Are there politics in service?

Hospitality customer service is what I am referring to. Short answer, yes. Long answer, yeessss. There are many politically sensitive issues in service that require various degrees of maneuvering, gentle persuasions and sometimes outright declaration of war. They don’t call me the Warrior Waitress for nothing.

Of course sex and politics have always gone hand in hand. Just before all your minds seep into the gutter, by sex I mean boys and girls, as in M or F. Not the act of doing, but the state of being a M or a F. Most sensitive issues in Hospitality occur around the M / F situation.

For example, should you treat them differently? Absolutely. They treat us different. And again, before I get sixteen thousand hate emails from various extremist groups, my point of view is based on factual evidence that I experience day in day out. So therefore its true. Because I said so. Men behave differently to women and neither behaves well most of the time. So this isn’t a man bashing thing, I like men. They just happen to annoy the coffee out of me sometimes. And woman are obviously the superior sex but we can also be just plain nasty.

Fact: men respond better to a waitress in a tight t-shirt than a loose fitting business shirt. They will buy what ever you sell them, including peanuts even if they have an allergy and go into anaphylactic shock. Love is all around based on your wardrobe.

Fact: women respond better if you compliment their looks or wardrobe, e.g. “those shoes are amazing”. Guaranteed good behaviour after that.

Fact: men will always overstep the line give any type of chance. When one customer placed his hand on my “cute behind” – his words, I accidently let his breakfast slide offthe plate and onto his lap. Fried eggs sunny side up but trouser side down.

Fact: women feel threatened when their boyfriend / husband pays too much attention to the waitress. They are then mean or rude to the waitress. Of course that doesn’t happen to me because I know to either be rude & mean first or only pay attention to the girlfriend / wife and ignore the man. Unfortunately this can somehow backfire when the man thinks you’re interested in his girlfriend / wife and then basically fantasises for the rest of the meal.

Fact: children are not cute when they wreck the restaurant. Only a mother thinks its funny when tomato sauced greasy hands touch every centimetre of glass in a one kilometre radius. Why are they angry when I ask them to tie them up please?  I said please.

Now these are just a few little things that are political in my business world. And what about the time when I put up the Fireman’s Calendar and most of the M customers were outraged. Something about “if we put naked women up, there would be a massive walkout and probably a termination involved”. My answer: bad luck.

Sometimes its good to be a woman. And when you grow up and buy your own cafe you can do what you want. Until then, I get away with anything because basically my boss knows she will never ever find anyone like me. I am the glue that keeps the angry people together.

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