This year has been quite insane for restaurants, but when is it not? Take it from a girl who grew up in a restaurant and now works in one: you see a thing or two while working. Keep reading to learn some tips on how to be a considerate customer the next time you find yourself going out to eat.
Small businesses have had it rough throughout the years of 2020 and 2021. Owning a small business has never been easy, but when another weight gets added on, like a pandemic, things become 10 times worse and obstacles become 10 times harder to get over.
A study done by the U.S Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy shows that "the number of people who were self-employed and working was 20 percent lower in April 2020 than in April 2019." By area, the study shows that self-employment rates were 21 percent lower in April of 2020 than in April 2019 in the metropolitan area. During this time, the start of the pandemic had taken place and major numbers of businesses had to close down. "Locations with larger declines included metropolitan and coastal areas. Industries with larger declines included restaurants and taxi and limousine services.
The United States National Academy of Sciences did a survey of roughly 5,800 small businesses between March 28th and April 4th, 2020. "Across the full sample, 43% of businesses had temporarily closed, and nearly all of these closures were due to COVID-19." They also reported that businesses "reduced their active employment by 39% since January."
Small businesses are struggling more now than they ever have. With obstacles upon obstacles being placed onto them it has not been easy. This year has also brought out a lot of hate towards small businesses, restaurants especially. To counteract that, this article talks about how an individual can be a considerate customer when going to eat at a food establishment.
More likely than not, those working in the food industry did not have a choice. It is one of the most abundant jobs out there and everyone has to eat. But even if it was a choice, we are still human. Too many times have I had to watch co-workers get yelled at because the food is taking a little too long on a super busy night or we forgot to put sauce in the meal. Just like you, we make mistakes. We forget things, pack things incorrectly or get an order wrong-- but I guarantee that, if you treat the worker with kindness and respect, we are more likely to fix the problem faster and not go home and cry ourselves to sleep every night. Trust me, I am tired of crying.
Look, I know you want to be helpful after your meal and that’s great, I love nice customers, but… there is a right and a wrong way to stack your plates. If you are at a restaurant and you just pile your plates at the end of your meal, one on top of the other leaving chunks of food and silverware in between, that is not helpful and please stop. If you scrape chunks of food onto one plate, put the silverware on the same plate THEN stack them with the icky gross plate on top, then marry me. I’m in love with you. If you cannot follow my advice, then just leave your plates where they are and let us handle it. I would rather just stack it myself then have to take the stack apart and then stack it again. It is also easier for the dishwashers since, at most establishments, we have to scrape the food into a trash can before running it in the dishwasher. If you work at an establishment that does not scrape the food into the trash before washing it, then you should quit, or enlighten me about your gross workplace.
Okay, you can put your hands back down on the table now. It is clean; I just cleaned it. What I mean by this is, if you have already sat down for dinner, I beg that you do not ask to switch tables. If you really, really have to, please do it before ANY of the food comes out. This puts more work on the workers because they have to move all your things to the next table you want to sit at and wipe the table you were just sitting at down. I don’t think it is very fun for either party, so stop being indecisive and keep your butt in that seat like it’s Sean staying in character for a play (if you don’t know, Sean is a writer for The Scroll and is really good at staying in character).
I know all children are not bad, but if your kid is making a mess at the table and all you do is apologize, I will have an attitude towards you for the rest of your meal. I understand that kids will be kids (well, maybe not because I don’t have my own), but maybe feed your kids instead of letting them stick their hands in the food and tossing it around? I’ll leave this one up to the parents, but if I come back to your table after you leave with a handful of rice on the ground, I will be extremely upset. If you leave a big tip and you are trying your hardest to control your kid, then I will gladly clean up the bowl of noodles that you let your child play with under the table.
I get that some days don't go as planned and people end up having dinner at 9:00 at night, but if you ask what time we close and it is less than 20 minutes before we close AND you still sit your pretty entitled butt into a booth, then I will give you the worst service I have given anyone all day. That’s a lie, I am deathly afraid of confrontation and, if you say anything about me being rude, I will cry. I will be as nice as I possibly can, but I will be screaming internally. Just please be considerate. A lot of workers who work in the food industry are high school students and have to wake up the next day to go to school at 6 am. We are stressed enough and we want to go home to sleep or do 5 hours worth of homework.
To the females out there (or those who present more feminine), I am sure you can relate to me when I say this whether you work in the food industry or not. We don’t care for the compliments or should I say “compliments,” people give us. Maybe some of you out there are actually trying to be nice and telling us that our outfit is cool or that we look pretty, but most of us would rather you just take your food, say thank you, and leave. Even if you have good intentions, the world is drowning in too much evil for us to feel like you are being genuine--unless you snap your fingers and the world goes poof and everything bad in the world is gone-- just don’t make any comments about us at our workplace or anywhere else. I would rather you shove a beef burger down my throat and that is saying a lot, considering I am vegetarian.
Or you must just not be a nice person. We all have bad days, but if your bad days mean that you are going to go to a food establishment (a choice that YOU made) and yell at an employee for a simple mistake, then I think you need more therapy than most of the teens working in a restaurant. Once again, we all make mistakes. We get orders wrong, we mess up, but if your solution to fixing that problem is to yell at a minimum wage worker who also probably goes to school and is swamped with homework, then you should not be going into public establishments. Just go make a PB&J at home, please.
Different places tell you different times your food will be ready. At a fast food restaurant? Maybe a 10 minute wait. At a sit down restaurant? Maybe a 30 minute wait. Whether it takes 1 minute for your food to come out or 1 hour for your food to come out, we will never give you the real time your food will take. This is not because we hate you, but because we have absolutely no idea. It is quite literally impossible for anyone to know how long your food will take unless you have super powers and can see into the future. We do not know how busy it will be or how long the cook will take. Not even the cook knows exactly how long it will take to make your food. Once again, yelling at a person-- no matter what position they work in-- because your food is taking longer than expected just makes you a rude person and will absolutely not make your food come out faster. If you think yelling at someone will make your food be done faster, then you should take yourself to a boxing match so you can watch what someone might do to you one day if you keep up with that behavior.
Working in the food industry is not easy, especially when you are a student. Whether you are going to a fast food establishment or sitting down at a local restaurant, what we do to make money does not give you a pass to treat us less than human. Also do not forget to tip what you can, when you can, no matter where you are. Sometimes, those tips are what we need to find our next meal.
If you would like to read some articles about how COVID has impacted local businesses, here in Grants Pass, then please refer to our previous local business column:
