Notice how the waitress displays leadership and ownership through service!
We stood in front of a black sign with white letters that read, “Please Wait to Be Seated,” and we waited.
I was hungry and impatient, and not in any mood to wait.
Two couples who arrived ahead of my weary four-woman group waited, too, even though at least half of the tables in the restaurant were empty.
I took that as a sign that the restaurant’s staff was slow and incompetent. That made me more impatient.
When we were seated and our food arrived, I lost it.
“You call this a fresh fruit salad?” I scolded Lindsay, the nineteen-year-old waitress who delivered a bowl of faded honeydew and overripe cantaloupe that the kitchen had, for some reason, thought I would eat.
I expected Lindsay to tell me it wasn’t her fault because she didn’t make the salad. But she stunned me.
“No,” she agreed, “it doesn’t look fresh at all. The kitchen is just about out of fresh fruit. I’m sorry.”
It’s not often that I’m speechless, but at that moment, I didn’t know what to say. I knew it wasn’t her fault, yet she apologized.
As my mouth hung open, Lindsay directed my attention to the plump, red strawberries that garnished the sandwich platters my friends had ordered.
“How about a big bowl of those?” she offered. I closed my mouth as it started to water.
She returned in a hurry, eager to salvage my supper. But steps away from our table, she stumbled over a kink in the carpet and released the bowl, sending strawberries flying all over my dinner companions and me. They landed in our hair, on our shoulders, on our laps, and even in our purses.
Speechless. Again.
“Did everybody get some?” Lindsay asked, and she started to giggle.
It infected all four of us. We laughed.
This teenage ray of sunshine helped us pick berries out of our hair and sped back to the kitchen to slice up some more. This time, I got to eat them instead of wear them.
We left her a huge tip, this young woman who spilled food all over us.
As we left, I pulled her aside. “You didn’t get upset because I didn’t like my salad or even when you tripped. You didn’t blame the kitchen or the carpet or us for arrive so late. You just handled it. How do you do that?
Her response was mature beyond her nineteen years.
“I’m responsible for making sure you come back,” Lindsay explained. “You’ll base your decisions on my actions.”
She was responsible for every mess she made. She was responsible for serving me the wilted cantaloupe. She was responsible for tossing strawberries all over my friends and me.
I asked Lindsay one more question before I turned to leave: “Why were so many people waiting to be seated when we arrived, even though so many tables were empty?”
She replied, “They wanted to sit in my section, so they had to wait for tables to open up.”
Moral: The young waitress learned this by watching her manager, whose section is always as crowded as Lindsay’s is now. That profound example taught her that taking total responsibility for herself, her job, her relationships, and her behavior is the key to avoiding unpleasant outcomes.