Greetings Dear Reader,
I need to ask you a circumstantial question. You are at an expensive restaurant for
dinner. You are dining alone but you are
content. Your server greets you and
engages in light chit-chat, suggests a featured meal, and takes your drink
order. You choose to have crab
cakes, steamed asparagus, and sweet potato salad. You enjoy some excellent fresh-baked rolls
as you await your meal.
The server brings you your sweet tea. It is good but obviously a tad bitter. You choose to ignore it and enjoy another
roll. Your meal arrives. It looks excellent. It is not.
The crab cakes are not done in the middle and obviously, have too much
garlic. The asparagus is mush. The sweet potato salad is bland and tastes
mostly like mayonnaise.
Your server enquires as to your satisfaction with the
meal. You choose not to say
anything. Your celebratory mood,
however, is now cold and dismal. The
bill arrives. The cost of your meal is
$22.16. My question is this: what do
you leave as a tip?
If you leave anything less than you would normally leave
there is a problem. It is not her fault
that the kitchen failed. You did not
bother to investigate as to whether she could correct the problem. You did not give the establishment a chance
to correct the errors of the meal or replace it with something different.
How we treat workers in the service industry matters. It says a great deal about us. We all know on some level that servers, bartenders, and attendants make less than most people. They depend on tips for their income. Our choice to go out to eat obligates us to
reward good service.
When others serve us, that alone puts us in a position of
power even if they are paid to do so.
It is in this that we find our own character as we are going. Like stopping for gas, our meal, no matter
the circumstance is an opportunity to be good to someone. A question I always ask servers is one to
show interest in him or her. I ask, “Is
this what you love to do for work or are you working toward something
else?”
I have had people share their dreams and aspirations with
me. I have been able to encourage
strangers because of that question. I
have even made life-long friends from being good to servers. A guy who was our cabana attendant at a beach
vacation overheard me teaching my Grandsons how to respect him and the work he
does. He took me aside and told me how
much it meant to him. As you are going
you can impact lives by being good to those who serve you.
How we treat service people, even if the service is bad says
more about us than anything. As we are
going, we have the power to be good or bad to them. If we choose always to be good, we can make a
difference even if we never see it. I
have a dear friend who was my server at a very popular burger chain. She brought my daughter the wrong burger
three times. It was not something that
could be spotted by inspection. We made
sure we treated her with kindness and grace.
A year later, I encountered her as manager of a café. I remembered her and when I related the
story, she also remembered me. We have
been good friends ever since.
Jesus makes it clear that how we treat the least of these is
how we treat him. Look the Doorman in the eye.
Smile at the waitress and be patient with her. Do not blame the worker for the failures of
the management. Please ponder this as you are going Dear Reader. Tell me your thoughts and if you work serving
others, tell me a story.
Wishing you joy in the journey,
Aramis Thorn
Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every
writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a
homeowner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure
store.”
(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Contacts for Aramis
Thorn:
Bookings: aramisthorn@aramisthorn.com
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