Upcoming experiment

So my boss recently suggested (not knowing im doing these experiments) that I should not do my sidework for a shift and see what happens. We have a lot of first time employees that don't seem to understand what teamwork is, and I end up busting my ass to make up their slack. Will they notice and do their own jobs, or will things just implode and go to hell in a handbasket? My guess is that people will just complain but still not do anything!

Unexpected social experiment 3: honesty

So sometime this week I was going to purposely leave more change with tables then they were owed and see if they did the right thing. Well, I hadnt quite gotten to that yet when las night, in my rush to take care of 5 tables all needing things at once, I gave a table $5 too much.
And....

They were honest about it!!!

More on this soon

Mr. Bartender

So I had to fill in on the bar today, and it got me thinking about some of our choices as to who is bartending at our restaurant.  I am an ok bartender, just hate doing it. not my comfort zone, it is what it is.  When asked I do it, but other than that let me serve or manage and I'm much happier. When the new night guy showed up today I got to thinking about the people we have back there.  We have people who are either good technical bar tenders, and people who are good personality bartenders, but the two qualities are rarely found in one person.  Thinking back to my years of restaurant and alcohol consumption experience makes me realize just how true that is.  I feel like every place has MAYBE that one guy (or gal) who is both.  Thats what makes a truly great tender stand out from the rest.  Just a thought. and a pretty boring one at that.  guess what it boils down to is i just want a drink lol.

Performance study of new employees

So for the first time ever, I trained someone for their first TWO shifts (rarely does that happen because you always want new employees to work with different people to pick up different things etc).  What I discovered baffled me.  This new guy, lets call him Bob (his name is definitely not Bob) worked A LOT harder on his first day.  The desire to make a first impression was hard at work there! Yesterday he showed more of his true nature. While still working harder than most people there (hmmmm perhaps he just realized he didn't have to do much to be better than most other employees) he definitely sharply dropped off from the previous day.  To the point where he didn't even bother to study our menu. Should be fun to see how the rest of his training pans out. Still have high hopes for this "Bob"

Social Experiment 2: soda bottles

Now that we have delved into office supplies, let us turn our attention to soda bottles. Our restaurant doesn't do fountain drinks, we have 20 oz bottles. That being said, I have observed over the last month that many people do not finish their soda and yet, even tho they have a bottle with a lid, do not take the remainder with them. Now that I've made that observation I decided to do a more accurate in-depth study. Approximately 50% of guests do not finish their drink. Of that group, approximately 25-30% leave half a bottle or more. However, only about 4% of those guests actually think to take the remainder with them. A coworker of mine even had a guest leave behind an unopened bottle. My theory behind this is that since most restaurants use a draft fountain bringing soda home is not really an option. Thusly the average person is programmed to not think twice about leaving behind something they paid for. Further proving that theory is the trend that it is more often younger guests (with less dinning experience and less programming that seem to take the remaining beverage with them. Of course at the end of the day leaving behind 10oz of soda isn't a big deal, just something fun to think about.

Update on Pens!

The trend seems to be elderly guest re-close the pens more often then their younger counterparts.

Social experiment number 1: Pens

The title of this post sounds about as boring as can be. Truth be told, it is a pretty boring topic. If you present a guest a pen with a cap on, do they replace it when done, or leave it on top of the pen, leaving it the writing position. Not a big deal when you think about it in the bigger scheme of things. Who cares? I do. It's a simple study of courtesy. A test to see if people return things the way they received them. And not surprisingly, of the seven tables observed today (slowish Wednesday lunch so not the biggest sample group) only one guest returned the pen the way they got it. To put this in perspective: say you lend your car to a friend. They return it, but leave the doors unlocked so that anyone can just get in. The car is still in perfect working order, but hasn't been returned securely, the way it was given. Not a big deal, just something to think about.