Fair Warning

Ten Reasons Why Your Server Thinks You’re A Douche

Intentionally screwing with the people who have access to your food makes about as much sense as lighting a cigarette while filling up your gas tank. However, there never seems to be a shortage of culinary warriors who insist on running face-first into a wall of pretense every chance they get. Whether motivated by ignorance or mere entitled douchebaggery, some diners just seem to possess an inherent knack for being huge twatsicles whenever they set foot in a restaurant – for no apparent reason other than they can.

Here then are a few examples that will move you to the front of the biggest spunkchunk I’ve encountered today list every damn time.

You don’t consolidate your requests. Here is the iced tea you requested.Thank you so much. And can I get some extra lemon with that? Here is the extra lemon you requested. That’s awesome. My friend here was looking at your wine list and would like a glass of chardonnay. Here is the chardonnay you requested. You’re amazing. This bread is so yummy, we already ran out. Do you think you could bring us some more? Here is the bread you requested. Awesome sauce! Is it too late to change our order? I think we want what that other table is having! Goes into kitchen and stabs self in the neck with a fork. Has anyone seen our waiter? He hasn’t been here in, like, five minutes.

You pretend like you’re 5 years old on your birthday. Birthdays are like assholes… everybody has one. The annual anniversary of the precise day the universe chose to shit you out may be your personal yearly orgasmic explosion, but the rest of us are too busy scraping by to feel overly celebratory that we’re graced with the end product of your parent’s lust. If you’re old enough to drive a car and still expect complimentary dessert while being serenaded off-key during dinner by minimum wage restaurant employees, then growing up needs to be at the top of your to-do list as you get older.

You ask for recommendations and then order what you were going to anyway. There’s nothing more enticing to a server than an adventurous customer with money to burn. Servers stay on chef’s good sides by selling the daily features they create, and the best shifts are often given to those who have a knack for peddling what they’re told. There’s nothing wrong with being the guy who comes in twice a month and always orders the Hawaiian Chicken with rice pilaf, but making your server go through the motions of describing stuff you have no intention of ordering is a little like finding out a call girl is only there for a kiss.

You act surprised when your credit card is declined. There are always those special breed of customers who go out to eat while leaving their money behind. These are the same taintplows who produce ten maxed-out credit cards and act incredulous when the server returns them accompanied by the declined notice from the POS system. They’re also the same assbabies who swear up one side and down the other that there’s money in the checking account that their debit card mysteriously can’t seem to access. Then – having exhausted all the plastic shuffling their wallets will allow – they invariably cough up the cash they were carrying in the first place.

You are the guy who would piss you off where you work. Being an asshole toward restaurant workers takes about as much courage as the hero who lights a cat on fire. The loose-wristed peesqueezer who treats service employees as if they were subservients is – not coincidentally – usually the same coward who gets regularly trampled either at home or his own place of employment and is looking for a little misdirected payback. However, bullying people who aren’t in a position to fight back doesn’t make you a swashbuckler as much as an opportunist trying to pick a fistfight with an armless opponent.

You expect stronger drinks than everyone else for the same price.Fewer words make a server cringe more than and make it a strong one after receiving a drink order. Attempting to bypass recipes and standard units of measurement to save a buck or two doesn’t make you look as suave as it does the cheap jackload you invariably are. Like most other industries, restaurants don’t remain in business by giving shit away, and you asking for more than the normally allotted portion jeopardizes everyone’s job just so you can feel like you were able to get over. If you want a double, pay for a double. If not, then either STFU and drink what you pay for or sneak in a flask and spike your cola when no one’s looking like the rest of the low-rent spoozenibblers who exude entitlement for no apparent reason.

You behave like Captain Creeper. Gentlemen, here’s a tip from your server. You’d have a much greater chance of getting laid by your waitress if you worked alongside her rather than slipping her your phone number scrawled on your credit card receipt next to your ten percent tip. Overly susceptible dudes wrestling with either loneliness or a mid-life crisis are a dime a dozen in the restaurant/bar biz, and mistaking the smile and flirtations of your waitress to be anything more than a sales technique to milk you out of a bigger tip makes you fodder for the staff who compare notes about their craziest and creepiest customers when they’re having drinks at the end of the night. And then winding up in bed together.

You lie. So the last time I was here I had a really bad experience and the manager said she’d take care of my dinner the next time I came in. Really? And who was the manager? I don’t remember her name. The tall one. All of our managers are male. Maybe it wasn’t a manager, then. It must’ve been the hostess. Our hostesses aren’t allowed to authorize complimentary meals without a manager’s authorization. I don’t know who it was, then. All I know is that I was promised a free meal! By who? Can I talk to a manager, please?

You recreate the space-time continuum. The next time you get pissed off and begin throwing a tantrum because “you’ve been sitting there waiting 45 minutes for your food to arrive,” remember this – every order that gets rung in is also logged with the time it was entered. That means we can and will check to see if you’re telling the truth or if your hunger is feeding your frenzy to be a lying piss sponge. For some individuals, restaurants are often black holes where time seems to magically stand still when they’re waiting for shit to arrive – and unfortunately these same people lose track of the very same time two hours later after they’ve finished eating and are sitting there chatting about their Facebook status while a hundred other people are waiting for a table.

You request a non-existent steak temperature. The mythological realm between medium and medium-well can be located precisely in the same stratosphere as either Atlantis or Narnia. You have a better chance of having your picture taken with Bigfoot while riding piggyback on the Loch Ness Monster than getting your porterhouse cooked somewhere between rare and medium-rare – because the temperature doesn’t exist! Ordering anything outside of the five universally accepted steak temperature choices is a sure sign that you either (a) don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, or (b) don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.

Good Work If You Can Get It

So You Want To Be A Corporate Service Industry Manager…

Booyah! A manager position just opened up where you work. You’re already making plans to apply for it, and all of your years of hard grunt work in the trenches are finally about to pay off. You’ll make truckloads of money, have more vacation time than you’ll know what to do with, contribute to a 401K so you can retire in luxury and – most importantly – you’ll never have to scrub a floor or clean a toilet again.

Slow your roll, Powerball winner.

Before you begin cashing in on your big payday, do yourself a favor and familiarize yourself with the following fine print you’ll find on the reverse side of your winning lottery ticket. If after reading it you still agree to the terms, then there’s always a seat on the gravy train – especially for people just like you.

 Prepare to learn a second language. Indoctrination is as prominent in the corporate service world as crippling debt is to freshly-minted college graduates. Consequently, the carefully-crafted bullshit that is generated from most corporate Marketing and Human Resource departments makes evangelists bilking septuagenarians out of their life’s savings look tolerable in comparison. And unless you agree to memorize this syntax, your membership to the club will be revoked before you even have the opportunity to kiss your first ass. So prepare yourself to begin referring to customers as guests, employees as associates and holidays off as nonexistent. That’s because this is revenue-generating outside the box thinking which will quickly leverage existing performance based action items that are designed to synergistically disseminate robust methodologies and will lead down the path of assertively driving quality growth strategies. So if constantly speaking in euphemisms and nonsensical catchphrases doesn’t make your stomach turn, then this just may be the job for you.

Your General Manager will either be your best friend or worst enemy. Or both. Restaurant and retail General Managers are in the unique position of getting to determine their own schedules as well as yours – a benefit they take full advantage of. Most store General Managers are vampires in reverse, with most of them avoiding late night shifts with the same enthusiastic frequency that Vlad the Impaler enjoys working on his suntan. General Manager temperaments toward you can either lead you to think omigod I died and went to heaven or how the hell did I get stuck working for this raging psychotic and fluctuate as often as store profits and the Regional Managers who regularly reside up their asses dictate. They may or may not take a vested interest in your personal development and the decisions they make may often run contrary to your long-term best interest. Their mood swings are mostly determined by things they can’t control – yet that seldom precludes them from being the ultimate control freaks. So if enduring a boss who makes riding an upside-down rollercoaster seem like a leisurely stroll through your closest amusement park, then this just may be the job for you.

How it feels to be a legal alien. Alienation and legal liability go hand-in-hand with management positions the same way religious fundamentalism frequently does pirouettes with closed minds. Not only will you often be kept at arms’ length by the people you supervise, but the possibility of getting sued always looms like a cloud of potential lifetime poverty over your head. Salaried managers have legal liabilities that most hourly workers don’t. Managers frequently have to sign legally-binding documents, ensure the workplace is free from harassment and keep the people working for them safe. If a manager fails in any of these responsibilities, they may be held legally liable. If you are promoted from within the ranks of the people you used to work alongside, your relationship with them consequently must necessarily change so you can insulate yourself from this potential liability. In several states, not only can a company be sued when a manager demonstrates negligence, but a lawsuit can simultaneously be brought against the manager being accused as well. So if being on the outside looking in while closely guarding everything you say and do entices you, then this just may be the job for you.

Get used to living life in the crosshairs. The target on a service industry manager’s back is as large as the chasm between the average Kardashian’s ears, and the higher up the ladder you climb the more people you’ll encounter who try to send you back to the rung from which you just came. Every decision you make will simultaneously make someone’s day and piss someone off, so you’re always a hero and an asshole at the same time. Everyone who approaches you usually does so with an agenda, and their perception of you is based primarily on the degree to which you meet their requests or demands. Because of this you will constantly be under the microscope and there will always be some disgruntled individual waiting around the corner looking for retribution because you failed to deliver on their demands. Whether it be the employee who feels unjustly disciplined, the customer who wasn’t awarded the gift card they felt entitled to or a fellow manager who insecurely feels threatened by your existence, there will never be a shortage of people complaining about you or trying to take you out. So if going through life constantly ducking punches, dodging bullets and covering your ass while watching your back is your idea of a good time, then this just may be the job for you.

Keep your resume updated and uploaded. Turnover is as rampant in the service industry as intolerance for gun control is in the NRA. The turnover rate in the economy’s hospitality segment in 2015 rose to 72.1 percent, up from 66.7 percent in 2014, according to a recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report. It was the fifth consecutive year of turnover rate increases. The one thing you can count on during your management tenure is that the grass will always seem greener on the other side of whatever fence you’re behind. The reality is – sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t. Somewhere between the ridiculously long hours accompanied by the stress of enduring unreasonable customers, high-maintenance employees, semi-competent co-managers and the never-ending sting of the corporation reminding you that you can always do better, it’s easy to be lured by Craigslist and the opportunities it offers that you wish you currently had. And somewhere along the way someone somewhere will tap into your breaking point and send you spiraling over the edge where you will find yourself cascading toward the full time job of finding your next gig. So if expanding your resume by consistently job-hopping to companies who essentially do the same thing in slightly different ways coincides with your tolerance level, then this just may be the job for you.

Be ready to attend regular classes in Babysitting 101. More than most industries (other than perhaps professional athletics), the service sector is populated with its fair share of degenerates, addicts and transients who, combined, are as easily manageable as a drunk concertgoer slamming away against fellow ticket holders in a mosh pit. Service industry employees are notorious for calling in “sick” minutes before their shift is scheduled to begin, not showing up at all, coming in horribly hungover or not taking responsibility when they screw stuff up. And when the people you employ fail to live up to their obligations, guess who gets to fill in for their shortcomings. Every. Single. Fucking. Time. So if taking up the slack for irresponsible adolescents masquerading as adults is your particular cup of tea, then this just may be the job for you.

Remember that thing you used to call your life? You won’t say goodbye to it entirely, but there will be less of it to go around. Restaurant and retail managers work extremely long hours, sometimes as many as 12 to 15 per day, up to seven days per week, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. During the course of any given day, managers may deal with upset customers, fill in for staff, train employees and place orders to restock inventory. Managers play an integral role in making certain an establishment is profitable and are the last line of defense to safeguard P&L controllable line items from getting out of whack. The long hours combined with the multiple responsibilities often lead to stress, exhaustion and substance abuse among many managers. And if you’re really into sadism, divide the average weekly hours you regularly work into your salary. So if working ridiculously long hours while most likely making less money than the people you oversee is something you aspire to, then this just may be the job for you.

Casting A Line

A Crappy Complaint

When it comes to extracting karma, there’s nothing like the internet to level the get-even playing field.

If there’s one thing corporate restaurant and retail chains have perfected, it’s the art of enabling cowards and entitled internet warriors with the ability to elevate their petty grievances without the nuisance of having to confront an actual breathing human being in the process. Thanks to the omnipresent Contact Us buttons on corporate websites, any crusty turdclump wearing a cowpie as a chip on their shoulder can now log on and abuse any hourly service worker from the safety of their anonymous computer screens instead of attempting to get them fired to their actual face.

Or so they think.

Too many online complainers are little more than serial bargain junkies looking for their next coupon fix. In the ongoing quest to satisfy their discount jones, these markdown minions have a take-no-prisoners outlook as long as they get theirs. And it’s that precise mentality that exposes them where they least expect it.

In order to receive the gift certificates they feel entitled to, these rebate nobjockeys have to turn over the one thing that exposes them the most to potential retribution – their personal information. The data you release to the World Wide Web is only as secure as those you surrender it to, and there’s often nothing more public than your address lying around unguarded on a person’s computer screen whom you’ve just chastised and abused.

And here’s why.

Restaurant and retail managers are not in the hospitality business. They are primarily in the dealing with complaints business. It’s amazing how many douchebags with a gripe are under the impression that someone ten states removed from them in a corporate office is going to stop everything they’re doing to address their miniscule rant. In reality, what most of these coupon hunting pricksacks fail to realize is that their attempts to bypass the local level are immediately dropped in the laps of the very people they’re trying to avoid in the first place. So that form you just filled out complaining about how so-and-so completely ruined your shopping or dining experience most often gets summarily rerouted back to the store or restaurant you’re trashing, and they’re required by their Regional Managers to have the first crack at making you go away as quickly and quietly as possible. In the end you may end up with the gift card you’re begging for, but you also have to cough up your address, email and phone number to get it.

Now here’s where the fun begins.

Mr. TC and his entitled friend recently came into the restaurant on a Sunday night where I currently work. They bypassed the dining room, opting instead for stools at the bar. They ordered a couple of glasses of wine and left after downing them. The following day, ol’ TC began his gift card fishing excursion by sending the following diatribe through the corporate complaint line.

EMAIL COMMENTS: Message: We stopped in Place Where I Work for a glass of wine, taking two seats at the end of the bar. We both noticed several Place Where I Work employees seated at the bar, eating dinner. One was close to us, while there were a few more at the other end, near the server’s station. We placed our order with the bartendress. After about 10 minutes another waiter arrived (either ending or beginning his shift) and took a seat next to my friend. That’s the beginning of us being ignored by the bartendress. Her focus and that of the other bartendress, was to engage two male waiters seated next to us and begin gossiping about work and workers. One could not help but overhear everything being said due to the proximity of the gossipers to us. My friend and I thought it very strange that a restaurant the likes of Place Where I Work allows its staff to be seated at the bar, either to take in a meal during break or to have a beer/cocktail after shift. First, it’s extremely unprofessional. Second, the three male waiters we saw were taking up valuable real estate at the bar that rightly should go to paying customers. Third, we were ignored as the men were center of attention. Upon leaving, we told the host…

And at that point ol’ TC had reached his bitching word limit and was summarily cut off, as even the internet gods have only so much tolerance for liars and bullies.

The next afternoon, ol’ TC was contacted via phone by a Guest Relations Representative at the home office. She politely listened to his plea for the freebie which would assuredly soothe his mistreated soul, and instead offered him a sincere apology due to his only ordering a couple glasses of cheap wine and no food to go with it. But not being one to accept defeat so easily, ol’ TC promptly hopped back on the internet bitch line and swung for the fences again, further complaining how “the host said he was sorry and that the next time we came in he could guarantee that we’d not witness staff seated at the bar, however he did not take down our names or go chasing after the manager.”

After numerous attempts to get every employee he encountered that evening either reprimanded or fired, ol’ TC ended up being sent the gift card he so sorely coveted just to make him shut the fuck up and take his perpetual butthurt on to his next unsuspecting victim. But in addition to his future comp, ol’ TC was also sent an additional reward for his efforts.

But we’ll get to that in a moment.

First, let’s realistically address ol’ TC’s allegations. The employees who were seated at the bar were actually workers from a neighboring restaurant who occasionally wind down by patronizing our watering hole when they get off work. And what they wear and discuss when they are away from their place of employment is their own business. If you don’t like the conversation you’re ear-hustling on that you weren’t invited to, move your pompous ass to a seat where your sensibilities won’t be so easily offended. It’s a bar and people discuss their problems in it. So the valuable real estate you bemoan as being “lost” was occupied by paying customers just like yourself, you gift-card-fishing queefwallet. You would have known that had you actually asked to speak to the manager you accused of ignoring you instead of hiding like a coward behind a computer screen after the fact. And that individual you offensively referred to as a bartendress gave you every opportunity to do what most normal people who come to restaurants do, which is eat and drink. You were presented a menu, served the beverage of your choice and given the option of ordering whatever your heart desired. At no point is it in her job description to figuratively hold your hand or literally stroke you in the manner you’ve apparently become accustomed to while engaging in your online porn hobby. Oh, and the host you chastised also did what he is required to do – address your concerns, no matter how infantile. Your complaints were handled on several occasions by numerous individuals, yet you still found it necessary to continue jeopardizing people’s employment until you got what you came for – a free pass so we can all look forward to dealing with your horrible persona again in the near future. Lucky us.

Enter: I Poop You dot com.

IPoopYou.com is a San Francisco based company that specializes in delivering high quality, farm raised, eco-friendly, hand-picked animal poop to that special deserving someone on anyone’s get-even list. There are numerous varieties from which to choose, including Cow Chocolate Pudding, Horse Spring-Rolls, Oink-Oink Turds, Chicken Delights and Goat Bites. Every poop arrives at its destination in a beautiful gift box including a leak-proof container that keeps the aroma always fresh & smelly. You can also add a personalized card, or remain anonymous if it’s to your advantage to do so. In addition, a UPS tracking number is sent when the package has been mailed so you can follow your poop selection all the way to its recipient’s doorstep. When it comes to professional delivery, these people are certainly the shit.

Now I would never be one to suggest that someone like ol’ TC either deserves or was sent a steaming heap of dung to the home address that was readily obtained from his ridiculous complaint where he unnecessarily targeted random individuals who were just doing their jobs while he was lobbying for a complimentary gift card he didn’t deserve. Nor would I imply that he is the sort of entitled individual who is more than likely a serial complainer who regularly harasses people at their places of employment when they are at their most vulnerable and least likely able to fight back. And I would never, ever, advocate that the tables should be turned whenever the opportunity presents itself on these type of schmucks who cowardly attempt to get free shit by making sure they receive exactly just that.

What I am suggesting, however, is that if you go through life unnecessarily dumping on people merely for your own gain then don’t be surprised when the karmic crap boomerangs back in your face. Or lands on your doorstep.

May I Have Another Please

7 Guaranteed Ways To Get Ripped-Off In A Restaurant

Everyone loves a deal. Getting something for less than its advertised price is the grease that regularly lubricates the wheels of commerce and is the unfortunate reality most service industry workers have found themselves beholden to. In our bargain-seeking way of life, quality is often replaced by how further we can barter down something that’s already being offered on the cheap.

Because restaurants aren’t in the business of losing money, they’ve found it necessary to adapt to this coupon reality in order to survive. Here then is a partial list of the ways many culinary institutions have had to resort in order to keep their doors open when the discount warriors come knocking.

Host a banquet event. Corporate restaurant banquet coordinators are similar to televangelists – the miracles they promise often come with hidden price tags, and the only healing going on is usually to their bottom lines. The one thing bar mitzvah’s, baby’s first birthdays, weddings, pharmaceutical sales meetings and Christmas parties all have in common is that they all begin with the signing of a carefully crafted fine-print contract. In addition to the standard you break it you bought it clauses found in most of these agreements, many restaurants now pad their coffers with things like mandatory sales minimums, guaranteed guest counts (regardless of how many people actually show up) and hefty cancellation penalties. But the piece de resistance hidden within any well-designed banquet function contract is the event fee. This “fee” is usually 20% of the pre-tax event total and is cloaked as an administrative cost retained for the set up and administration functions related to the event. Whatever the hell that means. It is not a gratuity and no part of it goes to the service staff. What it is is free money the company extorts from its “guests” for no other reason than it can to inflate its monthly P&L statements. In addition, you will also be reminded at the end of your event that a gratuity is not included in the total and is completely optional and at your discretion – so feel free to add on another 20% on top of what you previously agreed upon unless you want to be looked upon as a cheap ass. So the next time your special occasion rolls around on the calendar, you’d do well to accurately consider the full cost your celebrating will entail before signing on the dotted line.

Order the house wine. It’s no mystery that alcohol is the largest profit generator in any restaurant. Most restaurants aim for anywhere between a 20 – 30% liquor cost, which means they have a built-in incentive to sell you that second martini you’re straddling the fence about. And when it comes to fattening the cash cow nothing screams all aboard the gravy train like wine, as industry-wide markups average two and a half to three times wholesale cost. However, some budget-conscious consumers periodically find it a little problematic paying $60 for the same bottle they’re accustomed to shelling out $20 for at the corner liquor store. Enter: on-premise wine. On-premise wine is juice that is made available solely to restaurants by distributors – usually at a bargain basement price – that consumers have no familiarity with. These wines are then used by restaurants – primarily in banquets and happy hour programs – to prop up and enhance their margins while convincing their customers that they’re actually getting in on a great deal. Mostly produced from fruit that doesn’t quite make the premium label grade, it’s usually just palatable enough to pass at the cut-rate price point at which its offered. So consider that the next time you’re savoring your $6 glass of chardonnay that was purchased by the restaurant for $3 a bottle.

Buy into the scratch kitchen mentality. One of the latest trends that has been pooped out by the bowels of corporate restaurant chain marketing departments is to tout their food as being produced in “scratch kitchens.” Today cooking from true scratch is a fallacy, so restaurants have reinvented the word to suit their own merchandising means – because in modern society life without processed food is a virtual impossibility. And that isn’t to naively suggest that all processed foods are bad, either. If all processed food were suddenly removed from our dietary chain, it would certainly be interesting to see how many of us could survive and for how long. After all, where would we get our food while trusting it to be both safe and nutritious? So the problem isn’t the processed food as much as labeling it as something that it isn’t. What is being touted as scratch cuisine – and the often elevated pricetag that accompanies it – is primarily pre-packaged Sysco product that ends up reconfigured to meet corporate recipe specifications. Though there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, it is worth considering when the lasagna sitting in front of you that the menu described as lovingly designed by the hands of master chefs was in reality assembled by Jose and Juan during their prep shift after thawing out some frozen meat and popping open a few cans of processed tomato sauce. So the next time you visit a restaurant that touts its menu as emerging from a scratch kitchen, you may want to get an itch to eat somewhere else.

Get your feature on. Corporate restaurant marketing departments exist for one singular reason – to continually devise creative promotions which will ultimately benefit the company while simultaneously fooling their patrons into thinking they’re getting a good deal in the process. In the brave new world of culinary carnival barking, what used to be known as the Daily Chef’s Special is now lovingly referred to as Our Monthly Features. But as with most restaurant doublespeak, the lipstick may have changed but the pig it’s applied to remains the same. Corporate menu feature programs are designed by kitchen managers masquerading as chefs with the sole intent of leveraging their buying power with regional suppliers to concoct profitable menu selections that can readily be nationally marketed to the average mediocre palate. However, these “chefs” are to culinary originality the same way Martha Stewart’s Kmart furniture line belongs in the Guggenheim Museum. So the next time you’re at dinner and your server is pushing the monthly features down your throat, keep in mind he or she is being strong-armed behind the scenes to meet corporate-mandated quotas that are usually not to your advantage to buy…into.

Don’t verify the auto grat. Tipping is both the bane and lifeblood of the restaurant industry. The reason why your halibut doesn’t cost twice what you’re paying is because the average tipped wage in the United States hovers somewhere around good luck having a life. Which means that while the federal minimum wage currently equals $7.25 per hour, federal law permits employers to pay tipped workers a base wage of only $2.13 per hour, provided that tips make up the difference. Restaurants essentially rely on the generosity of their patrons to subsidize a majority of their payrolls in order to keep their costs down while maintaining their supposed thin margins. However, this system has also succeeded in creating a culture whereby hospitality workers are forced to pass the hat for their wages while relying on the dubious whims and arithmetic skills of those they serve. In order to prevent their service staffs from all-out mutiny, many restauranteurs mandate an automatic gratuity on parties of a certain size to guarantee that their help is adequately compensated on the largest bills and will subsequently return to work the following day. But many servers – being the forgetful folk they can sometimes be – often fail to point out that the service charge was already included on the check, hoping the person who is paying is too caught up in the moment to realize and will leave an additional tip on top of what is already being charged. This is a practice known as double-bagging among servers. So the next time it’s your turn to pay, take the extra moment to verify exactly what it is you’re paying for or you may find yourself coerced into generosity you never quite intended.

Holidays are a time for giving. Your money away, that is. Restaurant spending doubled on Christmas Day 2015 compared to the prior year, according to Sarah Quinlan, senior vice president of market insights for MasterCard Advisors. “It looks like we didn’t go to Grandma’s house this year,” Quinlan told Business Insider. “Nobody cooked. You can really see this trend of experiential spending. Consumers would much rather create a memory now than buy stuff.” Holidays are windfalls for restaurants, helping to compensate for the other comp and coupon driven days in between them. Most restaurants forego anything resembling discounting during holidays, opting instead for specialty menus with elevated pricing and select items with built-in inflated margins. The busiest holidays in the restaurant industry, in order, are Mother’s Day, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, Father’s Day, New Years Eve and Easter. So the next time you feel obligated to take dear ol’ mom out on her special day, make sure you invite a few of your Uncle Benjamins along for the party as well.

Restaurant Week really is weak. Restaurant Week is an annual marketing scam devised to lure suckers into thinking they can patronize a restaurant on the cheap which they normally couldn’t afford. The three course meal you’ve been coerced into sampling at a fraction of the usual price is also a fraction of a meal. Successful restaurant kitchens operate on a 30 – 35% food cost ratio, which means that for a $25 meal, cost should be less than $8.75 – and the ingredients will certainly reflect that math. Restaurants during Restaurant Week are like casinos in that they don’t remain in business by giving the majority of their profits away, but they do offer the illusionary promise of a jackpot to those willing to buy into the dream. Restaurant Week patrons are, more often than not, treated to a sampling of undersized portions concocted with subpar ingredients by chefs who would rather be stabbing themselves in the eye with a fork than dumbing down their menus for people they’ll likely never see again. The waitstaff is also not a fan of this annual frugal fest, as the one-and-done clientele it attracts are characteristically viewed as gratuity penny pinchers in addition to menu bargain hunters. All in all, you’d be getting a much better deal by regularly patronizing your neighborhood bar or restaurant during their normal happy hour than by participating in this annual miserly menagerie. So the next time Restaurant Week comes calling, you’d be better off letting it go straight to voice mail rather than listening to some hukster on the other end trying to sell you a bargain that is anything but.

Growing Old But Not Up

Why Your Restaurant Loyalty Program Probably Sucks

Corporate restaurant marketing departments understand that the quickest route to their customer’s wallets is through their stomachs while simultaneously appealing to their vanity. The primary job of a restaurant marketer is to sit in an office cubicle six states removed from where you work while devising ways to extract as much money from your customers as possible without pissing them off in the process. The programs they consequently concoct are essentially pigs glossed over with lipstick whose sole intent is to coerce repeat business by offering meager enticements in exchange for return visits and the revenues they subsequently bring.

Enter the Customer Loyalty Program, the Frequent Flier version of the restaurant industry.

Customer Loyalty Programs have become a primary sales driver for the majority of chain restaurants. Most corporate restaurant marketing departments estimate that repeat customers spend as much as 67% more than first time guests during a single visit, so it’s easy to see why there’s such a rush to recruit as many consumers into the ranks of the privileged as possible. However, the real purpose of these programs is to pad EBITDA P&L statement lines while simultaneously squeezing both their employees and the “guests” they profess to adore.

Though not all Restaurant Loyalty Programs are bait-and-switch-let’s-make-a-deal seductions, there’s a better than average chance that the waiter or waitress trying to sell you one is being threatened behind the scenes to either sign you up or face the impending unemployment line. Your consistent business is more important to the corporation who is extracting your money than the people they employ, and your non-participation jeopardizes your server’s potential to eat or pay their rent. That’s the sort of loyalty corporate restaurants are trying to solicit from you with their pay-to-play enticement schemes.

Here are a few reasons why your Restaurant Loyalty Program might not be everything it’s advertised as.

It’s All About The Numbers, Bitches. Restaurant loyalty programs greatly contribute to employee humiliation and abuse. In their fervor to ensure that corporate mandates are religiously followed, most restaurant chains have now imposed Performance Based Scheduling (PBS) onto their service staffs. Far from measuring inconsequential things such as tenure, job loyalty and guest relations, most PBS yardsticks instead focus on a server’s ability to sell marketing campaigns such as “capturing” customer email list sign-up candidates while “closing the sale” on loyalty program cards. Quotas are commonplace in this environment of veiled threats and fear, and those who fail to deliver their fair share of the promotional pie most often find themselves relegated to the worst shifts with the least earning potential. Weekly backroom charts are posted with each server’s participatory progress listed for all to measure themselves against in hopes of encouraging a competitive get-on-board-or-get-off-the-ship mentality, thus discouraging an environment of one for all and all for one while replacing it with a you bitches are in this for yourselves sink-or-swim workplace culture. Consequently, the server who so arduously attempts to persuade you of the merits of their company’s loyalty program is probably doing so more out of fear rather than any altruistic benefit on your behalf.

There’s Nothing Fine About This Print. Certain restaurant loyalty programs reward you with one point for every dollar you spend. Not including alcohol. Or tax. And tip. Double points are rewarded the first time the card is used. Unless the card wasn’t initially programmed correctly in which case the Customer Care Hotline must be called. Between the hours of 9 to 5 Monday through Friday. Regardless of your time zone. Initial membership costs $25. But not really, because $25 is then loaded onto your card for you to spend on your next visit. After 250 points are accumulated, a $25 gift certificate is sent for redemption on a future visit. Anything over $250 will be credited toward the next $25 reward. Points must be used during the same calendar year and will expire if not redeemed. Double points can be accrued every Monday. Except when a holiday falls on a Monday, then the double points don’t apply. Or if a “special” day falls on a Monday, double points don’t apply. Special days are solely at the company’s discretion. Subject to each location’s enforcement. You are rewarded $25 to spend on the month of your birthday. Unless you miss redeeming it by a day, then the reward becomes null and void and can’t be retrieved until the following calendar year. Also, the loyalty card holder must pay for his or her own birthday dinner to receive the $25 birthday bonus. Got it?

Fake Rewards Are Still Rewards. Most restaurant loyalty programs include non-monetary enticements targeting soccer moms and other stay-at-home societal segments who are easily persuaded by pretense and bullshit. These include benefits like flashing your membership card at 7 PM on a Saturday night – which you didn’t make a reservation for – that subsequently allows you the privilege of automatically cutting in front of a line that is already populated by people who arrived before you who have been patiently waiting their turn for a table. Really? So let’s get this straight…One of your membership “rewards” is the sanctioned privilege of bullying other people the same way you probably got pushed around in high school? Money often purchases the ability to get away with being an asshole, and these pseudo-loyalty rewards are just another way corporate profiteers cater to the hubris of the most susceptible among us to get them through their doors more frequently. If paying for the privilege of cutting in line is your idea of a benefit, then you’re an opportunistic schmuck who should instead consider donating that sort of disposable income to a worthier cause. Like a food bank. Or a homeless shelter. Or my bank account.

Free Always Has A Price, And The Points Aren’t Always The Point. You are your data. If your idea of a deal is relinquishing your social security number, driver’s license and home address over to a corporation for a complimentary quesadilla, then loyalty programs are right up your alley. When you sign up for a loyalty program, you are essentially surrendering your personal information to a corporation and allowing it to track your purchase habits solely for its own benefit. In exchange, you’re offered a relatively small enticement whose true value only you can determine. And remember – your personal data is only as secure as the platform to whom you entrust it. Loyalty programs simultaneously reward cybercriminals who are capable not only of hijacking your earned rewards and selling them on the black market but can also take advantage of security flaws in software programs to seize your personal information, which is their biggest reward of all. The question then becomes, what is more important – saving money or protecting your identity? Furthermore, in order to extract the full benefits loyalty programs offer you’re essentially required to become a compulsive patron of the business whose card you hold, otherwise it’s just another piece of plastic taking up real estate in your wallet. Not unlike most dysfunctional relationships, your bond with the corporation to whom you subscribe is contingent on your giving more than you get, and loyalty is ultimately defined by how little you’re willing to accept in return.