My job allows me to study how we as human beings interact with each other. It’s fascinating to watch how someone can be your best friend one minute, and then instantly switch to your worst enemy(“‘Heinous Bitch’ is the term used most often”…great quote…bonus point if you can name the movie) when they have to wait for their free bread.
Communication, as defined by dictionary.com, is:
“the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs”
Roughly, communication allows us to find out what someone else has to offer, while also giving us the opportunity to let someone else know what it is that we want for ourselves. What intrigues me the most is the fact that interpersonal communication breaks down in the patron/server dynamic. What do I mean? Simply this: people seem to have a hard time paying attention to what their server is has to say.
Eye contact is probably the most important part of effective communication. It lets the person speaking know that you are paying attention and invested in what they have to say, while at the same time forces you to focus on that person and actually listen to what is being said. If I had to estimate how often I am able to make eye contact with my guest, it wouldn’t be more than 50% of the time. I’m, sadly, starting to get used to staring at someone’s ear while describing the fish of the day.
Now, I can understand that the CCF menu is massive and can be a little overwhelming to some people. There is a lot to decide on and most people don’t want to spend their entire evening making a choice, so they get right to get it over with. My job is to make the process easier. I give the specials, perhaps make a few suggestions, and generally help steer the guest in the right direction. One would think that lifting your eyes up and meeting my gaze for a moment would be a simple thing. In this way, no one sounds like an idiot when they order a Pepsi when I just got done saying that we have Coke products, or when they ask what the soup of the day is when I mentioned it not thirty seconds before. Not to mention the fact that it is a bit rude not to look at someone when they are talking to you…
My big question is this…what is the reason for this lack of common courtesy? Is common courtesy, like my friend CP says, not so common? Do people really think servers aren’t worth paying attention to because of their job description. Or is this a sign of a larger societal issue? In today’s world of unlimited texting, myspace, facebook, twitter, etc. have we as a people become so disconnected from each other that we’ve forgotten how to interact with other people?
What do you think?
