As a server I genuinely do care about my guests. I have no issue yelling at a cook to hurry it up on your food, get your refills, or even give you directions to the nearest movie theater. I enjoy making people happy and giving them a good experience when I wait on them.
Something that my company has been pushing lately is "Full Glass of ICE" no excuses. So basically I fill the glass up to the rim with ice and the air between the ice holds what little liquid fits.
This frustrates me because it causes several problems. First, it pisses off guests! They don't want a whole glass of ice, they pay almost 3$ for that soda, tea, lemonade, etc. Secondly, it makes me have to do more trips to get more refills.
I have literally had guests complain and ask "Could you put less ice in the next refill?" and when I go to do that my managers will yell at me and say "full glass of ice!" so I politely say "The guest asked for less ice..." and in return I hear "Tell them you will bring them as many refills as they need. Fill it with ice!" ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME! This is the same company who will comp a burger if the customer doesn't like the extra mayo they asked for, or comp a dessert because the girl who just turned 21 forgot her ID and wasn't able to order a drink. I understand they want to keep the guest happy, but they are willing to use cost of food over soda syrup.
So why would a company require something that keeps its servers busy running refills that waste glasses, ice, and time??? Their reasoning for doing this is to save on the COST of soda... Biggest load of GARBAGE ever. People will just require more refills.... And because I have to bring a new glass with fresh ice every refill, time gets wasted. Now we need more glasses (cost), more ice (water cost, electricity cost to run the ice maker), wash more glasses (dish soap, and water cost), more time from servers to get refills, keep ice stocked, and send glasses through the washer (guest waiting cost (HURTS MY POCKET)). Not sure, but I feel like there is zero progress being made in saving money. People will still drink the same amount, it's just costing more to provide the refill!
Now this has been on my nerves for months since my company, and managers, have been nagging me to FILL THE GLASS WITH ICE! But it's really striking me because they cut back costs in such ridiculous ways!
So this same company who can't spend X amount of dollars on soda syrup can take all of their stores GMs on conferences, all expenses paid, every year! Last year my GM was taken on a cruise with the company at no cost to him. He maybe sat in 4 hours worth of meetings to sit on his butt and drink the other 5 days of the trip! Similar trips happen each year... I'm starting to think we aren't cutting costs to save on soda, but better yet we are paying for these silly trips given to people who already make over 60k a year.
Realistically I know they don't cut costs for these trips, but I feel like maybe if they didn't hold these trips then there would be less need to cut costs within the place where money is actually made.
I understand I am not a business person. I'm about to graduate for psychology, not accounting, so numbers and cost/revenue aren't my strong points. Regardless of what my ability is, I think there is plenty of room to say that this company ought to get its priorities straight. If we really cared about the customer we wouldn't shove a 3$ glass of ice in their face and pass it off as soda.
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