That Tablet On The Table At Your Favorite Restaurant Is Hurting Your Waiter (buzzfeed.com)

How can people not know... by forkfail · 2018-06-22 08:16 · Score: 4, Insightful

... that the ratings will be used to evaluate their wait person?

I really hate those things, personally. And I don't like to be forced to provide survey information before I am allowed to pay my bill. Especially knowing that the impact of that rating is potentially going to be a lot more significant than a small or large tip. As a result, you'd just about have to curse me out and throw my food at me to get anything less than a perfect rating.

A bad day for a wait person might result in a poor tip. It should not result in loss of hours or job. Unless it is truly chronic. In which case, even the proverbial Chotchkie's manager ought to be able to diagnose and correct the problem...

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Check your premises.

Re:How can people not know... by 110010001000 · 2018-06-22 08:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

You aren't forced to provide survey information. One bad rating doesn't affect a waiter. If you read the article the waiters were complaining because their managers decided to cut their hours because they were getting consistently bad ratings.
Re:How can people not know... by bondsbw · 2018-06-22 08:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

As a result, you'd just about have to curse me out and throw my food at me to get anything less than a perfect rating.
A big problem with any numeric survey is that we don't give the same rating for the same performance. My default rating is 3 out of 5 for "average". Your default is a perfect 5 for "I hope you don't lose your job". The next guy might default to 4, or even 1 for "you have to earn it".
Surveys that are tied to wages or job retention should be binary and allow for comments. "Were you satisfied with your server?" "If no, please explain." That's enough.

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All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Re:How can people not know... by ctilsie242 · 2018-06-22 08:27 · Score: 2

I always take the survey to give the waiters all 5s. I'm neutral about those things, the biggest thing I like is the fact that I can punch out, swipe my card, and be out without having to wait for the check and card to be returned. Of course, the downside, it is another camera, screen with flashing crap on it, and a microphone in your face, and $DEITY knows what is done with the audio/video footage those devices get.
Re:How can people not know... by forkfail · 2018-06-22 08:30 · Score: 4, Insightful

The ones at the local Pizza Uno are in the workflow, and are not optimal to complete the transaction.
And I did read the article. It appears it doesn't take much to get cut.
I think that this bit really sums it up:

“It makes very literal the idea that the customer is always right, to the complete disregard of the worker.”
Petty and entitled customers get to play god with the servers jobs. But worse, they get to do it anonymously. They don't have to face the person or their boss - just click a button and quietly stick the dagger in someone's back. If someone really has a problem, they should have to go to the manager, and not be given this coward's weapon.

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Check your premises.
Re:How can people not know... by As_I_Please · 2018-06-22 08:30 · Score: 3, Informative

Yeah, customers aren't told what the scores really mean:

Ziosk scores are tabulated as an average out of five stars, and on the device, it says four out of five stars means “satisfied.” But anything less than perfect drags a score down and has the potential to hurt the server.
“The company only counts fives as good scores,” said Mathew, who works at an Uno Pizzeria & Grill in New Hampshire. “Everything else is basically a complaint.”
...
Also surprising to customers is the fact that survey questions that have seemingly nothing to do with a server’s duties, like how well their food was prepared, are factored into a server’s overall rating. Restaurant brands, not Ziosk itself, set the questions on the device, which means they can vary widely. Some common questions across restaurants include, “How likely would you be to return to this restaurant?” “How would you rate the cleanliness of this restaurant?” and “How likely would you be to recommend this restaurant to a friend?”
...
Brittany, who serves at a Chili’s in the Midwest, meanwhile, said customers have given her low Ziosk ratings because of problems with the plumbing in her restaurant. “It ... cost me a few shifts, so that was less money,” she said..
Re:How can people not know... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-06-22 08:33 · Score: 1

My thoughts similarly. Only instead of "your default is 3, mine is 5", I was thinking how the people most likely to actually fill out such a survey, are the ones who got shit service. No one ever goes "I loved the service, I must fill out this survey and tell management about it", but many go "my service was shit so I will fill out this survey and make it known".
Re:How can people not know... by Mr+D+from+63 · 2018-06-22 08:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

A bad day for a wait person might result in a poor tip. It should not result in loss of hours or job. Unless it is truly chronic. In which case, even the proverbial Chotchkie's manager ought to be able to diagnose and correct the problem...
A bad day is one thing. But consistent poor performance compared to other servers is another.
Re:How can people not know... by 110010001000 · 2018-06-22 08:38 · Score: 4, Funny

The article is ridiculous. Any manager knows who the good employees are already - they are using this as a tool to justify the action. The fact is if you are getting consistently low scores compared to others at the same location there is an issue. Even in white collar jobs there are places where your coworkers can give anonymous feedback during your review. People hate it. I know I do, because I always get low scores (probably because I am so awesome and they are all jealous, not because I post on slashdot all day).
Re:How can people not know... by H3lldr0p · 2018-06-22 08:42 · Score: 4, Insightful

That's the way these surveys have been used for a while now. I know people who used to work at GameStop and the same applied to them. Anything less than a perfect score didn't count for anything positive.
It's a purposeful misunderstanding of how statistics work and only used to squeeze working people harder everyday. The management only want a single number to understand things when the world doesn't even come close to working like that. Nuance is lost because it's hard to manage through it. By making it a literal pass/fail, black or white situation you've suddenly gained the ability to fire people on a whim if business has a slight downturn. Keep the churn going, there's always another 18 year old kid looking for after school money.
Re:How can people not know... by Mr+D+from+63 · 2018-06-22 08:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

But this is really unfair to the motivational challenged, and those with effort and attitude disabilities.
Re:How can people not know... by 110010001000 · 2018-06-22 08:48 · Score: 2

Yes, but we aren't talking about me.
Re:How can people not know... by mlyle · 2018-06-22 08:51 · Score: 3, Interesting

Unless there's some kind of systemic bias --- in what kind of customers someone gets (e.g. ratings are poorer at night)--- it should average out and you should be able to use an average of different customers' types of ratings to compare employees. I agree yes or no questions, and long form "please explain" have value *also* in teasing apart what the customer experience is actually like.
Re:How can people not know... by alvinrod · 2018-06-22 08:53 · Score: 4, Interesting

I have a hard time believing that though. You can't just remove one worker without replacing them with another or bumping someone else's hours up. It really doesn't matter what score a person gets as long as it's not the worst. If everyone gets a 5.0 and you're at a 4.8, then you're the lowest scoring person. If you've got a 3.0, but everyone else is in the 2's, then you're the best person there. Management isn't going to cut hours for someone with a 4.5 unless it's worse than everyone else, in which case can you blame them? If it was your business, wouldn't you want to give more customers the best experience possible?
Re:How can people not know... by sconeu · 2018-06-22 08:56 · Score: 3, Insightful

I've been told many times that on those surveys "management considers anything less than an 8 [out of 10] a fail"

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General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Re:How can people not know... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-06-22 09:04 · Score: 1

Any survey that doesn't have free form text fields for comments and also doesn't have an additional survey about the establishment (unrelated to the waiter or customer representative) is a pile of garbage. When people know that the representative is helpful but that the company itself has garbage business practices then they feel like the survey is the only place to respond - to the detriment of the representative.
Re:How can people not know... by flargleblarg · 2018-06-22 09:07 · Score: 1

It's a purposeful misunderstanding of how statistics work and only used to squeeze working people harder every day.
FTFY.
Re:How can people not know... by forkfail · 2018-06-22 09:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

I actually agree with this.
What I don't agree is the ability of what amounts to AC's having this level of control.
Don't like the service? Don't tip.
Really don't like the service? Talk to the manager.
But because the waiter scowled at your screaming, snot nose kid when he poured his coffee all over the the waiter's pants and you and your kids are entitled to better and so you gave him a 1 and got his hours cut is not right. And if you don't think that happens on a regular basis, then perhaps you'd share some of what you are smoking.

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Check your premises.
Re:How can people not know... by msauve · 2018-06-22 09:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

"If you read the article the waiters were complaining because their managers decided to cut their hours because they were getting consistently bad ratings."

Yep. Ratings are relative. For those complaining their hours were cut due to poor ratings, there are others (unheard from here) who saw an increase in hours because they had better ratings.

Win-win. Customers get better service, waitstaff gets rewarded based on the quality of their work.

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"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Re:How can people not know... by Trailer+Trash · 2018-06-22 09:24 · Score: 1

This is exactly correct. The main reason for "if not, why?" is that many problems with servers are really problems with the restaurant. In probably 90% of the cases where I've been unsatisfied with my restaurant experience it's not the fault of the waiter, but rather issues that are beyond their control. The most common is short staffing that forces the waiter to have more tables than they can possibly handle effectively.
The problem is that while folks like me understand that, most don't. So if the meal's taking too long, the waiter must be lazy, right? No, it's because the kitchen was unusually busy and got behind. Etc.
I have actually given waiters high marks even when the overall experience sucked simply because I know it's not their fault.
Don't even get me started on "standard service is 5-star!"

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Do you have ESP?
Re:How can people not know... by cayenne8 · 2018-06-22 09:24 · Score: 4, Insightful

Don't like the service? Don't tip.
Really don't like the service? Talk to the manager.
THIS^^
So much THIS!!!
Nothing motivates a server like a good tip.
I remember this from MY waiting and bartending days....and I also remember to try to keep up MY end of the arrangement and be a cheerful, happy and friendly customer.
It's amazing what being nice, and tipping decently will do for you if you become a regular somewhere.
I'm the one getting a bit more attention and better drinks and food and service than you, perhaps just because of this.
Give it a try, especially if you are a regular somewhere.
Hell, I like to call out my bartenders and waiters by name when I can, before their ever looking for a name tag......I mean, you know how good it makes YOU feel when someone remembers your name?
Its all about people and people skills folks....and the bottom line on top of that.....they work for tips.
It can be quite lucrative.

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Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Re:How can people not know... by aix+tom · 2018-06-22 09:27 · Score: 1

What I would *really* like to be able to to, as a customer, is to rate the customers at the neighbouring tables. Somewhat the equivalent of the Slashdot Meta-Moderation (if that is still around). ;-P
Re:How can people not know... by klubar · 2018-06-22 09:29 · Score: 1

The other (and frequently more common) reason are
Regulatory requirements -- especially true in highly regulated industries like financial services or medicine. Although almost every business has regulatory needs from trucking to manufacturing.
Competitive pressure -- our competitor has a cooler widget and we are losing customers so we need one too.
Cost saving might be the third or fourth reason.
Re:How can people not know... by aix+tom · 2018-06-22 09:31 · Score: 1

Of course, there are also CIOs who say "Since this new system is going to increase efficiency, how many more customers can we serve with the same staff"?
But they seem to be a dying breed.....
Re:How can people not know... by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · 2018-06-22 09:54 · Score: 2

God help the waiter who, when wandering by, absentmindedly wonders if Linux would be destroyed by hacker assaults the way Windows was, were it to become similarly popular and thus the focus of attacker attention, giving the lie to the slashdot denizen belief that it is inherently much more secure, when it just hasn't been pounded on round the clock by a thousand motivated hackers in corrupt countries.

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(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Re:How can people not know... by Obfuscant · 2018-06-22 09:54 · Score: 1

It's amazing what being nice, and tipping decently will do for you if you become a regular somewhere.
The problem with your argument is that it applies to regular customers and not at all to transients. The TIP comes AFTER the service, and thus cannot be a causal mechanism for GOOD service. The only time a good tip does cause better service is when you are a known regular, the tip amount applies to the LAST few tips and not the tip for this service, and being a known regular is going to get you better service anyway.

I mean, you know how good it makes YOU feel when someone remembers your name?
Not at all good. I went into a hardware store a couple of days ago and one of the employees calls me by name. Huh? I looked at him for a bit trying to identify where he would know me from, because I've only been in that store once before. After an awkward bit of time, he reminded me I was wearing a name tag. I was not pleased by the encounter at all.
The upside of the anonymous rating system is that many people are hesitant to create awkward face-to-face situations, and are less likely to report bad service to a manager. I don't like doing it, but I will seek one out when I get really good service. The difference is that saying "Jake did great" is so much less awkward that "you hired a dork", but the manager still needs to know about his dork server so he can fix it.
And, if I am a transient, I will not be highly motivated to seek out a manager to report a problem because it costs me time and I will never see any positive result from it.
Re:How can people not know... by Roger+W+Moore · 2018-06-22 10:03 · Score: 1

Don't like the service? Don't tip.
...but then how will the manager know that the reason they are losing business is that one of their wait staff is useless? Not tipping only hurts the waiter but bad service hurts the restaurant's business too. While there will certainly be some people who have utterly unreasonable expectations these should be randomly distributed between all the wait staff and so affect all of them equally. When the primary objective of your job is to keep random members of the public happy surveys are a very good way to measure job performance. The fact that some of your customers are complete gits is sadly part of the job and how you deal with them matters.
Re:How can people not know... by KingOfBLASH · 2018-06-22 10:10 · Score: 1

In addition to the problems with changing metrics between patrons, we also see bias in survey results. Women and minorities tend to score lower on surveys for doing the same work. There was a study that proved this by changing the name (and perceived race and gender) of an instructor in an online class. In all classes, the instructor remained the same, although the survey averages were quite different.
Re:How can people not know... by dinfinity · 2018-06-22 10:24 · Score: 1

Keep the churn going, there's always another 18 year old kid looking for after school money.
This is the crux.
Try this shit in a market where there is a shortage of skilled labor and you're fucked. In a market where giving people a job pretty much amounts to charity, the laborers are fucked. Tablet ratings or no tablet ratings. They simply have no leverage.
Don't like whatever shit you have to deal with? Suck it up or get lost. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
What I'm saying is this is a non-story: It's not the tablet reviews, stupid.
Re:How can people not know... by Obfuscant · 2018-06-22 10:24 · Score: 1

Not tipping only hurts the waiter

As I understand it, in many places tips are pooled and shared amongst the entire wait-staff, including bussers. Not tipping in those places hurts everyone, and the fact that Jane is a screw up who gets no tips is hidden by the common tip pool. Of course, when the tip is on the charge slip it can be figured out, but cash tips (the best kind, because they can become tax-free) are almost anonymous.
Re:How can people not know... by Obfuscant · 2018-06-22 10:30 · Score: 2

So you freely admit that you trade convenience for privacy? Why would you continue to go to a restaurant that you think is recording your conversations at the table? Is it the only place in town that sells crack along with the burgers?
Re:How can people not know... by Cramer · 2018-06-22 10:50 · Score: 1

Play God?!? One person is not "god". One review will not get you fired. A PATTERN of bad reviews will get you fired.
Re:How can people not know... by mspohr · 2018-06-22 11:20 · Score: 2

You're right. It's basically a master/slave relationship.
You, the customer, are the master. The slave must do whatever you want (ever wonder why sexual harassment of female waitstaff is so high).
Time to eliminate tipping so waitstaff won't have to prostitute themselves to earn a living. Just pay them a decent wage.

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I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Re:How can people not know... by mspohr · 2018-06-22 11:22 · Score: 1

Keep the slaves happy with good tips.
You are the master.

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I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Re:How can people not know... by CaptainDork · 2018-06-22 11:25 · Score: 1

This ain't no shit:
At a corporate review, the guy said, "Look ... the users love you, but you don't really conform to corporate standards."
I asked, "Are you even listening to yourself?"

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It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Re:How can people not know... by taustin · 2018-06-22 11:29 · Score: 1

What you describe isn't really a problem with the technology, it's a problem with a stupid, incompetent, lazy boss. The technology just makes it far more efficient to identify them as such.
Re:How can people not know... by BlazeMiskulin · 2018-06-22 11:48 · Score: 2

The problem with your argument is that it applies to regular customers and not at all to transients. The TIP comes AFTER the service, and thus cannot be a causal mechanism for GOOD service.

Wrong.
It isn't 100%--because some customers are self-important, snobbish, or cheap--but in the aggregate, it is an excellent mechanism for getting good service. Anyone who works in business or industry understands this. It's the same as year-end bonuses or profit-sharing. "If you do a good job, there will be a bonus at the end."
Plus, an experienced server knows how to spot those people that won't leave a good tip (it's almost always quite obvious in their behavior from the get-go). I've worked F&B off-and-on for about 30 years (I've family in the business, and frequently helped out). I could tell you with 70% accuracy if a table would be good tippers before they even sat down. After taking their order, that would jump up to 95%.
Waiting tables is a skill. It involves acting, customer service, sales techniques, conflict resolution, and an incredible degree of self-control. If you think the servers are all just going through the paces until after you've tipped them once, you're quite mistaken. Any server worth their salt will know how you're going to tip and adjust their approach (and expectations) accordingly.
Re:How can people not know... by BrianMarshall · 2018-06-22 11:55 · Score: 1

The management only want a single number to understand things when the world doesn't even come close to working like that.
This brings to mind: "Management by Goals and Objectives".

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"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -- HST
Re:How can people not know... by Paxtez · 2018-06-22 12:06 · Score: 1

Most sit down restaurants don't do this, especially the chains. Everyone evaluates themselves to be better than average. A system like that helps people who perform below average, so most people would prefer not to work there.
Most restaurants will do 'tip-out', which is when you pay 1-5% of your total tips to the bussers, hosts, bar staff, etc. at the end of your shift. So a bad/no tip to a server primarily hurts the server, but it does slightly hurt the people they tip out.
(Not like it matters anyways, when a server gets a bad tip it is never "Oh no. I must be having a bad night, I should improve!", but rather "Wow, what a dick!")
Re:How can people not know... by larryjoe · 2018-06-22 12:28 · Score: 2

I've been told many times that on those surveys "management considers anything less than an 8 [out of 10] a fail"
Then the problem is with the management for overvaluing a survey that is non-uniformly sampled, based on a small sample size that results in large confidence intervals, with statistical aggregation based on non-standardized data, and that doesn't collect corresponding data to tease out factors (e.g., maybe low scores are correlated with time of day, amount of purchase, etc.).
Re:How can people not know... by Swave+An+deBwoner · 2018-06-22 13:07 · Score: 1

And then there are the Amazon 1-star reviews that state "This _x_ is absolutely perfect!!!"
I guess they figure "I gave it a gold star!"
Re:How can people not know... by bingoUV · 2018-06-22 13:46 · Score: 1

Only the good managers know about good employees. Good managers cost more than tablets : so now we have bad managers + tablets.

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Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Re:How can people not know... by Carrot007 · 2018-06-22 13:51 · Score: 1

Free form comments?
You might have to pay someone to interpret that shit!
And the establishment don't care if it's at fault. It want to blame someone.
It's kinds of if they want to blame workers who are easy to replace rather than address any problems they have.
Management knows these surveys are balls. They just don't care.

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+----------------- | What is the question!
Re:How can people not know... by Carrot007 · 2018-06-22 13:52 · Score: 1

> The management only want a single number to understand things
I present my new survey scoring.
Rate [some bollocks] on a scale of 0 to 1.
Job done.

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+----------------- | What is the question!
Re: How can people not know... by guruevi · 2018-06-22 14:06 · Score: 1

You're wrong. They are reported during taxes by the employee. Tips are supposed to go into the pocket and nobody is any wiser how much you got. It's why waiters could be paid less than minimum wage in the past.

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Re:How can people not know... by Obfuscant · 2018-06-22 14:09 · Score: 2

"If you do a good job, there will be a bonus at the end."
Using that statement to induce good performance is based ENTIRELY on "regular customer" status. I.e., if you've worked for this employer for one month and never seen what his bonus looks like, you'll not have as much incentive as someone who has been there ten years and knows the bonus history has been really good. Tipping, for transient customers, cannot be the cause of good service because there is no history to predict what the tip will be. It could be zip, it could be great.

I could tell you with 70% accuracy if a table would be good tippers before they even sat down. After taking their order, that would jump up to 95%.
So you base your service not on what their tip IS, but what you predict it will be. That's different.

If you think the servers are all just going through the paces until after you've tipped them once, you're quite mistaken.
I said nothing of the sort. I said that good service cannot be caused by the tip. Period. Good service is something that is caused by a desire to get a good tip, maybe, and maybe because of pride in their work, or maybe any number of reasons. But what I tip cannot be the cause, because that number is unknown even to me prior to it being left on the table.

Any server worth their salt will know how you're going to tip

And any server who guesses wrong is going to pay for it. Base your service on prejudice and your tip will suffer accordingly. If you base your level of service on what you predict the tip will be, you may find yourself with a self-fulfilling prophecy. I know that any server that ASSUMES I will stiff him on the tip and decides to provide poor service WILL be getting a miniscule tip. Never 0, because 0 can be cultural (some cultures don't tip), or it can be forgetfulness. But $1 on a $20 tab is a sign that I think your service sucks. Or even 47 cents on a $19.53 tab. Have I run across such poor service that I would do that? Yes, I have, but rarely. And it has to be really bad -- not just slow or "a bad day" kinds of things. Guessing I'm going to stiff them and ignoring me is one of those "really bad" cases.
And I'll also tell you, I don't leave the tip until I leave the table. I had one server who took a $14 tab up to the register with my $20 bill and decided not to come back until I asked her explicitly where my change was. She thought her tip was going to be $6 (43%). Wanna guess what it turned out to be? It was one of the only times "zero" was the right answer.
Re:How can people not know... by ljw1004 · 2018-06-22 14:52 · Score: 1

So much THIS!!! Nothing motivates a server like a good tip.
Tipping is structurally unable to achieve the kind of service which I want - which is a waiter who doesn't interrupt me while I'm eating or talking to ask if everything is okay.
Re: How can people not know... by ljw1004 · 2018-06-22 17:43 · Score: 1

If the waiter checks back shortly after delivering the food, the waiter will be interrupting my eating and likely interrupting my conversation. This is the kind of service I specifically DON'T want.
Re: How can people not know... by Zero__Kelvin · 2018-06-22 19:02 · Score: 1

You still haven't figured out that desirable targets running Linux far, far outnumber Windows ones and have for more than a decade. That is sad.

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Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Re:How can people not know... by Solandri · 2018-06-22 19:06 · Score: 1

Yeah, I don't see what the fuss is. This is zero-sum in terms of employment. For ever work-hour someone lost, someone else gained a work-hour. If you're on the short end, you need to step up your game.

In terms of customer service, it's positive-sum. Customers get more time with better waiters, less time with poor waiters. Restaurant improves its overall service. Better waiters get rewarded. Bad waiters get a feedback indicating how they need to improve. It's win-win-win-win, unless you're an obstinate bad waiter who refuses to change and are upset at losing work hours.
Re:How can people not know... by Solandri · 2018-06-22 19:14 · Score: 2

It's a problem if you're trying to obtain an absolute measurement of customer satisfaction. e.g. Waiter A is 1.5x better than waiter B.

If you're trying to obtain a relative measure of customer satisfaction (e.g. do customers like waiter A or waiter B more?), then it's a valid measure as long as your sample size (number of customer surveys per waiter) is large enough that these individual deviations in rate scaling average out. Ratings at sites like IMDB and Netflix have to deal with the same problem. But their sample size is large enough that the best movies do end up percolating to the top ratings.
Re:How can people not know... by thegarbz · 2018-06-22 21:04 · Score: 1

Don't like the service? Don't tip.
If I do like the service I don't tip. Fuck the tipping culture. Pay your waiters a living wage like in sensible countries.
As a side note I actually hate the waiting culture in America too. Everyone is so dependent on tips they run up and interrupt you with their fake smiles every 2 seconds asking you how your meal is going. The meal is going fine, now let me actually eat it! Yes I'm finished, no I don't want to leave just so you can make another tip from the next people who sit down, let me enjoy going out without interrupting me every 30 seconds!
The flip side of it is an American friend joined me in Amsterdam a few months back and got fully agitated that we had been sitting there for 5 minutes already and hadn't even been given menus yet. I made some snide comment about him being on European time now, and to chill a bit.
Re:How can people not know... by Gryle · 2018-06-22 21:35 · Score: 1

Yes, this. I just want to eat my meal. I will signal if I need something. Otherwise, let me alone.

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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
Re: How can people not know... by sg_oneill · 2018-06-22 22:43 · Score: 1

Yeah I feel the same. After finding out about Uber Drivers losing their job with anything less than a 4.5 rating locally I refuse to give anything less than a 5 , except to the guy that picked me up drunk once and the guy who drove backwards down a one way street nearly killing a pedestrian.
I ain't no snitch

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Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Re: How can people not know... by orlanz · 2018-06-22 22:53 · Score: 1

HA loved that response. Made my day!
Re: How can people not know... by mrvan · 2018-06-23 00:01 · Score: 2

If the waiter checks back shortly after delivering the food, the waiter will be interrupting my eating and likely interrupting my conversation. This is the kind of service I specifically DON'T want.
Yup.
When I started out as a waiter I was instructed to do just this (ask whether everything is in order a couple minutes after bringing the plates) and maybe for a mediocre restaurant that's actually a good idea. But you shouldn't go to mediocre restaurants, or at least not go there and then complain about it.
In a good restaurant they are confident that they didn't forget anything and that the food is good. However, they will actually keep an eye on the table, and if they spot something is wrong (guests are looking around, someone didn't start eating, etc) then you come in to ask if everything is alright. Because maybe they decided they'd actually prefer a different wine, or they want to ask something about the food or whatever.
Sign of good service: the waiter is always there when you need him, and never interrupts you.
The problem is: this requires a (socially) smart person and/or years of experience, and preferably both. Parisian service has a bad rep, but the places where you see mostly 50+ year olds waiting actually have really good service most of the time (speaking 3 words of tourist French helps) because they treat it as a profession, not a side job. But these people obviously cost more than 5-10$ per hour, and a lot of people prefer to pay less for their burger and get a novice waiter to help them. Which is fine, but again: don't complain about it.
Re:How can people not know... by mrvan · 2018-06-23 00:03 · Score: 2

So much THIS!!! Nothing motivates a server like a good tip.
Tipping is structurally unable to achieve the kind of service which I want - which is a waiter who doesn't interrupt me while I'm eating or talking to ask if everything is okay.
Also, there is such a strong social pressure to give a certain %tip in the US, that tipping doesn't really give off a strong message about serving quality anymore. They should really just pay the waiting staff a decent wage (and increase the price of the food/drinks by whatever % needed), and then I will give a tip iff I like the service.
Re:How can people not know... by Marxist+Hacker+42 · 2018-06-23 03:31 · Score: 1

Welcome to the world of http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

--
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Re:How can people not know... by i286NiNJA · 2018-06-23 06:18 · Score: 1

I fill out the surveys max stars because I know most people probably don't and any place that puts a computer on my table in order to rate my waiter is likely to shower them with cultlike adoration as a demonstration to upper management that they're super 100% excited about and on board with their latest psuedoscientific management fad.
Re:How can people not know... by Desty · 2018-06-23 07:29 · Score: 1

If I could fill in a survey about the quality of that comment I'd give you five stars. A+++, would read again.
Re:How can people not know... by BlazeMiskulin · 2018-06-23 10:12 · Score: 2

You appear to significantly misunderstand how service in the F&B industry works

"If you do a good job, there will be a bonus at the end."
Using that statement to induce good performance is based ENTIRELY on "regular customer" status.
No. Not at all. A server with any experience (and/or common sense) goes into a job armed with quite a bit of information about what sort of tips to expect.

I.e., if you've worked for this employer for one month and never seen what his bonus looks like, you'll not have as much incentive as someone who has been there ten years and knows the bonus history has been really good. Tipping, for transient customers, cannot be the cause of good service because there is no history to predict what the tip will be. It could be zip, it could be great.
Only if you're completely ignorant of the restaurant's menu, clientele, and reputation; don't understand the local economy; and have neglected to ask the manager, owner, and/or other servers what the average tips are.
One of the very first questions any applicant asks is "what are the tips like?" And the response will be "An average server gets X, a really good server gets Y." And, of course, there's the fact that you learn what the "bonus" will be in the very first hour on the job.

I could tell you with 70% accuracy if a table would be good tippers before they even sat down. After taking their order, that would jump up to 95%.
I said that good service cannot be caused by the tip. Period. Good service is something that is caused by a desire to get a good tip, maybe, and maybe because of pride in their work, or maybe any number of reasons. But what I tip cannot be the cause, because that number is unknown even to me prior to it being left on the table.
The issue here is that you're looking at this in a strictly linear, discrete incident, direct cause-and-effect, way. And that's not how it works. That's not how it works in most industries. Commissions, profit-sharing, and promotions are all "unknown until after the job is done". And yet... all of those are incentives for working harder and doing a better job.
Scenario: I'm a server, new to the profession. I provide reasonably good service to 100 people on my first night. I make tips ranging from 5% to 25%. Assuming an average of 4 person to a table (and no large parties), I have--on the first day--25 data points by which to judge both the quality of my service (especially when compared to other servers that night--we all talk about how much we made in tips), and the aggregate expectation. I can also look at the circumstances, per table, which resulted in higher or lower tips. I can even adjust my behavior throughout the night to reinforce the positive situations and avoid the negative (for those in which I have some control).
The feedback is (as I said originally) aggregate, and non-linear. Your tip can't, of course, retroactively change my service to you, but it can affect my overall level of service. Go through that 500 times a week, and patterns emerge. Your tip--everywhere you go--adds data to the pool. That influences how the pool responds. Just like actuarial tables and risk assessments, it's based on broad, aggregate data. And, as part of that data, your behavior does affect how you're treated (especially considering the "migrant" nature of restaurant servers--the waitress you stiffed at Bob's Burger House last week might be serving you at Bertha's Bistro next week).

Any server worth their salt will know how you're going to tip
And any server who guesses wrong is going to pay for it.
Just like any investor, salesman, supplier, retailer, manufacturer... Business of any sort involves a lot of guesswork and risk. As a server--as opposed to a desk-jockey--
Re:How can people not know... by Dread_ed · 2018-06-23 13:16 · Score: 1

Do work. Try different behaviors. Do different things. Focus on different aspects of the job.
Observe tips over time. Large tip when doing this consistently. Small or no tip when doing this. Hmm.
Looks like a pattern. Repeat large tip actions and see if they continue to bring larger tips. Revise as necessary.
That's how it works. You participate and everyone wins. It is not a zero sum game. Your tip for good service, especially if accompanied by communication about what you really liked, is a service to both the waitperson as well as every customer they meet after that.

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When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Re:How can people not know... by Dread_ed · 2018-06-23 13:17 · Score: 1

That should never happen, because you communicate this to the waitperson every time, right?

--
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Re:How can people not know... by Dread_ed · 2018-06-23 13:38 · Score: 1

What a generous and forgiving company. Our company had a 13 questions, 1-10 scale. Anything less than a 100% average for the month meant you lost bonuses and pay, and this was generally between 15 and 25 customers.

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When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Re:How can people not know... by ljw1004 · 2018-06-23 16:34 · Score: 1

That should never happen, because you communicate this to the waitperson every time, right?
If you can suggest a form of words and a manner of explaining this that wouldn't irritate the heck out of the waitperson, and wouldn't make my fellow dinners squirm (who share my preferences but don't want to violate the social contract), then please suggest one! I don't believe one exists.
Re:How can people not know... by mikeiver1 · 2018-06-24 07:04 · Score: 1

There are a number of very real issues I see with this sort of device in the restaurant on the table. The first of which is that they for sure will have a single server cover more tables. This based on the fact that they are not really having to interact with the customers nearly as much. A good on the ball server can handle around 5-7 tables and give excellent service. What happens when they are told that they have to handle the needs of 10-14 tables? Also, the customer is now handling what has traditionally been the job of the waiter, IE taking and placing their order! Though I would not give a business that used these my patronage if I did I would reduce their TIP. I suspect that this would be a fair bit of the public as well.

Places like the home depot and lowes both have self checkout and actively promote customers to use them. I refuse for a couple of reasons. First and foremost they take away the job of the checker and put a person out of a job. The second is that they are generally far more clunky and problematic than are the POS terminals that the payed checkers use. The third issue is that they fail to pay me for my time and efforts, IE: Where is my fucking discount for doing your job!

Data driven reviews from these systems are tainted by the stupidity of the the general public taking them. Lets say that the kitchen staff screws up the order. I know that this never happens but lets just assume is does just this once. The arrogant and entitled customer is pissed and shits on the waiter for this and worse articulates this via the survey bashing the waiter. Shitty kitchen staff could even help this along for a waiter they don't like to much by intentionally pooching orders for their tables to enhance the likelihood of poor feedback.

There is really allot to not like about these systems and very little in my view. This is yet another way for a company to reduce one more of the issues (staff problems) in the business and make more money in the process. In the end it is just one more shuffling step towards a dystopian society and less value placed on human beings in the name of profits.
Re:How can people not know... by mjwx · 2018-06-25 01:13 · Score: 1

I've been told many times that on those surveys "management considers anything less than an 8 [out of 10] a fail"
This is one of the bigger reasons why I generally don't leave feedback, especially on something as impersonal and soulless as a out of 10/5 star rating system.

My BMW dealer was honest with me and said unless he gets a 5 star rating, he doesn't get paid commission. I could respect that honesty and the fact he never wasted my time (sure, it was a just 2 series and I had put the screws to him on price, but he never wasted my time and I did not waste his either).

Have I got any feedback, I'll deliver it in person or at the very least, in writing, preferably to their manager. When writing a complement you should mention the person who helped you by name.

--
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Re:How can people not know... by cayenne8 · 2018-06-25 01:21 · Score: 1

The problem with your argument is that it applies to regular customers and not at all to transients. The TIP comes AFTER the service, and thus cannot be a causal mechanism for GOOD service. The only time a good tip does cause better service is when you are a known regular, the tip amount applies to the LAST few tips and not the tip for this service, and being a known regular is going to get you better service anyway.
Well, the premise is ALWAYS there, that the tip come for good service.
I find even as a transient customer, that if I'm personable, happy to be there, friendly to the server (saying thank you goes a long way), these are indications I'm likely to be a good tipper.....and it works.

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Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Re:How can people not know... by terrycarlino · 2018-06-25 05:55 · Score: 1

This is just BS. Anyone who has ever worked in the food service business knows that a good looking woman will get double or more times the tips that a guy gets.This is particularly true any place that serves drinks and well as food.
This was even a Mythbuster episode.
Re:How can people not know... by Obfuscant · 2018-07-02 07:43 · Score: 1

Your tip for good service, especially if accompanied by communication about what you really liked, is a service to both the waitperson as well as every customer they meet after that.
You just proved my point. MY TIP cannot be the cause of good service TO ME because it has not happened yet. You clearly say that my good tip will help those who come AFTER ME.
I don't give a damn about the level of service people who come after me get. Period. I said nothing about the service they get. I said, flat out, that MY TIP cannot be the cause of GOOD SERVICE to me.
EVERY other response that tries to correct me is talking about PREDICTED tips or a HISTORY of tips. MY tip depends on the service you provide, not what the last guy tipped you or even on what you predict I will tip.
For a tech website, there are a lot of people who are ignorant of the concept of "causality", aren't there?
Re:How can people not know... by Dread_ed · 2018-07-03 03:06 · Score: 1

You should capitalize "TO ME" instead of "good service." It's the only way to honestly read what you wrote, and its the only honest way to write what you wrote.
You can pick up a story at any point and make a new beginning. It doesn't mean that your interpretation of the beginning is the beginning. Your mind is completely trapped in self referential mode. You do not see the forest, only your own foliage.
What you are saying is that having good service for yourself is infinitely preferable to having good wait staff available for everyone. You want well trained waitstaff who are responsive to your needs and who are eager to give you good service. You're just not willing to participate in creating that if anyone else benefits. That's cool. Just go to 2-3 star Michelin restaurants and pay for the service you want.
It's not uncommon to think the way you do. You think that life is a zero-sum game and you are perfectly happy with this, as long as you get more and others get less. The commons is a place where, when you deign to make an appearance, everyone should sit up, take note, and defer to your every whim.
It's not realistic, but it is self serving, which for someone who is self serving, is all the justification needed.

--
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.

Welcome to the Future by ddtmm · 2018-06-22 08:16 · Score: 1

It's no different than Uber. To some degree it's probably a good indicator of performance. On the other hand, if I were the owner I'd judge the wait staff's performance on their sales numbers. If the employee is doing a good job it will relate to increased sales. Not so sure I am apposed to this, generally speaking.

In theory by jbmartin6 · 2018-06-22 08:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

In theory, not a bad idea. But the devil is in the details. I get satisfaction surveys for tech support encounters all the time. They are carefully constructed to only deal with the specific support engineer, not the whole experience. Most of the time there is no option for 'the tech was fine but the organization has its head up its ass.' I will bet a lot of these restaurant surveys are the same, where the customer is trying to complain about something the server has no control over.

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This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.

Re:In theory by Junta · 2018-06-22 08:27 · Score: 1

It's all part of a move for more higher up execs to micromanage people they never even see, taking more and more discretion from the manager on the ground.
Evaluation at that distance with any hint of qualitative evaluation with nuance is impossible, so pretty dumb surveys seeking to quantify everything happen without any ability to, for example, recognize that one survey taker is a dick, or that another is uselessly polite, or recognize that the larger context is at fault (e.g. if a restaurant refuses to hire enough staff, and service suffers, the servers are blamed for the long waits, not the restaurant).
Of course, I'm sure there's also a lot of bad local management that let things slide and some waitstaff are in for a rude awakening for not being able to get away with stuff too.

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XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Re:In theory by ET3D · 2018-06-22 08:34 · Score: 1

Yeah. Haven't personally seen these surveys, but just from experience, if I'm not satisfied with service at a restaurant, it's typically because they're understaffed and the waiters (and sometimes the kitchen) can't effectively manage all the customers. Sure, better waiters might handle this better, but adding staff would be the better solution.

it's a fact of population evolution by supernova87a · 2018-06-22 08:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

Well, you can debate this automation controversy from every angle and every perspective. But what it dances around is the fundamental unavoidable fact that (a la Rumsfeld) "demography is destiny".

When the cost of labor gets too high, people will find a way to replace it. You're not going to find these ipads in places where it costs only $1 an hour to have a waiter.

With higher standards of living and wages (and people's unwillingness to work for less) comes the pressure to replace the people. Countries get old and rich, and want higher pay. Technology provides a way to get around that. It happens. Whether you have the iPad or not, they're going to find a way to reduce the number of waiters needed. The iPad is just a messenger.

Re: it's a fact of population evolution by Anonymous Coward · 2018-06-22 09:41 · Score: 1

It takes just as many waiters and busboys to serve N tables, regardless of how the customers rate the staff. If this were about saving costs, the only rating that would count would be the (weighted) average number of orders the waitron took per unit time.
Re:it's a fact of population evolution by swell · 2018-06-22 09:47 · Score: 1

Why would someone want to wait on tables? Why would someone want to drive an Uber or work part-time at Walmart? These and many other gigs are low pay, high stress and Big Brother is always watching. If a waitperson gets fired, he/she should celebrate and look for something better.
Uneducated people have few options, of course. All the more reason to enroll in their community college which is designed to match students with real jobs in the local area. These schools are often free to low income people and they sometimes offer training by the very companies who hire graduates. In my area, even immigrants who barely speak English are finding decent jobs because of this.

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...omphaloskepsis often...
Re:it's a fact of population evolution by cascadingstylesheet · 2018-06-23 00:59 · Score: 1

When the cost of labor gets too high, people will find a way to replace it. You're not going to find these ipads in places where it costs only $1 an hour to have a waiter.
Yep. Nor will you find waitresses looking for the most expensive plumber they can find. But when restaurants look for cheaper services, it's evil ...

Electronics at the table by tuxkamen · 2018-06-22 08:19 · Score: 2

Call me old fashioned, but we don't allow electronics at the dinner table. When we see those things, they are immediately removed to a chair or the floor.

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Use a little common sense once in a while. --Book of Mooch Ch. 5 verse 14

I guess the places I go to by bobstreo · 2018-06-22 08:20 · Score: 3, Informative

are either too high end or too low end.

I have never seen a tablet in a restaurant, diner, dive, or food truck.

Re:I guess the places I go to by b0s0z0ku · 2018-06-22 08:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

This -- independently owned places are unlikely to have those things. Chains, meh, I can cook for myself better than they do.
Re:I guess the places I go to by nitehawk214 · 2018-06-22 08:24 · Score: 1

I see tablets at food trucks all the time. Most of the ones here take Square or some other tablet-based-pos payment.

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I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Re:I guess the places I go to by b0s0z0ku · 2018-06-22 08:27 · Score: 1

Most of ours, other than the very high end (read: overpriced) ones that do concessions or cater to hipsters, only take cash. As it should be.
Re:I guess the places I go to by apoc.famine · 2018-06-22 08:41 · Score: 1, Insightful

Yep. I wish we could get editors who would not just blithely copy click-bait headlines.

That Tablet On The Table At Your Favorite Restaurant Is Hurting Your Waiter ....In data-hungry, tech-happy chain restaurants...
Like you, I've never seen a tablet at a restaurant. But then again, I don't go to chain restaurants.
How god damn hard would it be to just write an honest headline like, "Waiters at restaurants using tablets for ordering hurt by diner ratings." or "Waiters rated by diners electronically see hours cut".

--
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Re:I guess the places I go to by nitehawk214 · 2018-06-22 08:42 · Score: 1

All of the food trucks here are overpriced. Whether they cater to hipsters or only take cash. But, turning away business because people weren't carrying the 10 fucking dollars it costs for a couple of tacos seems daft.
Most of them park up near bars and breweries that don't serve food. So most people are too drunk/hungry to care about the prices.

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I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Re:I guess the places I go to by fafalone · 2018-06-22 08:55 · Score: 1

This one food truck here took another path. Its cash only, but has an ATM built right into the side of the truck. Must get a cut of ATM fees.
Re:I guess the places I go to by b0s0z0ku · 2018-06-22 08:56 · Score: 1

It's not "daft" -- sounds like they have plenty of customers, and their costs are lower if they're cash-only than if they have to pay a cut to the banksters.
Re:I guess the places I go to by b0s0z0ku · 2018-06-22 08:57 · Score: 1

That's brilliant -- make MORE money from people using cards, rather than giving the banksters a cut of profits. LOVE IT! Who doesn't love a $2 cut off of everyone without the foresight to carry cash?
Re:I guess the places I go to by b0s0z0ku · 2018-06-22 09:47 · Score: 2

I wasn't being sarcastic. I was being honest -- I always carry cash. I actually *like* the idea of making more money off of card users instead of sitting back and being screwed by the card companies.
Credit card companies and banksters can drop dead and go to Hell. Anything that encourages people to use cash and keep their freedom/privacy is a good thing.
Re:I guess the places I go to by h4ck7h3p14n37 · 2018-06-22 09:54 · Score: 1

I don't understand why people go to these awful chain restaurants. Don't they know the food is frozen and just reheated?
Re:I guess the places I go to by avandesande · 2018-06-22 10:13 · Score: 1

The weird chemical tasting spices... blech.

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love is just extroverted narcissism
Re:I guess the places I go to by fafalone · 2018-06-22 11:00 · Score: 1

Pretty sure the banksters get a cut of ATM fees too, since it's probably "out of network" for everyone. Here's a picture of the truck I saw:
https://www.timesledger.com/as...
And another truck I found while looking for a pic that also has one: https://twitter.com/mattzemon/...
Re:I guess the places I go to by thegarbz · 2018-06-22 21:08 · Score: 1

This -- independently owned places are unlikely to have those things.

I've never seen a tablet in a chain, only in independently owned restaurants. Chains are more likely to be resistant to change and less able to experiment at a whim. But really if you want to see a tablet visit an asian all you can eat and made to order restaurant. The tablets make a world of difference so you're not interrupting the waiter every 30 seconds for another bite of sushi or don't constantly have to get up. It makes dining at these places far more palatable in a group as you can continue the exercise of talking to one another rather than fighting to get fed.

Unaware ? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-06-22 08:21 · Score: 1

I doubt it. If you leave negative feedback you are well aware that somebody at some point will be reprimanded and/or change will be done which may impact negatively the local personal. I mean who in their right mind would think that leaving a few "service sucks" feedback would not impact the person doing the service ? As for the personal being negatively impacted, the few asshole joker leaving a negative feedback would not generate somebody suddenly getting half the job they had before. I think there may be more to that than she said.

Re:Unaware ? by scotts13 · 2018-06-22 10:41 · Score: 4, Interesting

Apparently you have never worked in a survey-based environment. On surveys, when rating someone 1 through 10, only 10 is acceptable to management. 1 through 9 is failure.
Aye. At the car dealership where I work, 9 is the same as zero on customer satisfaction surveys. Further, less than an 85% average score cuts your commission for all further sales until the average goes up. With an average of 10-12 new car sales per month (less than half of which fill out the surveys) one middling score can cut my income for several months.
The company has the system well rigged.

Waiters should walk by Maxo-Texas · 2018-06-22 08:22 · Score: 2

I was at a restaurant yesterday and the manager was desperate because they were short staffed and no one would come in.

Payback is a bitch. If you get a reputation for screwing your workers, you may not have any.

That said, businesses have a valid interest in knowing if the waiters are angering customers.

But they really, really, REALLY need to do a reality check and slide into these new systems slowly or they could find themselves without employees.

--
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.

Re:Waiters should walk by xxxJonBoyxxx · 2018-06-22 08:42 · Score: 1

Pretty much this. Waiters are less often college-degree'd and more often neck-tatted and GED'ed these days as the economy heats up. Managerial soft skills (and minimization of crap data from the kiosk systems your kids get to fill out when they "pay the bill") are suddenly back in vogue.
Re:Waiters should walk by Mr+D+from+63 · 2018-06-22 08:42 · Score: 1

And if you don't recognize and reward your best performers, they will be gone.
Re:Waiters should walk by unixisc · 2018-06-23 01:19 · Score: 1

Part of the reason may often be the requirement to stand at all times. Standing for hours at a stretch is really grueling physically, and it does help to have tablets where customers can order what they want w/o requiring a waiter to walk all over the place, or having to wait for a waiter.
However, a lot of customers are jerks who simply don't deserve to be served: only reason they are is due to the cliche about customers always being right

Not Your Favorite Waiter by Anonymous Coward · 2018-06-22 08:22 · Score: 1, Insightful

"That Tablet On The Table At Your Favorite Restaurant Is Hurting Your Waiter"

If the ratings are bad, I guess, they are not "Your Waiter".

Sounds like a good thing.

The direct ratings are also better at feedback than tips.
So tips can be removed too.

Restaurants to avoid? by b0s0z0ku · 2018-06-22 08:22 · Score: 3, Informative

Chili's = fake bland Tex-Mex food.
Olive Garden = fake greasy Italian food.
TGIF = diner food without the charm.
Red Robin = cookie-cutter burger chain.

Are those tablets used in any restaurant that's actually worth going to? Can you even use them if you're paying good, old-fashioned, cold, hard cash? I feel sorry for anyone who lives in places where "casual dining" is the only option.

Re:Restaurants to avoid? by anthony_greer · 2018-06-22 08:35 · Score: 1

for some families, in some places, a night out at one of those places you named for mom and dad while grandma watches Jr is a big deal, its not 5 star dining but for a lot of folks its a nice night out for not a ton of money. Maybe im not hip and modern but those folks deserve a decent experience too, not a tablet nightmare.
Re:Restaurants to avoid? by b0s0z0ku · 2018-06-22 08:54 · Score: 1

Who said anything about hip and modern? I didn't. There are plenty of privately-owned places that cost the same and have better food. This isn't an issue of cost, it's an issue of laziness.
Re:Restaurants to avoid? by HornWumpus · 2018-06-22 08:58 · Score: 2

Those people are morons. Every city and town has independent restaurants that serve actual food for less money than those crappy chains.

--
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Re:Restaurants to avoid? by b0s0z0ku · 2018-06-22 09:03 · Score: 1

Unless they live in somewhere where the "city" or "town" is a commercial strip infested with chains. Which, I guess is possible, but there are usually ALSO independent places to be found among the wastelands.
Re:Restaurants to avoid? by Anubis+IV · 2018-06-22 15:52 · Score: 1

Chili's = fake bland Tex-Mex food.
It’s fake Southwest food, not fake Tex-Mex. For fake Tex-Mex, try your nearest On The Border.
Re:Restaurants to avoid? by antdude · 2018-06-22 20:28 · Score: 1

What about Marie's Calendars, YardHouse, Cheesecake Factory, Black Angus, Romano's Macaroni Grill, BJ's, and Buca di Beppo? I haven't seen any tablets used there so far.

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Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Re:Restaurants to avoid? by b0s0z0ku · 2018-06-23 04:57 · Score: 1

And that's a patronizing view. Would it surprise you that some of the best independent restaurants can also be found in "middle America?" "Middle America" doesn't mean devoid of independent businesses.
BTW- I'm not a fan of "fancy." Just "interesting" and of not sending my money to Wall Streeter trash profiting from chains and megaliths.
As far as the critic that Bourdain defended, her review of Olive Garden wasn't her only review...
Re:Restaurants to avoid? by ebvwfbw · 2018-06-23 08:29 · Score: 1

Wow, there's more than one BJ's? UGH! The one I went to was so bad I'll never go back. First off, it was cold in there, probably in the 50s. I mean it was uncomfortable. Had to go to the bathroom, the floor to the bathroom and inside were like a skating rink. So slippery that I wondered if I'd be able to open the door. The menu was like a phone book. What came out was barely edible. I didn't feel well later that day.
In fact I'm not feeling well just thinking about it.
Re:Restaurants to avoid? by antdude · 2018-06-23 08:32 · Score: 1

Yep, a lot: https://www.bjsrestaurants.com... :P

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Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Re:Restaurants to avoid? by ebvwfbw · 2018-06-23 08:49 · Score: 1

Interesting. Seem to be mostly California. I typed in a bunch of states that I frequent and Georgia doesn't have one of them. New York has just a few.
Never would have guessed. I never heard of them until I saw one in Maryland. Went to it as a graduation celebration for a friends kid. Maybe it's just that one that's bad. Ok, so never say never, eh?.. I might go back after a few years.
Re:Restaurants to avoid? by antdude · 2018-06-23 09:01 · Score: 1

Yep. I am sure you guys have a bunch of restaurants that other states don't too. :D

--
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).

The tablet or the metric? by Gilgaron · 2018-06-22 08:23 · Score: 2

I saw that Black Mirror episode! Seriously, though, it isn't the tablet hurting them so much as that there is now an easy way to get metrics. No one is going to bother with the receipt URL for a $1 coupon, but if you've got the chance to complain at the same time you're being annoyed by the server then it is more likely one gets filled out.

Re:The tablet or the metric? by forkfail · 2018-06-22 08:40 · Score: 1

Maybe in this age where pettiness and entitlement often seems to be the norm, especially when one can be petty and entitled in an anonymous manner, it should be a bit harder to complain and directly impact someone else's livelihood.

--
Check your premises.
Re:The tablet or the metric? by DarkRookie · 2018-06-22 08:40 · Score: 1

All you get is a $1 coupon?
Fuck, that is not even worth even touching it, much less filling it out.

--
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
Re:The tablet or the metric? by b0s0z0ku · 2018-06-22 09:01 · Score: 1

$1 coupon? I'd fill it out, give 5* in all respects. That way, I'm not helping management fire poor staff or helping them improve, but I'm still getting "free stuff." Basically making them uphold their end without upholding mine.
Re:The tablet or the metric? by Gilgaron · 2018-06-22 12:32 · Score: 1

Oh I don't know if you get a reward for using the tablet, I've never been at a place that had one. I was referring to fast food places with a survey URL on the receipt which yields a code for a $1 or 2 coupon.
Re:The tablet or the metric? by Gilgaron · 2018-06-22 12:33 · Score: 1

Sort of, but if it is everyone just being petty, shouldn't all the servers receive equivalently poor marks?

It gets worse by Khyber · 2018-06-22 08:23 · Score: 1

Management at some places post up the sexually-harassing comments with 5-stars, according to some of the stories circulating about this. Smokey Bones BBQ is named as one place in TFA.

This is really just a device meant to A. make it easy for HR drones to fire people for very little reason and B. to serve advertisements to people while they eat.

--
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.

Re:It gets worse by b0s0z0ku · 2018-06-22 08:25 · Score: 1

Exactly -- if the place is the kind of place that needs those tablets, I'm walking out and going to a place that has real food and customer service.

This is not news by gregfortune · 2018-06-22 08:24 · Score: 1

This sounds like the start of a patent argument. We've been doing this forever. We evaluate performance of employees and then adjust their hours and pay or terminate employment based on those evaluations. Comment cards from the customers influence that evaluation How does "collect evaluations via computer" make this a new and novel concept?

QUICK, PATENT IT!!!

Also, if this is Hunger Games, I expect the customers to start rating one another at some point and get banned from the restaurant as a result. What a catchy title image.

If we'd like to talk about flawed customer feedback, let's talk about that instead of some vague hand-waving at technology.

I dont eat at those places by anthony_greer · 2018-06-22 08:25 · Score: 1

If i am handed a tablet to order and pay, I leave immediately. At one place where I went once, it was so distracting that it drove me crazy. Give me a paper menu and a good waiter, if I cant have that ill just save money and eat at home. Its not an age thing either...I'm a freaking millennial...

Re:I dont eat at those places by anthony_greer · 2018-06-22 08:29 · Score: 1

adding some detail, it was playing video the whole time and there was no way to turn off the screen and because of the odd way the stand was made I couldn't face the screen away and the table was too small to lay it face down with food on the table.

Meh by MBGMorden · 2018-06-22 08:26 · Score: 2

I honestly don't see this as a bad thing. Much like a lot of cops started complaining in the age of ubiquitous cell phone videos - this is just technology keeping people honest and identifying things servers had previously been getting away with.

There may be a slightly shaky start, but in general after a reasonable baseline is established the better waiters will indeed be differentiated from the no-so-good ones via feedback.

--
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain

Re:Meh by b0s0z0ku · 2018-06-22 08:28 · Score: 1

Cops are given a lot of power, therefore they need to be under a microscope. Waiters/waitresses are at the bottom of the power pile, so not so much. At least that's how my rooting-for-the-underdog brain sees it.
Re:Meh by HornWumpus · 2018-06-22 08:31 · Score: 1

This is at chains of 'family style' restaurants.
The good wait staff are identified because they quit and get jobs where the tips are better. The 'no-so-good ones' are the ones still working there.

--
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Re:Meh by JeffOwl · 2018-06-22 10:36 · Score: 1

This is a good point. If the response level is high enough and the management knows how to analyze the data it could be useful. Frankly, If a restaurant has plans to lay off staff, the survey data is as good a place to start as any. Definitely better than seniority.

Re:Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trait by Maxo-Texas · 2018-06-22 08:27 · Score: 2, Interesting

Somehow ... that topic never comes up with wait staff when I go to restaurants.

What I hate is when they act like my fake friend and actually sit down at the table.

I want professional service. When I reach for my glass, it should never be empty.

If I start polite small talk then make polite small talk briefly but don't try to start it yourself.

"I hope you have a nice day/enjoy your meal/whatever" plays better than "Have a nice day, enjoy your meal whatever." One is your hope and the other is a command from you.

I tip well. At family owned restaurants I'm often offered off menu items and I even tip at buffets $1 despite the fact that I get my own food and drink and it galls me.

I don't like absent service and I don't like overly familiar service.

I probably wouldn't like a server who wanted to discuss politics.

--
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.

Are tips lower as well with tablets? by Nkwe · 2018-06-22 08:30 · Score: 2

If a server doesn't bring me my bill and run my credit card, or if they don't actually take my full order (I order some / all of my meal on the tablet), should I tip the amount that I would normally tip at a full service place? Personally I tip less when I have to run my own credit card. Also be aware that many of the tablets calculate the tip on the total bill (including the tax), where historically you don't tip on tax.

Re:Are tips lower as well with tablets? by Strider- · 2018-06-22 10:18 · Score: 1

As a Canadian if never trust anyone who wants to take my card... Up here the server just brings the pin pad to your table, sets up the transaction and you do everything else, your card never leaves your possession. Much better that way.

--
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Re:Are tips lower as well with tablets? by Nkwe · 2018-06-22 11:53 · Score: 1

As a Canadian if never trust anyone who wants to take my card... Up here the server just brings the pin pad to your table, sets up the transaction and you do everything else, your card never leaves your possession. Much better that way.
That process I don't mind so much. The server is bringing you the card reader and the the bill. I have had the opportunity to talk to the sever about the bill, thank the server for their service, comment on any issues, and in general interact in person with the server. In this model the server is providing me a service. With the Ziosk (and similar) model, once the food is delivered, the server need not come back to the table again. As a customer I am expected to go find the bill on the device, run my card, etc. No, these aren't hard things to do, but they are tasks that I have historically considered part of the "service" that I tip a human to do. I travel for work and eat out a lot. I need a receipt for my expense report. If the Ziosk thing is out of paper, it takes forever to find someone to go replace the paper or generate a receipt for me. Because of this I try and avoid places that have these.
Re:Are tips lower as well with tablets? by Nkwe · 2018-06-22 15:09 · Score: 1

Who doesn't tip on the tax? That just seems cheap to me.
It doesn't seem cheap to me. Googling for it gives mixed answers, but most I found seem to say pre-tax. It may depend on where you live, and how old you are. In my case I live in Oregon where there is no sales tax. If I go to a restaurant and spend $20 on lunch, the bill will $20. Assuming decent service, I typically would tip 20% or $4. If I drive 15 minutes north into the state of Washington (where there is sales tax) and eat the same meal and get the same level of service, the meal with tax would cost $21.68 and 20% would be $4.34. Why would I tip more for the same level of service? Based on how I was raised, your tip represents a percentage on the value of the service received. It is assumed that the value of the service received is based on the value of the food delivered. Sales tax does not offset this. By this same logic, if you use a coupon at the restaurant you should not count the coupon in your tip math. If my $15 lunch would have been $20 without the discount, the service I received was on a $20 meal and my tip would be based on that (20% or $4)
Re:Are tips lower as well with tablets? by thegarbz · 2018-06-22 21:11 · Score: 1

should I tip the amount that I would normally tip at a full service place?

Is the server standing around doing nothing as a result of you having to swipe your own card? By not tipping in America due to the environment rather than the service you're only hurting the server.
Personally I think the entire tipping thing is absurd but then I'm used to people actually being paid to work rather than going to work to beg for enough money to make going to work worthwhile.
Re:Are tips lower as well with tablets? by cascadingstylesheet · 2018-06-23 01:06 · Score: 4, Insightful

If a server doesn't bring me my bill and run my credit card, or if they don't actually take my full order (I order some / all of my meal on the tablet), should I tip the amount that I would normally tip at a full service place? Personally I tip less when I have to run my own credit card. Also be aware that many of the tablets calculate the tip on the total bill (including the tax), where historically you don't tip on tax.
Tip culture is out of control. There are places they seem to expect tips now for picking food up at a counter. For pete's sake, I don't tip at the deli or grocery store. Why should I tip you?
Re:Are tips lower as well with tablets? by Nkwe · 2018-06-23 02:42 · Score: 1

should I tip the amount that I would normally tip at a full service place?
Is the server standing around doing nothing as a result of you having to swipe your own card? By not tipping in America due to the environment rather than the service you're only hurting the server.
No, I am talking about the case where the tablet (Ziosk) is sitting on the table (and has been during the whole meal), the server is nowhere in sight, and I am expected to use the tablet to figure out what my bill is, swipe my card, and print my receipt - all with no prompting or time taken by the server. I believe that these tablets have been put in place because with them servers can spend less time at the table and the restaurant's can get by with fewer servers and overall have lower labor costs. If the servers are spending less time at tables, they are providing a lower level of service. In my mind a lower level of service deserves a lower tip.

Personally I think the entire tipping thing is absurd but then I'm used to people actually being paid to work rather than going to work to beg for enough money to make going to work worthwhile.
I agree. I don't like tipping at all and I think it is stupid. I believe the cost of paying the servers (and the rest of the restaurant staff) should be included in the price of the food. However here in the US, servers are not paid fairly, in many states they are not even paid minimum wage. We have a strong tipping culture and it is rude not to tip. So because of this I tip and I usually do so generously. However I do tip based on the level of actual service I get. I define full service as someone (human) coming to my table to take my order, my drinks and food being brought to my table withing a reasonable time frame, checking on me occasionally during the meal, refilling drinks when needed, my bill being delivered to the table, being asked how my meal was and if I want anything else, and finally my credit card or cash payment being picked up at the table and my receipt or change being brought back to the table. If these basic pieces of service are not all present, I didn't get full service and I tip accordingly. In some places you pay at the cash register. I don't reduce tipping in this case since I still dealing with a human and am still getting service.
Re:Are tips lower as well with tablets? by thegarbz · 2018-06-23 06:46 · Score: 1

In my mind a lower level of service deserves a lower tip.
Your mind makes sense, but the result is still disenfranchising the person who still has their job for no good reason. You guys have built a culture of not paying for dinner the price listed on the menu now to help make your servers be able to afford to eat at night, why should the tablet change that?

If these basic pieces of service are not all present, I didn't get full service and I tip accordingly.
You almost sound like a european where a tip is somehow representative of the service rather than a basic expectation of the waiting staff's wages.
I'm not saying it's wrong, just that it's incompatible with the retarded way the American service industry is set up.
Re:Are tips lower as well with tablets? by ayesnymous · 2018-06-23 08:26 · Score: 1

Plenty of people seem to think you should tip on the tax, but that doesn't make sense. You tip based on the food that you ordered. Tipping on the tax would be like you're tipping the government. And should workers in states that have no sales tax be penalized because of that?

These surveys rarely make sense! by King_TJ · 2018-06-22 08:30 · Score: 1

It reminds me of the AWFUL ones you get from car dealerships. They ask you to rate your sales advisor or serviceperson from 1 to 10 on a number of things, and then they get penalized by corporate if they score anything less than perfect 10's.

What happens is people just fill in a 10 for everything, regardless of what they think, if they find out how it all works and they don't want to punish the people they worked with. Everyone else is honest and can almost never fill it all out as a 10, since it's rare there's no room for improvement. In any sane survey, someone who scored a lot of 8's or 9's would be a superior employee.

Re:These surveys rarely make sense! by apoc.famine · 2018-06-22 08:59 · Score: 1

As much as I hate this sort of thing, that's an issue with management, not with the survey or delivery mechanism. Place blame where it should lie. And if you're an employee, why would you put up with management that incompetent?

--
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor

Re:I leave if I see those things ... by b0s0z0ku · 2018-06-22 08:30 · Score: 1

Never been to Smokey Bones ("Smokin' Bongs?") but I can say that the other four chains mentioned are pretty useless if you want good food. Not just "food."

why is this here? by samantha · 2018-06-22 08:36 · Score: 3, Insightful

Since when is slashdot against meritocracy and user/client/customer feedback. Is there any monitoring of what kind of tripe can be posted?

Re:why is this here? by cmdr_klarg · 2018-06-22 09:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

When said feedback is used to keep the boot firmly on the employees neck. After the third time it was mentioned to me that anything less than perfect scores are considered a failure, I stopped taking them.
My 4 out of 5 "good" rating should be used as an opportunity to reward someone for a good job. Not doing so is a ploy to keep wages low.

--
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
Re:why is this here? by mrbester · 2018-06-22 09:34 · Score: 2

I don't see how it can be an honest appraisal of a server when they have been reduced to a skivvy: "computer says table 10, seat 4 wants a Cherry Coke; check for table 7; clear table 12 and join to table 8".
The computer is more highly regarded than them, and God help them if they aren't all smiles and fawning effusiveness during their brief interactions with the customers as they perform their menial job of doing what a machine tells them to do.

--
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Re:why is this here? by thegarbz · 2018-06-22 21:13 · Score: 1

If this article hasn't turned you off moderation and feedback then you're more than welcome to help decide what does and doesn't make the front page using the firehose:
https://slashdot.org/recent
Just don't use the Firehose on a tablet or you're hurting msmash.
Re:why is this here? by cascadingstylesheet · 2018-06-23 01:07 · Score: 1

When said feedback is used to keep the boot firmly on the employees neck. After the third time it was mentioned to me that anything less than perfect scores are considered a failure, I stopped taking them.
My 4 out of 5 "good" rating should be used as an opportunity to reward someone for a good job. Not doing so is a ploy to keep wages low.
A company that does that is going to do it anyway ... it's not the survey's fault.

I used to like Smokey Bones too.... by King_TJ · 2018-06-22 08:36 · Score: 1

I'm not big on chain restaurants on the whole. Usually, I think they're good for providing a consistent, adequate dining experience -- but rarely one you think of as excellent.

Smokey Bones used to have a location over in Illinois when I lived in St. Louis, though - and it was worth the drive for us. Always served really good BBQ compared to a lot of the overpriced "mom and pop" BBQ joints in the area that thought more of themselves than they were worth. And at least in the St. Louis area, the other BBQ chains were FAR below Smokey Bones in quality.

That was years ago, before they did this tablet stuff. But I did have an early experience with the tablets at the table at a different chain -- and it wasn't good. We had a discount coupon we wanted to use and their computer system couldn't seem to properly handle it. The manager had to come out and mess with the point of sale system for a long time to get it credited to us, since it was all updated to work only with the pricing in the system and on the fancy tablet. We were kind of disgusted with it.

Isn't there a rule or something that would cover.. by DarkRookie · 2018-06-22 08:37 · Score: 1

Isn't there a rule or something that would cover this scenario saying this is a bad idea.
I vaguely remember this from my stat class 15 years ago.
Something about people being more likely to comment on something bad than good so it could skew your data

--
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.

Re:Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trait by Mr+D+from+63 · 2018-06-22 08:38 · Score: 1

I'm not hard to please. Acknowledge my presence and let me know if things are running slow, take my order before that party of 15 that came in after me, and don't leave me waiting when I'm done. Keep the water glass full for bonus points.

Tip Culture needs to Go by decipher_saint · 2018-06-22 08:39 · Score: 4, Interesting

I travel to the UK occasionally and have to remind myself that gratuities are not a thing (and in some cases seen as a rude gesture) the theory being that the people who tend bar or serve food are paid adequately enough that they don't need any extra.

Here in Canada its generally accepted that you tip your server (most Interac machines even have built in tip percentiles) this is factored into the system, I read the other day that many systems also only let servers keep a portion of the tip they get and the rest goes into a pool for all servers. At this point I don't understand the system at all, pay people to work a difficult job that absolutely requires you to be "nice" to every asshole that walks off the street to ensure you get a gratuity so you can make a halfway decent wage. This is almost like haggling the bill (which I have seen in Europe oddly enough) the expectation is that my service was satisfactory enough for me to allow this person to work at a livable wage.

I think the problem compounds for chain restaurants that may be off the beaten trail, so if you happen to work at a heavily trafficked location you are gonna do pretty well but if you work at a low traffic location you might barely be scraping by despite getting an hourly wage - that's management sticking it to the servers for something they have little control over.

I dunno, to me the whole system sucks and should just go away. Pay servers a decent wage and throw tipping out the window.

--
crazy dynamite monkey

Re:Tip Culture needs to Go by tlhIngan · 2018-06-22 10:44 · Score: 1

, I read the other day that many systems also only let servers keep a portion of the tip they get and the rest goes into a pool for all servers. At this point I don't understand the system at all
The reason for this is simple - your tip isn't just for the waiter, but eh support staff that enables the waiter to do their job. You know, all the busboys that take the food to your table when the waiter's busy taking orders, the cooks at the back who actually made the food you're eating, the greeters and seaters that greet you when you come in, find you a table and get you seated with menus and alerting the waiter to your presence, etc.
And often times, other waiters may help out - if your waiter is particularly busy, you may find other waiters are customer oriented enough to help service your needs (refill your drinks, clear plates, get you extra cutlery, etc) - the goal being that if you have a good time, you'll return and thus keep the place in business (and them having a job).
Anyhow, I've had bad service at a restaurant I frequented - they were slammed, so I understood that the waiter may have been a bit busy and food coming out slower, but how slow it was pretty much appalled me, and with no apologies either. It was so bad, it took me 40 minutes to pay! I asked for my bill, and 20 minutes later, the waiter comes around asking if I needed anything else. I again asked for my bill (and since I was starting to run late, to hurry up a bit). Disappears for another 20 minutes, then appears with my bill which I paid and left, by the time of which I was horrendously late. The server seemed genuinely annoyed that she had to service me, a group of 1 person, when it was obvious she was trying to give preferential treatment to the group of 10 that was seated in her section for a much larger tip.
Of course, the bill came with a survey on it (which I religiously did since they gave you a coupon and experienced the "bad experience" side of the survey. I remember it asking about what part of the experience I didn't like, and I said it took too long, and then it asked which part, to which I had to say the payment. But it did ask me to elaborate so it wasn't just all ratings, I detailed why I gave those ratings.
Re:Tip Culture needs to Go by h4ck7h3p14n37 · 2018-06-22 10:46 · Score: 1

I'm going to have to disagree about tipping. Tipping well at establishments you frequent is how you get better service and complimentary items.
The bartenders at my favorite place comp me anywhere from half to all of my drinks when I eat there. Granted, this is in Chicago and I never eat at chain restaurants.
Re:Tip Culture needs to Go by _Sharp'r_ · 2018-06-22 15:08 · Score: 1

So, basically, the bartenders there rip off the owners (comp you drinks) in order to take the money themselves in the form of "tips" from you?
Yeah, you might consider the honesty involved in that, unless the bartender happens to also own the bar.

--
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
Re:Tip Culture needs to Go by Cederic · 2018-06-24 00:35 · Score: 1

I find restaurants at which I'm a regular do things like free coffee, but I also make sure the manager is aware and happy with it.
Usually it's the manager serving me themselves. Restaurants appreciate repeat customers.
My local restaurant is owned by its staff so the waiters are also the owners.
Re:Tip Culture needs to Go by mjwx · 2018-06-25 01:25 · Score: 1

I'm going to have to disagree about tipping. Tipping well at establishments you frequent is how you get better service and complimentary items.
The bartenders at my favorite place comp me anywhere from half to all of my drinks when I eat there. Granted, this is in Chicago and I never eat at chain restaurants.
Erm, no it doesn't.

I rarely tip... and that is usually only in places that have been Americanised (meaning the US and their favourite tourist hotspots) and only because its customary (when in Rome). I never tip in Europe unless someone has gone above and beyond the call of duty.

So how do you get free stuff here in the UK (or Australia).... Be liked. Simple as that, if someone likes you they'll give you things. Be polite to the staff, start a rapport with the business owner. Nothing makes you more liked than forgiving simple mistakes. There was a pub I frequented, owned by a Kiwi in Streatham whilst I lived in London, when I walked in and he'd just got a new ale in he'd draw me a half pint without even asking and give it to me saying "We've just got this in" and described the beer.

Tipping creates a negative culture.
1. The wait staff aren't being genuine and they're only doing what they have to in order to get a tip out of you. This means if they dont like you they'll take it out in ways you cant see.
2. It creates an environment of entitlement. Because you have given money, you feel you are entitled to something. Nothing is more annoying to a service person than someone who thinks because they have a modicum of money that they must be treated like king Dick.

Many Brits bemoan the lack of national service here... I don't, rather I would put everyone through 2 years mandatory customer facing work in the retail sector so they can see how bad people act as customers.

--
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.

Re:Isn't there a rule or something that would cove by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · 2018-06-22 08:39 · Score: 1

While its true people are more likely to comment if the comment is bad, they are also more likely to leave and never come back than leave a negative comment. Which means that the business doesn't know why people stop coming.

--
Your ad here. Ask me how!

hmm by Riceballsan · 2018-06-22 08:42 · Score: 3, Insightful

Well then this isn't a tablet issue, it's a customer feedback issue. Now my questions, if the person interviewed is noticing less hours, then who's getting the hours? Obviously someone is scoring higher on these reviews and benefiting from it. That being said with that and customer feedback in general. It favors attractive people, over good service. That could be shrugged off and said "well duh but we give customers what they want, if they want an attractive bonehead that will mess up their order over an average or ugly server that will make sure everything comes out right, why not give it to them. The problem is in the dying american dream that often implies if you work harder you will be better off. When the reality is the things that you can't change about yourself can often outweigh the ones you can.

Re:hmm by sconeu · 2018-06-22 09:01 · Score: 1

It's also a management issue, when anything less than a 5/5 or 10/10 is considered a "fail".

--
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Re:hmm by Riceballsan · 2018-06-22 11:02 · Score: 1

quite true, so many of those they basically say 4/5 is considered a failing grade, when you know a very large percentage of people believe fair reviews mean that few to no people should ever have a 5/5, as they see it as "literally cannot possibly be better". I mean hypothetically a waitress could donate her kidney to save my life... that would be a real 10/10
Re: hmm by misnohmer · 2018-06-24 09:55 · Score: 1

The problem is in the misinterpretation of the American dream, and the current social ideology that anyone having and using any kind of talent or gift is somehow wrong and discriminatory. If I wanted to be a super-model, there is no doubt in my mind no matter how hard I worked I would not succeed. Does that mean the American dream is dead for me? Of course not. Why did Elvis Presley make orders of magnitude more money than Einstein? Did he somehow contribute more to society or outsmart Einstein?
The American dream is that you have the opportunity to work hard and work smart. In order to make money, you have to do something that someone else is willing to pay for. Generally that falls into two categories - do something others are unable to do, or something they'd rather not do and therefore prefer to pay someone else to do. Given all that, pick that thing you do so that are competitive against others, and if they possess any attributes which help the profession and you don't, consider your chances of success. Trying to be a bouncer at a nightclub while weighing 80lb is like trying to be a supermodel weighing 300lb.

TERRIBLE TREND by WolfgangVL · 2018-06-22 08:45 · Score: 3, Interesting

When I take my family out to eat I expect everybody to interact. That's part of why I'm taking them all out to begin with, that shit aint cheap.

I always move the stupid thing to another table before we sit down. Sometimes, the waitstaff will switch it back to my table after accepting our orders, like they are doing me a favor. It's funny, they always point it at the youngest person at my table, who is automatically going to search it for games, find them, and beg for the 2 bucks or whatever to play them instead of spend time with us on this expensive outing.

I get that some people like them. They appeal to young people. yadda yadda.

I wish they would ask if I wanted one. "OK! Table for 6, tablet or non?"

--
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.

Re:TERRIBLE TREND by Anonymous Coward · 2018-06-22 11:18 · Score: 1

If the waiter brings the tablet back, use it to give them a bad review.
PROBLEM SOLVED.
Re:TERRIBLE TREND by xlsior · 2018-06-22 19:42 · Score: 1

I just ignore them. Moving it to another table seems a dumb thing to do, since they are assigned to individual tables, which is why the server moves it back when they notice. Otherwise, when the next table gets occupied later and they do order drinks or something, it could easily end up on your table's bill, causing a headache and wasting time for the server who now gets to straighten out two bills instead of bringing out your food or refilling your drinks. It's not their fault/choice that the restaurant uses the tablets, but upper management's. Punishing the server for it only makes you a dick.

Hate by amiga3D · 2018-06-22 08:46 · Score: 1

I abhor those damn things. The last thing I need is a tablet on my table when I sit in a restaurant. If I have a problem with staff I talk to the manager. When I am especially pleased with staff I talk to the manager. That's civilization. That damn tablet is impersonal bullshit. What are they, a fucking McDonalds? I went to Olive Garden with my wife a while back (she liked it and I ate there because I love her) and the first thing I did was put the thing on a shelf next to my table. My waitress went to bring it back and I told her I didn't want it on my table. She didn't seem to mind at all.

ASK IT BE REMOVED FROM TABLE ! by Anonymous Coward · 2018-06-22 08:53 · Score: 1

Every place we go that have these cursed devices, we ask it be removed from the table completely, or we leave.

We make it clear to managers that the last thing we want to see after working all week is yet another little computer screen invading our HUMAN TIME.

We have been joining the UNPLUG movement, since people spend too much time online.

When dining out we leave the phones home & do not want a screen on the table.

Re:Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trait by Anonymous Coward · 2018-06-22 08:54 · Score: 1

I'm not hard to please. Acknowledge my presence and let me know if things are running slow, take my order before that party of 15 that came in after me, and don't leave me waiting when I'm done. Keep the water glass full for bonus points.

These are two of the biggest things, the third being when the server just vanishes for a good half-hour when we're almost done eating and then waiting just to pay the bill, which is the only thing that I like about the tablet thing. Yes they deserve breaks too but this is another reason I want tipping to go away, so they can just easily switch servers so that tables are always being covered and guests aren't left hanging.

Working As Intended by MattBear · 2018-06-22 08:59 · Score: 1

So let me get this straight... A system put in place to help identify poor wait staff, and subsequently justify removing said wait staff, is allowing managers to do just that? And the effected wait staff is taking to the internet to complain about it? OMG this is a national crisis!

Re:Working As Intended by MattBear · 2018-06-22 11:21 · Score: 1

Pretty accurate actually, It's just basic statistics. You disregard outliers as anomalies and look at trends. Over the course of a few weeks you get a good picture of how customers see your employees, if you have a 3* average across your staff you cut back the hours on the staff that average below your base average, and watch them more closely. Workload may be too much, they may not be a good fit, they may need more supervision etc. etc. Sure it messes with peoples lives, by making them more directly accountable for their performance. A poor experience drives customers away, no customers means the restaurant goes under, restaurant going under means entire staff is unemployed. So yeah, get rid of crappy servers.

Isn't it hurting everyone equally? by Chelloveck · 2018-06-22 09:03 · Score: 2

If the tablet is the problem, shouldn't it be "hurting" all waiters in a restaurant equally? The article says that waiters are getting bad shifts because of less-than-perfect scores. If the tablets and the survey were the problems, all waiters would have equally depressed results. So it must be that some are consistently getting worse results than others, so maybe some are actually worse than others. Just a theory.

Yes, I agree that management is using the surveys wrong. Many of the example questions have very little to do with the quality of the server, and the idea that any score less than perfect is "bad" is ludicrous. Those are management issues, not technology issues. Leave the poor little tablet out of this. But still, it seems that the entire waitstaff under any given management is going to be affected equally by these external factors. The absolute scores may be meaningless, but a server's score relative to other servers should be a fairly accurate indication of which serves are preferred by customers.

--
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.

The only thing that Ziosk is good for by sconeu · 2018-06-22 09:03 · Score: 1

Is so that I don't have to hunt down the server when I want the check, and again when I'm ready to pay.

Oops... There's one other thing they're good for... they have the menu's allergy info.

Other than that, I ignore the damned thing, and try to put it somewhere off the table (I prefer to have the table space).

--
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.

Chili's & Olive Garden by DaFallus · 2018-06-22 09:03 · Score: 1

I've seen these things at Chili's and Olive Garden. The only time I really ever use them is because my waiter is taking forever to come back and give me a refill or the check. For the most part, the interfaces on these things are terrible so they really only pose a threat to shitty wait staff or to wait staff at understaffed restaurants. Even then, if the place is so understaffed that the wait staff isn't responsive to customers then I don't see why management would cut their hours.

The real purpose of these devices is to nickel and dime more out of you. They advertise for expensive fruity drinks and overpriced desserts. Then there are the video games that are essentially ports of old Yahoo! games that cost money to play.

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No one cares what your captcha was

Houston TX, USA

Re:Chili's & Olive Garden by avandesande · 2018-06-22 10:20 · Score: 1

Those are two of the shittiest chains in existence. Do yourself a favor and find somewhere better to eat.

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love is just extroverted narcissism
Re:Chili's & Olive Garden by DaFallus · 2018-06-25 08:23 · Score: 1

Oh I don't go there very often. Its usually when I'm visiting inlaws...

--
No one cares what your captcha was

Houston TX, USA

Worst article ever by MobyDisk · 2018-06-22 09:03 · Score: 1

This is the poorly-written flamebait article that blames technology for a non-technology problem.

The article interviews the people who lost shifts because they got poor reviews. But there's no interview of the people who got extra shifts because they were getting good reviews! Later, the author of the article blames the rating system when a waitress who works at a breastaurant gets positive feedback about her boobs. Stop blaming the tablet for human behavior. The statistics in the article is awful too. It just assumes the people using the numbers didn't do any math, and just see a single 1 out of 5 in the reviews and so someone is fired. They complain that the review might be bad because of the food not the wait staff, EVEN THOUGH THE SURVEYS SPECIFICALLY ASK THAT.

Only read this article if you want to be irate at bad reporting.

NPS by thegreatbob · 2018-06-22 09:15 · Score: 1

Tangentially related... Many services use NetPromoterScore ("how likely are you to recommend this service to family/friends?") as a chat survey question, and use it as a factor in a support agent's ratings. In some cases, it gets used as the sole rating metric, as with a webhost I worked at in the past. Anything below an 8 was handled more or less the same as the lowest possible score. What does the company's general perception have to do with the quality of the experience in a given support session? (hint: not much)

The thing to take away from this is that when filling out a post-support survey, any/all of the questions likely impact the technician, and I've seen NPS abused for this purpose in many environments.

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There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...

consumer-satisfaction reinforcement ritual by epine · 2018-06-22 09:17 · Score: 1

Psychopaths tend toward grandiosity, and tend to give out only 1s and 5s.

Normal people familiar with ride sharing mostly give out 4s and 5s, because even a 3 is considered somewhat of an insult or a slag or a snub.

Which is exactly how Uber wants this to play out: every non-psychopathic customer browbeaten into giving out nothing but 4s and 5s after every trip as a form of a consumer-satisfaction reinforcement ritual.

It's also a scheme to trivialize your customers.

I'd be happy to cast judgement on their implementation of the rating system itself (my scores would probably range from 1–2), whereas I have no interest in using it to assess the wait staff directly (who are just the front-end of a complex system, and might well be under the thumb of an asshole manager).

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] I feel sufficiently informed about the rating system itself to provide honest feedback

Never gonna see it, not in a million years.

Because that's not what it's there to do.

Re:Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trait by lgw · 2018-06-22 09:17 · Score: 1

It's a class thing. Waiters are traditionally supposed to act like serving staff. Keep your drink full and deliver your food with minimal visibility and maximum efficiency, and, like any good servant, give every appearance of not only reading your mind, but doing so 5 minutes before you think you want something so it appears like magic.

Some people are made uncomfortable by that. They want a waiter who's their peer and buddy, not their staff. It's a class thing.

When it hurts the restaurant is when they miss-judge their customers. Which kind of service is likely to please as a BBQ place with picnic tables is different from an expensive steak house.

--
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.

This is what you get without data scientists by Anonymous Coward · 2018-06-22 09:23 · Score: 1

For the ratings to be meaningful, they should (1) clearly show what they are measuring - e.g. rate your waiter friendliness, rate attentiveness, how fast did your food arrive, etc. A single rating cannot capture it all. The customer may be unhappy because the food was late. But the food may have been late because of the kitchen rather than the waiter. You can only figure this out if you are correlating with all the other surveys around the same time.

(2) The axis should be labeled: rating 1 - 5 means nothing. Rating 1 - 5 with labels 1 = the waiter was rude, 3 = average, 5 = warm and friendly gives the customer some measure of what the ratings mean.

(3) Even after all this, you need to apply a bell curve and adjust the ratings *and* possibly correlate with other events. For example, everyone is in a good mood in a sports bar when the home team is winning so the ratings will jump across the board. Or everyone will complain about slow service when a couple of waiters are sick and those tending are overwhelmed.

Information is worthless. Knowledge is priceless. Filling the gap between the two costs.

Breastaurants by sycodon · 2018-06-22 09:28 · Score: 1

Unless it's at some Breastaurant.

Then, fake or not, have a seat.

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When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.

Re:Breastaurants by CaptainDork · 2018-06-22 11:20 · Score: 1

My wife and I went to Hooters.
The burgers were drier than my humour and the girls were younger than my nieces.

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It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Re: Breastaurants by c6gunner · 2018-06-22 13:56 · Score: 1

5/5, would go again?
Re: Breastaurants by CaptainDork · 2018-06-22 15:13 · Score: 1

That was ten years ago.
It's just up the road here and we've never been back.

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It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Re: Breastaurants by CaptainDork · 2018-06-23 01:35 · Score: 1

But titties on babies.

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It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Re: Breastaurants by DrStoooopid · 2018-06-23 05:46 · Score: 1

But titties on babies.
Nice thing about hooters, you can get as old as you want....the waitresses stay the same age.

--
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.

Re:Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trait by sycodon · 2018-06-22 09:37 · Score: 2

Yes.

Some people are very comfortable with the idea that others are lessor than they are and some are not. Not trying to be snarky, but that's the truth.

Had a friend with a pretty good business going who was involved in a patent lawsuit. They hired some fancy Beverly Hills attorney who was supposed to be the best. They were at a dinner at some nice place in Beverly Hills when, after dinner was over, his wife started collecting up the dishes and making neat piles for the waiter to take away. The attorney made a point of saying, "they have people for that".

If you have ever thought or uttered those words, you should consider partaking in some very deep self reflection.

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When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.

Are such "innovations" driven by buyer or seller? by az-saguaro · 2018-06-22 09:39 · Score: 1

Stories like this are appearing at a seemingly exponential rise: tech replaces person, or business uses tech to interact with customers. One by one this or that industry latches onto another computerized front end device that is supposed to give the customer a better experience, or else give the proprietor more information or a streamlined operation.

Pardon my naivete or else cynicism, but many times I cannot see the real value in these services. For instance, have restaurant owners adopted these menu-pads because they really perceive (or actually fulfill) a need or value, or because somebody is selling it to them, just a fad that attracts lemmings to a bandwagon steered by a Pied Piper pitchman?

Imagine a simple two-way matrix with four discrete states. The axes are real value of a good or service (valuable or not) versus perceived value (potential customer sees merit or not).
(1) Positive real value and positive perceived value is the sweet spot. The item or service sells itself, and company reps, if involved at all, can be useful learning and support resources.
(2) Positive real value but negative perceived value - that is an opportunity for legitimate entrepreneurs and marketeers to sway the public toward the better but non-obvious item.
(3) Negative real value but positive perceived value - that is the domain of opportunists who do not need to pitch a BS product but can run with the fad and profit from it. (It is worth reading a group psychology classic from 1841, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" by Scottish journalist Charles Mackay.)
(4) Negative real and negative perceived value. Ho-hum, "so what" says the market, but therein is the playground of the shyster, charlatan, huckster. You can often bet on this pitchman because "a fool and his money are soon parted", and "there's a sucker born every minute".

So, the question for /.'ers is this. Are these new tech fads customer or proprietor driven, proprietor or pitchman driven, need or vanity driven, value or fad driven? Are tech gizmos sold because a potential customer sees real value and buys based on rational needs or planning, or because the wily salesman sells something based on vanity or popular delusions? I recognize that some innovative uses of tech are legitimate and valuable, others blatantly not. Where on the two-way matrix do these items fall?

What are your perceptions and insights?

Fun for me by AndyKron · 2018-06-22 09:46 · Score: 1

I could have some fun with those fucking tablets. What run-of-the-mill dive should I go to? Applebees? Olive Garden? Which food tastes the least offal when I puke it back up?

The Customer Is Key by SeattleLawGuy · 2018-06-22 09:53 · Score: 1

Petty and entitled customers get to play god with the servers jobs. But worse, they get to do it anonymously. They don't have to face the person or their boss - just click a button and quietly stick the dagger in someone's back. If someone really has a problem, they should have to go to the manager, and not be given this coward's weapon.

You've got a couple of factors coming into play. "Cowards" isn't really relevant, since the restaurant goal almost anywhere good is great customer service, and by making confrontation a prerequisite to feedback you are just blocking negative (and positive) feedback that would let you optimize for great customer service.

Any competent restaurant wants to be providing great service because competent restaurants calculate the lifetime value of their average customer, and it's really high. (Because customers come back to places they like). Couple that with the fact that it's really surprisingly hard to find good employees, and with the very high turnover rate in most of the restaurant industry. (Not all of it--some places have very low turnover and employees who stay with them for decades).

Tablets give the restaurant a way to get more information about the customer experience. Plenty of customers will pay a bill and even the customary 20% tip but not come back if they feel slighted in some way. Maybe neither the restaurant nor the server knows about the problem to begin with. The restaurant loses business, more customers are hurt, the server doesn't improve, the customer loses a potentially good or great restaurant, and it's bad for everyone.

By adding the feedback channel, you have a chance for the restaurant to fix it. Great restaurants will reach out to the customer and offer coupons or refunds or apologies or other solutions the instant they hear there's a problem. Even decent restaurants will at least reach out to the waiter or staff about whatever the problem was (overcooked item X, drink Y ingredient was not in stock, waiter sneered at me when they overheard me mention something political to a friend, etc...)

If done well, that's a good thing, because it makes the service better.

--
Real lawyers write in C++

Why bother? by DogDude · 2018-06-22 09:54 · Score: 1

If I'm going to eat garbage microwave food in front of a fucking TV, I'll just eat at home. I don't understand why anybody would go to these kinds of places.

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I don't respond to AC's.

Re:Why bother? by ebvwfbw · 2018-06-23 08:34 · Score: 1

Because it's not microwaved food. Have you ever worked at one or looked in the back? Depends on the place of course.
The other thing is your microwaved dinner is probably better for you. A lot of those places stack on the carbs, fats, sugars like crazy and it's a big portion. You will get fat eating there all the time unless you dig fence posts every day or maybe if you're a trash collector. Something where you're burning a lot of calories a day.
Never the less, you should get out of your mother's basement. See the world. There is a point to life.

It was like that 10 years ago by rsilvergun · 2018-06-22 10:07 · Score: 1

when I worked at a call center.

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Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/

Waiter hurting themselves... by Bert64 · 2018-06-22 10:14 · Score: 1

How is the tablet hurting the waiter? It only makes it easier to provide feedback, if the waiter is doing a poor job then the feedback will be bad.

Normally people don't go to the effort of complaining unless the service was especially terrible, for ordinary mediocre to bad service customers will just talk amongst themselves and forget about it once they leave.

Soliciting feedback there and then means the experience is fresh in their minds, and provides them a way to provide feedback without causing them any significant inconvenience. On the other hand, people are still more likely to submit bad feedback if they're annoyed, whereas if they've had good but not exceptional service they are less likely to comment on it.

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http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!

Go to Applebees by rsilvergun · 2018-06-22 10:14 · Score: 1

or any of the crappy chain stores. They've got them there. Or on second thought don't. If I wanted to pay $20 for a frozen and reheated meal and a cheap drink I'd go to McDonalds or Jack In the Box.

--
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/

No Shit, Sherlock? by nospam007 · 2018-06-22 10:17 · Score: 1

We uncounted millions of (former) typists (and umpteen other job types) feel ya, guys and gals.
Welcome to the 3rd millennium.

Anyone Else Getting "Survey Exhaustion"? by careysub · 2018-06-22 10:26 · Score: 1

On-line it has become well-nigh universal to ping users after every transaction to give a rating score, and then when you give a score, you are prompted to write a review also. And then we get prompted for satisfaction surveys after we buy stuff at a store. And if we talk to someone on the phone we get transferred to survey at the end of the call. And now we are being pinged for surveys at every meal in a restaurant.

Mostly I just want to buy something, or get something to eat -- I don't want to be cajoled every time into providing extra customer tracking data (the likely major use for this - instead of, y'know, better service).

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Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj

What about the waiters helped by the system? by l2718 · 2018-06-22 10:27 · Score: 1

This is ridiculous. The claim is not that the shifts went away (that less waiting staff was needed) but that higher-rated waiters got the shifts at the expense of lower-rated waiters. In other words, this helps waiters who are liked by the customers and hurts waiters who aren't liked by the customers. From the point of view of the customers this is a positive development -- they are getting the service they want. This is also good for waiters that do what customers like -- this fact is now recognized and leading to an increase in their pay. Naturally, from the point of view of waiters that customers don't like, this is a negative development, but why should we think it a problem? It is telling the authors of the article neglected to interview the waiters who got the extra shifts or the extra tables that were taken away from the badly performing waiters. It is true that the reasons the customers like the waiters may have nothing to do with the table service as such -- for example, customers may prefer better-looking waiters, or waiters of the same race as themselves, or whatever. But regardless of the reason what happened here is that the restaurant now offers service which more conforms to what cusomters like.

Re:DEHUMANIZATION. by Anonymous Coward · 2018-06-22 10:47 · Score: 1

dehumanization started long before machines got int the mix

it began when people were recognized as a commodity, and people twisted their belief systems to allow them to dehumanize other people so that they would not feel bad about treating other people like chattel

Technology is coming no matter what we do. What we can do is ensure that corporations, and the machines that they build, do not aid them in dehumanizing us

at this point we are losing that battle, mostly due to politicians like trump (erdowan, putin, duterte, etc...) using fear to turn human against human

So basically management via yelp? by budsetr · 2018-06-22 10:58 · Score: 1

Rate 5 then comment on how shitty the manager is.

Re: Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trai by jgfenix · 2018-06-22 11:03 · Score: 1

Yes, but depending on the place your can make a disservice to the waiter if you do that sort of things, especially in high level places. You can cause him problems with his boss or lower his performance assessment.

Racist Opportunity by JimSadler · 2018-06-22 11:10 · Score: 1

There are way to many bigots in this world. Suppose the waiter is black and gay. You can bet that he will receive numerous undeserved reports and thus lose his job. The chains that use these devices may well be quite racist themselves by providing bigots an easy way to harm groups that they do not like. Lawyers are needed for this issue in my opinion.

Re:Racist Opportunity by JustNiz · 2018-06-22 14:13 · Score: 1

Hey welcome to the free market. If the enough people don't actually like a particular waiter for whatever reason, who are you to say that they should be forced on them? ...Or maybe its actually you that is discriminating against people just because they choose not to march lockstep with your peecee liberal agenda?

Re:Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trait by CaptainDork · 2018-06-22 11:19 · Score: 1

I report bad service to the manager on duty.

I report excellent service to the manager on duty.

I'm trying to dump the first and keep the second.

Service person; not the manager on duty.

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It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.

Ziosks scam you out of money by LordKronos · 2018-06-22 11:21 · Score: 3, Insightful

I really hate those things, personally.

So do I, but for a completely different reason than you. Those little fucking devices are an absolute scam. At many restaurants they are programmed to add a $1.99 charge onto your bill for playing games if you interact with them in any way at all.

We don't go to the restaurants chains that uses those things very often, but the first time I saw one a few years back we ended up with a charge on our bill. I was 99% sure our kids had not actually played any games on them, but I couldn't be certain. I complained to the waitress and she removed the charge. Then last year we saw them in a restaurant on vacation. This time I was 100% positive...I never let the kids lay a finger on it. However, I did interact with it myself...I simply browsed through the menus on it, but absolutely did not launch a single app. End result....$1.99 charge on my bill. Again I asked and the waitress happily had the charge removed from the bill.

Then I went home and read up on it, wondering if something weird had just happened to me (maybe someone interacted with it after the last customer and it simply attributed it to me as the next customer in the booth). It turns out countless people have this happen continuously, and it's simply a scam they're running. Any interaction with the screen results in a charge on your bill. Not all locations are programmed to operate this way, but many are. And of course, the waitresses understand this and are always happy to remove the charge when you ask. But how many people simply pay their bill without checking it over, or figure "oh, I guess the kids used that game...I'll just pay for it then", or even people who realize the charge isn't right but are too embarrassed to bring it up for fear of looking cheap in front of their date/friends/coworkers. I really wonder how much money ziosk and the associated restaurants have scammed from those people.

So now if I ever find one at my table, the hostess takes it before I sit down.

Please enter any comments below by PPH · 2018-06-22 12:07 · Score: 1

I found our server to be quite ');DROP TABLE CustomerRemarks;--

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Have gnu, will travel.

Re:Please enter any comments below by Gilgaron · 2018-06-22 12:38 · Score: 1

haha, +1 funny, a pity I've no points!

In soviet russia by lucasnate1 · 2018-06-22 12:23 · Score: 1

You snitch people to the government.

In capitalist America, you snitch people to the corporations.

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Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction

Re: Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trai by c6gunner · 2018-06-22 13:53 · Score: 1

The attorney made a point of saying, "they have people for that".

If you have ever thought or uttered those words, you should consider partaking in some very deep self reflection.

Why? They DO have people for that. Why would you do the work that you're paying someone else to do for you?

If I pay for someone to come set up a network connection at my house, I don't take over when the job is half done and finish it myself. Why would I do it at a restaurant?

Re: Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trai by guruevi · 2018-06-22 14:00 · Score: 1

They actually do have people for that and they'd rather you don't stack the plates into a 5 ton Jenga puzzle.

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Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com

I hate those damn things by JustNiz · 2018-06-22 14:17 · Score: 1

If inadvertently end up anywhere that has those tablet things, the first thing I do when I sit down is move it (usually onto an adjacent empty table else if there is one).

Re: Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trai by ArmoredDragon · 2018-06-22 15:44 · Score: 1

Wow, what an asshole. I'll bet you can't tell the difference between cold beer and urine on the rocks.

Re:Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trait by Maxo-Texas · 2018-06-22 16:24 · Score: 1

> When I reach for my glass, it should never be empty.

I can't stand them constantly dropping by my table. I'd rather have to motion for their attention if I want more to drink. Different Strokes for Different Folks, and so on and so on an dooby-dooby-dooby....

> If I start polite small talk then make polite small talk briefly but don't try to start it yourself.

Some people (not me) like for wait-staff to take the initiative on this because it makes them more comfortable....starting to see a pattern?

Do you like for them to sit down at your table, tell you their name and then proceed to chat instead of taking your order?

I don't. That's my right. I brought my date or my kids or whatever to eat at the restaurant for me. I don't want a new friend who's 30 years younger and who won't be there 3 weeks later when I go in anyway.

> "I hope you have a nice day/enjoy your meal/whatever" plays better than "Have a nice day, enjoy your meal whatever." One is your hope and the other is a command from you.

Really? Now I just realized that you're a fucking piece of shit human being and should have your head caved in with a hammer it a the earliest possible opportunity by the "Be a fucking decent human being police!". Holy Fucking Shit! What a fucking Jack-Ass!

I think going nuclear over a difference in preferences is a much better display of being a jackass. Take your meds man. Calm down.

> I tip well. At family owned restaurants I'm often offered off menu items and I even tip at buffets $1 despite the fact that I get my own food and drink and it galls me.

Just don't eat at Buffet's. Or don't tip at them. It's your choice. Why would you do something that "Galls" you? It sounds like you're into being "Passive Aggressive" instead of making your boundaries clearly known. Don't be such a fucking pussy!

Jesus Christ. For 40 years of my life, you went to a buffet- you got your own damn food, you sat down, ate it and you left.
Then 3 years ago they started taking the straws hostage and changed the busboys into "waiters"... who don't take your order, don't bring your food or drinks.. all they do is give you a damn straw that you used to be able to get yourself when you got your drink. And then they wanted to be tipped. It's a scam by the business. not the "wait staffs" fault.

But excuse me, it pisses me off because they are *NOT* *FUCKING* *WAITSTAFF* if they don't take your order, don't bring your food, don't bring your drink, and you don't even pay them.

> I don't like absent service and I don't like overly familiar service.

Yeah, I'm sure all the "Servers" out there can't wait to "Read" your disturbed mind!

I've had many good servers. They keep my drink full without needing to intrude and ask me. They take my order correctly and bring it to my table while it's still hot. And I tip them well. That's the deal. Good server== great tips. As I said before, good waitstaff really likes me and offers me off menu items. Because I'm pleasant and tip very well and my needs are really small- just keep my drink full inobtrusively and get my order right and back back to me in a reasonable time.

> I probably wouldn't like a server who wanted to discuss politics.

Some would though. Everything can't always be perfectly to your liking. Get a grip man!

Yup. And if they keep intruding and bringing up politics, get my order wrong, make me sit waiting for a refill til the food is cold, then they get a small or no tip. I know of no restaurants that feature waiters who bring up politics like some internet troll.

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She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.

Re: Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trai by Maxo-Texas · 2018-06-22 16:28 · Score: 1

Bet you can't tell the difference between parmesan and dandruff.

You certainly can't tell the difference between rewarding good service with stellar and being rude.

--
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.

Re:Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trait by cyn1c77 · 2018-06-22 18:48 · Score: 2

Yes.

Some people are very comfortable with the idea that others are lessor than they are and some are not. Not trying to be snarky, but that's the truth.

Had a friend with a pretty good business going who was involved in a patent lawsuit. They hired some fancy Beverly Hills attorney who was supposed to be the best. They were at a dinner at some nice place in Beverly Hills when, after dinner was over, his wife started collecting up the dishes and making neat piles for the waiter to take away. The attorney made a point of saying, "they have people for that".

If you have ever thought or uttered those words, you should consider partaking in some very deep self reflection.

You are incorrect. Some managers would fire waitstaff if they saw a customer stacking dishes.

For one, it IS the waitstaff's job to collect dishes. (Actually, technically it's the barback's.) For two, it sends the wrong message to the other diners in the restaurant. Thirdly, it sends a message to the waitstaff (intended or not) that the diner doesn't think that they are competent. Finally, if the diner has time to stack dishes, is means the waitstaff were not watching her closely enough.

It's like when you decline a bellhop or open the door yourself while the doorman is trying to get to it. You are trying not to treat them like they're lessor than you, but you are actually insulting them by even thinking this. They are there to do a job as a professional, and you are doing it for them in an amateur way in their workplace.

That's just about the most insulting thing you can do.

I am changing this subject!! by Anonymous Coward · 2018-06-22 22:41 · Score: 1

Sorry but on the bellhop and door man thing, I (maybe the only one) find it insulting when others do it for me; not as a "kindness" but as a "job".

As our society progresses and life gets easier, there are things I can easily and would rather prefer doing myself. Not paying people to open doors is one of them... especially when we should have automated doors in the first place.

My luggage has wheels and I have wheeled it all the way from home to here. You aren't really making me happy by dumping it on a trolly or holding it up that 5% of the trip.

For me, I just see it as a price in the room that I would rather not pay. The cleaning staff; those are the unseen heroes for me. They do something for me that I have to do everyday... clean up after my mess.

Re:Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trait by mrvan · 2018-06-22 23:50 · Score: 1

It's a class thing. Waiters are traditionally supposed to act like serving staff. [..] Some people are made uncomfortable by that. They want a waiter who's their peer and buddy, not their staff.

I disagree (at least in part). I've been a waiter myself as a teenager and student, and now I am happy to go to restaurants a guest. As a waiter I never wanted to be anyones peer or buddy, and as a guest I certainly don't want the waiter to be my peer and buddy. When I travel to the US I am made uncomfortable by waiters who somehow think that it's good to draw attention to their person and be all friendly. I want them to be efficient and polite, and I will respond by being polite and respectful.

Waiting is a profession, and being a good waiter is not an easy job. We should let them do their job while we enjoy the fruits. If you take a taxi you don't sit in front, chat with the driver, and help them navigate, right? If you go to the doctor or dentist you don't go there because you love chatting with the guy right? Distance is a sign of professionalism, not of class difference.

(Note that whether a waiter will appreciate you stacking the plates and passing them will depend on a host of factors, but if you expect the total bill to exceed 100$ per person, my advise would be to let them do their jobs. They should have plenty of staff and you disrespect them by thinking they need you to do their job. If it's more like a 25$ per person place and the waiter looks overworked, there's a good chance s/he will be happy for your helpfulness.)

And if I do need a chat, I'll go to a bar and take a stool at the actual bar and hope for a nice bartender. I certainly don't go to TGI Fridays because I love chatting with the waiting staff... (I'm not actually sure why anyone would go to any of the restaurant chains mentioned for any reason, but that's a different story....)

er, isn't that how it is supposed to work? by cascadingstylesheet · 2018-06-23 00:54 · Score: 1

If you get consistently bad ratings, it affects your job. Why is that a problem?

In the bad old days, we might respond to this by, you know, trying to do our job better. But that was before social media, you silly old farts!

Finally, a way to provide feedback on waiters. by biggaijin · 2018-06-23 01:55 · Score: 1

Of course the customers who fill out evaluation forms know that they will be used, or at least hope that they will be used by the restaurant's managers. I have had far too many bad wait staff in restaurants to think that this is a bad thing. Until these tablets were provided, the only way to complain about service was to insist on seeing the manager and making a big scene. The waiters who insist that these ratings are unfair for some reason should think again. If their performance was rated consistently higher than their co-workers, then they would be getting extra shift time, not cuts. Maybe this will improve restaurant service to the level that exists in countries like Japan.

False by DrStoooopid · 2018-06-23 05:35 · Score: 1

The tablet on the table of the restaurant is technology's answer to sh*tty service and entitled waiters that think they DESERVE a tip just by virtue of breathing.

--
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.

I read the article, and by bferrell · 2018-06-23 06:29 · Score: 1

One thing leapt out at me was the use comments on bodies and perceived sexuality, especially in these #meetoo days.

The management, by highlighting and using them as "positive" scores have created written and near to incontrovertible evidence of condoning and encouraging pervasive sexual harassment in the work place. And because the comments are in fact tied to individual transactions (wanna bet a middle school kid could do it?) the customer making the comments can be de-anonymized and exposed to the liability as well. Incredibly stupid technology!

As with any tool, this one cuts both ways. Do we have any lawyers in the audience willing to make a few duckets? I'm thinking someone is gonna clean up on this one.

And they say unions were no good

Solution by soundguy4film · 2018-06-23 08:49 · Score: 1

Donâ(TM)t eat at shitty restaurants and donâ(TM)t support this stupid trend.

And why do they think tip is mandatory ??? by nomad63 · 2018-06-23 10:03 · Score: 1

Okay, I have never worked at a dining establishment or for that matter anywhere that allows or expects tips, but being a customer of lots of those places, I have a couple of words to those who think their livelihood is endangered. A tip, as most servers or restaurant staff thinks today, is not mandatory. If you are accepting tip as part of your payment structure, it is not my problem, the customer. If you treat me well and go above and beyond your call of duty, which is to take my order for and serve me my food and drinks, it will not go unnoticed. But if I have to beg you for a refill every time my cup goes empty, you either are paying better attention to other patrons (from whom you are expecting better tips obviously) or you just don't care about your customers at all and thinking that they will all leave you the customary 15% tip and that's good. Newsflash: I paid for my food the outrageous price that restaurateur has charged me already, which included part of what he is paying you. And you made me feel like crap and you expect 15% gratuity ? For what ? Oh, the owner is not hiring enough waiters and making you take more tables than you can handle and your service is slipping because of that ? Then quit and go somewhere else or I have a better idea, find a job where you get a steady paycheck, not reliant on tips. But oh no, this job has so much flexibility. You only have to work 5 hours a day and make it like a bandit from the tips you receive. Right ? Well, sorry to crack you the bad news but every employee who works for someone else, gets what he or she deserves. Not a penny more or less. If you are good at your job, money will come to you naturally. If you suck at it, again, not my problem.

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__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals

Re:Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trait by Maxo-Texas · 2018-06-23 15:47 · Score: 1

You said it with fewer words. Exactly!

--
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.

OMG! by kenh · 2018-06-23 15:55 · Score: 1

Who could have predicted that a labor-saving device installed in a restaurant would reduce the restaurant's need for labor? /sarcasm

--
Ken

Re:Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trait by Maxo-Texas · 2018-06-23 16:00 · Score: 1

As you are a waiter, could you answer this?

I was taught, leave your fork and knife hanging off the plate until you are done and then place the fork and knife clearly on the plate so it can be picked up without them falling when you are done. Have you heard of that or is it local?

I've also heard it makes a difference if the silverware are parallel, plus-shaped, or x-shaped in some countries/restaurants. Ever hear of that?

I don't mind a little small talk if I actually recognize the waitstaff and they are giving me a sincere smile (as opposed to a fake smile) because they remember me (and my tip) from a prior visit. I especially like the waitstaff who remember my preferences from the prior visit. It's very different on the 10th visit with the same waitstaff vs the 1st visit. For one thing, I know it won't be a new person next time. In my experience, high turnover usually (but not always!) means lower quality service.

I don't feel a waiter has to "hover" to provide good service and can manage 4 tables at a high level of service. And they don't have to interrupt the guest's conversation to see at a glance that the guest's glass is under half full.

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She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.

The waiterâ(TM)s Iâ(TM)ve spoken with di by geowar · 2018-06-23 16:04 · Score: 1

Three of my local restaurants have added the table tablets within the last two years and all the waiters Iâ(TM)ve spoken with say that theyâ(TM)re more productive: they can wait more tables in a given amount of time. And that means more tips. How can customer feedback ever be inaccurate or unfair? It is what it is. What ever happened to âoethe customer is always right?â? When my boys were teenagers I recognized âoeunfairâ to mean âoeI didnâ(TM)t get my wayâ.

Re: Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist tra by ArmoredDragon · 2018-06-23 17:47 · Score: 1

First of all, woosh! Secondly, your joke made no sense. Why would a waiter replace parmesan with dandruff? Where would they even get enough? Besides, I'm not an asshole to them, so why would they put that in my food?

Hopefully that response will help you figure out the precise meaning of my joke.

Go one step further! by gosand · 2018-06-24 01:16 · Score: 1

I actually agree with this.

What I don't agree is the ability of what amounts to AC's having this level of control.

Don't like the service? Don't tip.

Really don't like the service? Talk to the manager.

But because the waiter scowled at your screaming, snot nose kid when he poured his coffee all over the the waiter's pants and you and your kids are entitled to better and so you gave him a 1 and got his hours cut is not right. And if you don't think that happens on a regular basis, then perhaps you'd share some of what you are smoking.

First of all, why are you letting your snot nosed kid have coffee?! :D

Second - don't just complain when things are bad. Praise when things are good! You get a great waiter, ask to see the manager AND TELL THEM THAT! We once ordered a pizza, and it was delivered on time, and it was made VERY well. You know what I mean, sometimes you can tell they are just thrown together. I called the place, and asked to speak to the manager. They asked what it was regarding, and I said a pizza I just got.

The manager came on and was full-on ready for a fight. You could hear the relief when I explained how happy I was with how well the pizza was made, the delivery, everything. I asked that she let everyone know who worked on my order that they did a good job. She thanked me for calling, and said that she would let everyone know. I felt good about doing it too! Back in high school my first job was at a pizza place, and I remember how nice it was to get compliments on the food and service. Try it sometime.

--

My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

Re: Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist tra by Maxo-Texas · 2018-06-24 18:25 · Score: 1

Well you are a massive asshole to complete strangers based on little evidence, so I'm sure you are more offensive to some wait staff than you realize.

dandruff in the parmeson has been done. And it was a reference to your comment regarding piss and beer.

So yea.. ."whoosh" but not for me- for you.

As I said above.. I'm offered off menu items by waitstaff who know me. I don't think I'm going to have a problem with pee in my beer if I drank beer.

If you want a 20%+ tip, then give good service..

--
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.

Quality by Doctrinsograce · 2018-06-24 23:49 · Score: 1

When you protect a person from failure, you are removing their ability to improve. Compassion for people is not just about making sure they have a paycheck.

Re:Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trait by lgw · 2018-06-25 01:22 · Score: 1

Some people are very comfortable with the idea that others are lessor

Anywhere there's a lessee there's a lessor.

Customer service is a job, not a difference in species. And we need jobs.

--
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.

Re:...and now it's worse than pointless by d0rp · 2018-06-25 01:45 · Score: 1

Similar thing happened to me when I bought a car a while back. The salesman begged me to not fill out the survey if I couldn't give him a perfect 5 score for everything. I thought that was a bit dramatic at the time (about 6 years ago), but looking back I understand why.

Re:Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trait by registrations_suck · 2018-06-26 02:19 · Score: 1

If you wait that half hour, that's your fault.

When I'm done eating and clearly ready to go, if I don't see the check within 5 minutes, we're up and heading to the front of the restaurant. I'll tell whomever is hostessing that I am ready to pay my bill and show my credit card.

If I have already PROVIDED my credit card, the server gets 5 minutes before the tip starts dropping precipitously, and it will go all the way down to $0 within 10 minutes.

Re:Moscow Donald - History's pee smellingist trait by RockDoctor · 2018-06-30 00:52 · Score: 1

If that were the sort of conversation that happened at TGI Fridays, I might be tempted to travel for two hours each way to the nearest one. If I wanted to eat at a restaurant. Somehow, I doubt it would rate.

--
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"

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