the way and I wandered through the aisles and eventually wound up in front of the bakery cabinet, pondering the merit of devouring an “everything” vegan cookie.

Know what I did then? I WALKED AWAY. I am really proud of this. Of course, I walked away to the tea aisle and promptly picked up a yummy-looking Tazo tea (Cucumber White, it’s good) and bought that instead. And 4 Lara bars (on sale!). And a big bottle of water for the gym tonight.

While I wasn’t successful thwarting both of my typical stress-relievers, at this point, I’d rather have spent $16 than have eaten that huge cookie. I am thanking myself now, and I will be thanking myself later tonight when I put in all my calorie information for the day on MyPlate.

I know I shouldn’t have headed to WF in the first place … but baby steps, here.

Tonight is going to be another ass-kicker at the gym — 30 minutes cardio, a superset circuit from Winter Shape Up, and an hour-long Zumba class. After doing this on Monday, I went home, inhaled food and passed out by 9:30.

But, it was the best sleep I’ve had in a long time. Looking forward to tonight!

image: greg westfall

Small Differences February 5, 2010

I thought this was pretty clever — our office manager sent it to a bunch of us in the PR department:

On Writing December 15, 2009

I am a writer.

I have considered myself “a writer” for as long as I can remember. While writing for school wasn’t necessarily my favorite thing to do (especially because most of it came in the form of essay questions and research papers), I never truly hated it. Outside of classes, I wrote for our high school’s newspaper. I like words. I have been told I am good with them.

What a lot of people didn’t know was that I also wrote a lot of fiction on the side. I’ve been writing stories since I was 5, and while I never shared most of this stuff with other people, I’ve been writing fiction since then. I wrote about a variety of topics, stories, characters … and truth be told, I saved almost everything. I still have it to this day — hundreds (who knows, maybe thousands) of pages, just sitting on my computer. And when I look back at it during the occasional nostalgic spell, I’m actually impressed.

I am not writing this post to toot my own horn, I promise. But when I read some of the things I wrote, I’m surprised. Many of the ideas and emotions in the work are pretty juvenile. This is to be expected, I was in my early teens when I really hit my peak output (seriously, like 13 and 14). But at that point, I had a command of my own style and flow that 24 year-old me is really impressed with.

Honestly, if I didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t believe it was my own work.

As a writer, this is understandably upsetting. In response to this revelation, a couple weekends ago, I sat myself in front of the computer, hunted for some old writing playlists, and attempted to prove to myself that I still had this in me.

I failed miserably. I got about a paragraph in, and then closed the document, disgusted with how contrived my writing felt.

In retrospect, I sort of set myself up for that. I’ve been in a fiction dry spell since the middle of college (more or less). For the past 5 years, I’ve been writing academic papers on Shakespeare, case studies on PR campaigns, award nominations for clients and articles for a variety of trade publications. I’ve forgone narrative and descriptive writing that focused on what was behind the words (the characters, emotions, descriptions), and instead have spent time honing my expository and persuasive writing skills, which very much focus on the words.

This is not a bad thing. In fact, it is what allows me to pay the bills. But, I miss being able to write fiction. I kid you not, I would literally stay up until 4 in the morning with a good friend of mine, writing back and forth back in junior high and high school. I loved to write. It came easily. I could sit down, turn on an instrumental track, and go to town.

Now? Yes, I could sit down and hammer out an article about tax credits for green building, but when I try to go back to that fiction writing, it’s like a spigot’s been turned off in my brain. The drive is there (especially lately, I’ve been feeling like I need an outlet other than exercise). The pathway between the sparks flying in my brain and the tips of my fingers on my keyboard is unmaintained. Overgrown. Seriously, there’s brambles and weeds and nettles and shit, and probably a snake or two in there.

Logically, I know I need to take it slowly. The writing that I’ve been doing for the last 5 years is so different than what I am hankering to do, that I’m out of practice. My goal is a few short vignettes, get the gears moving again, and then go from there.

I guess I’m just frustrated. Intimidated by what I’ve done, the skill that I had (or have, and it’s just dormant or something like that). Practice makes perfect, I suppose.

Writer friends — do you think it’s possible to be good at both types of writing, given the different things they require? Or is it easier to just commit to one or the other?

writing/coffee picture from leah.jones’ Flickr

overgrown image from Si’ilk’s Flickr

Minor degrees: Do they matter? September 15, 2009

Let’s rewind for a moment to early fall, 20o3. I am sitting in my advisor’s office at the great institution known as Washington State University (go Cougs), and at the tender age of 18, am committing to a major that will define the next four years (and tens of thousands of dollars’ worth) of my education.

From Washington State University's web site

Unlike many kids my age, it was an easy choice for me. I’d always considered myself somewhat of a writer, and I had a fledgling career in my high-school newspaper for three years. Communications. Done, done and done.

My advisor nodded, plugged me into some 101 classes, and then asked a question I hadn’t been expecting: “What about your minor?”

I was a little shocked, I’ll be honest. For the most part, I considered minors to be the things that people were REALLY interested in studying, but they only minored in the subject because they couldn’t make a living out of it and majored in something generic and semi-useful like entrepreneurship or business. This way, they were still learning about something they liked, without wanting to kill themselves while pursuing a boring but practical degree.

Image from tapasparida's Flickrstream

I didn’t quite fit this equation. I really liked communications, I liked writing, I liked speaking, and I liked people. I didn’t really have a whole lot of secondary interests pegged down besides video games and boys.

I think my advisor saw me floundering, because her next words were, “for communications majors, the most common minors are sociology or business.” This, I later decided, is why she was an advisor. Without her I would have undoubtedly forayed into forestry or astronomy or whatever else I was intrigued by at that moment.

My next question was: “Are there a lot of math classes in business?”

As you can tell, I was thinking about this from all angles (not). A few months before, I had celebrated my C+ in Math Analysis and flipped the bird to epsilon proofs, trig, and everything else I brain-dumped to make room for more fun stuff like the lyrics to Outkast’s “Hey Ya.” With God as my witness, I’d never take math again.

Image from EmpireOnline.com

So, sociology it was. I felt like kind of a slacker at first, but as it turns out, I was genuinely interested in both communications and sociology. So much so, that I didn’t even mind the research/statistics classes I had to take.

I didn’t think much about my minor post-grad until my second year at an agency, when I had an epiphany and realized that I love research … especially about what people think and how they act. I credit my sociology classes for this. I think my studies in those classes reinforced my tendencies to examine how people will react to events, and words. I use these tendencies every day, whether it’s positioning an announcement, writing a press release, creating surveys for client research  or even just interacting with my coworkers/bosses. I think about myself, my clients, and people in general from people’s point of view.

And you know that everytime I find myself using something I can attribute to my time spent immersed in sociology, I am silently laughing at all the poor schmucks who chose business out of practicality.

And yes, with God as my witness … I definitely had to take math 208 in college. So much for no math after high school.

The Gazette Intern July 14, 2009

Yeah, I’ve been on vacation for the last week. It was amazing, and I haven’t really come closer to answering any of the questions I posed to myself in the last post.

In other news, The Gazette in Colorado Springs, CO recently outed/fired an intern after it was discovered that she was plagiarizing from the New York Times. While this isn’t particularly dramatic, the editor of the Gazette published the intern’s name in the paper’s response to the charges.

While I have my own thoughts on the subject, check out David Mullen and Lauren Fernandez’ co-post about it on David’s blog. They have some great insight and the 100+ comments are certainly thought-provoking.

Be back after work hours to put my own .02 in!

Pet Peeves (this is long overdue) March 17, 2009

As an ode to one of my most favorite ranting web sites EVER (I think it says something that the last post was 3 years ago and I STILL love it), “Things I Hate,” I’ve been  meaning to create a “pet peeves” post for quite some time. I haven’t decided if I’ll just come back and edit it, or if I should just create new posts when pet peeves arise (because I’m not one of those people who has like 5 … I have about 39029084390184319). We’ll see. Maybe I’ll preface pet peeves posts (tee hee p’s) with “PP.” At least then I can include relevant lolcat photos for each post. 

It should be noted that I have a lot of driving pet peeves.

• People who staunchly, STAUNCHLY refuse to get out of the left lane on the freeway, even if they are only going the speed limit. I’m glad you think you are going fast enough, but get out of my way. I want to go faster.
• People who stop when there is no stop sign, and then have the nerve to look at you all exasperated as you wait (at your REAL stop sign) for them to figure it out. This really seems to be a problem at malls down here in Orlando, especially Seminole Town Center and the Oviedo Marketplace. 

• Onlooker delays. Need I say more? WTF if I get rear-ended I will chase you.
• People who don’t wipe their mouths after taking a messy bite, and instead try to lick the remnants of their food off of their faces. Seriously, who are these people? Were they brought up by wolves?
• People who brag about how much they drink. I know I’ve been over this, but it wasn’t that cool in college, and it’s definitely not cool now that we’re older. In college, you had the “I’m in college” excuse. Now? You’re just pathetic.

• The words, “I’m just being honest.” That is such a passive-aggressive, bullshit cop-out for saying something that offended someone. Not everyone cares about honesty. Have some fucking tact. GOD! Need an example in action? Check out Ramona from the Real Housewives of New York. I want to poke her bug-eyes out every time she pulls this garbage. Also, my bf has been guilty of this in the past. Honesty is not noble. 
• People who actually go 25 through toll booths. I know it’s the law, but it seriously cramps the style of people like moi who drive older cars that take FOREVER to get back up to speed. 
• People who claim they can’t cook. Yes, you can. I promise. “Cooking” does not always have to be stuffed scallops, souffle, mayo from scratch, or anything else super complicated. “Cooking” might just be spaghetti and meatballs. Just because you failed making something ONE TIME IN THE PAST does not mean you are doomed to a life of culinary fail whale. Fucking try again!

• Failure to know the difference between homonyms. I distinctly remember learning the difference between “two” “too” and “to,” “your” and “you’re,” and my personal favorite, “their” “there” and “they’re” in FIRST FUCKING GRADE. My teacher made us write them on notecards, with the definition on the back, put them on a metal ring that we kept in our desk, and we studied them for five minutes a day. Grammar is not rocket science. It SHOCKS me the amount of educated people I interact with who are not aware of these differences. Even worse are the ones who try and argue with me about it. I will die on this hill BECAUSE I KNOW I AM RIGHT. Lolcats are the lone exception.
• People who ask the same question repeatedly. I understand that people forget. I am one of the most forgetful person I know. But when you ask me the same question every week over a three month period … AND I answer it in writing every time (the last time titled “DON’T DELETE THIS LOGIN INFORMATION”)? Yeah, I’m going to just start fucking with you at that point. Too personal?
• How I am always the most sober person at parties. This is kind of a two-fer … I hate having to take care of selfish, drunk douchebags, but I also don’t want to drink myself under the table just to avoid having to take care of them. That is a no-win. I hate being responsible for the well-being of selfish people. 
• How my computer freezes up or goes SUPER SLOW right when I need it to be normal or fast for 2.5 seconds. This usually happens when a reporter or client is on the phone, or if my boss(es) page me out of nowhere looking for an answer. 

• People who still insist on sending attachments larger than 10M without letting you know first, and who DON’T GET IT. You are a huge company, and it really slowed down your server for a few hours? That shit will crash our server in a heartbeat and ruin several people’s days. 
• When people double space in between sentences. While this may be acceptable in some industries, it is not AP style. Do not try and tell me my business about this. Also, it makes things a nightmare to edit and format. 

Musings on living abroad March 13, 2009

No, by this headline I don’t mean that I’m suddenly planning to uproot, dash overseas with my life’s savings in hand and just wing it for a few months. Actually, I’m kind of writing about why I CAN’T do that (although anyone who knows me knows that I would do this in a heartbeat).

I just finished reading this article in the Seattle P-I about a good friend of mine who lived overseas for a while, and it got some wheels turning. Everyone I’ve ever met who has traveled abroad for any point of time has absolutely loved it, gushed about it, given me the “it’s something you’ll never regret; something you must do at least once in your life” schpeel. 

That’s great, and I would love to do something like that. As stated in the article, the freedom would be pretty cool. You’d be on your own schedule, seeing what you want to see, etc … always.

I hear this is how they travel in Europe

Is it really freedom, though, if you depend on having a no-rent place to live and a crappy hourly job to go home to when it’s all said and done?

Don’t get me wrong, but personally, I dislike that. I really wanted to be independent from my parents as soon as possible. Nothing against them, but I was just ready to be on my own — self-sufficiency was important to me. While I really miss my family a lot, there was something that just rubbed me the wrong way when I lived at home post-college and was working as a server. Kind of like I was taking advantage of them, almost? I mean, I generally expected to live at home for a period after graduation, but I was 22 years old and ready to GTFO.

I guess, for me, what’s frustrating is all I hear is, “Just do it! Wing it, fly by the seat of your pants, etc etc,” but the people who are telling me this have a huge safety net. They don’t have established jobs. I get NINE DAYS A YEAR off. I can’t be cavorting off to Europe or Asia or wherever for weeks — or months — at a time. Also, I would be paying rent for my home HERE. It’s just not feasible. 

I guess what it boils down to is that at this point in my life (just past “entry level,” mid-twenties, etc), creating and establishing a life for yourself, and doing what lots of my friends have done — traveling abroad — seem mutually exclusive. Of course my parents would come through if I ever REALLY needed to move back in, needed money, whatever … but just to jet around the world and have “life experiences”? 

Uh, no. 

“Do you want me to repeat that? All I hear in the back is ‘FUUUUUCCCCKKKKINNNNNGGG'” February 12, 2009

At least that’s what I wish I’d thought to say. Just finished a round of phone calls following up on an event (full disclosure: this is the second round of calls in two days). Someone else picks up the phone, takes a message, and as he repeats my name (and as I am starting my phone number) I just hear, “Fucking Alexis! Fucking Alexis.” in the background.

Yes, sir, I can hear you. And although I would never do this, in a moment of blinded rage (after the “did that just happen?” subsided), I wanted to Tweet this guy’s name and number, request that my followers call him, and tell him Alexis sent them.

Serious class, people.