I’ve been talking about trauma and loss, so I want to talk about complaining.
We are experiencing a loss of freedom, connection and fear of economic fall during this pandemic. We are not used to this kind of prevalent, lengthy and collective grief in the air.
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What hurts us even more is our mental tail chasing: the guilt and the shame of falling off the wagon, or not being productive enough. We are conditioned to use time for something we can show for it, the result we can see, count and measure.
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The hospitality industry is historically in reaction mode. It is the slowest to adapt a new technology and mindset necessary to stay relevant and profitable in any economy. Mostly, the hospitality industry fights change and adamantly tries to keep the status quo. During this crisis I see the same mindset over and over again: blame, apathy and defensiveness.
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Your business hasn't failed as a result of the crisis -- your business, while physically remaining open, had failed prior to the crisis.
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She has been with me through times of my life when I’ve felt most volatile. She’s helped my walk through many uncertainties and helped me make some life-altering decisions. We rocked and plowed through a lot of shit together! Then I fired her. I had to.
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The terms service and hospitality are often used interchangeably. Though interrelated, they are not one and the same. Service and hospitality are two separate aspects of business and if regarded and used this way, can fundamentally change the results you create.
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Sprint finally realized: people don't stay on the phone for a damn survey! And, they decided, tricking people into it would be a worthy and profitable idea.
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If you don’t trust yourself to show up fully in a certain situation or environment, you won’t feel confident in it. Lack of confidence is conditioned into you by years of mindless practice of not being your full and true self. By self protecting, plying small, hiding, pretending, performing, perfecting and comparing.
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If you don’t trust yourself to show up fully in a certain situation or environment, you won’t feel confident in it. Lack of confidence is conditioned into you by years of mindless practice of not being your full and true self. By self protecting, plying small, hiding, pretending, performing, perfecting and comparing.
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For many, restaurants are a transitional path for people on the way to “real” jobs or careers. Yet, this truth is a poor excuse for the industry’s notoriously high turnover. In reality, lack of employer support and diminished growth opportunities -- not the prospects of a “real job” -- are some of the biggest contributing factors to why most people leave the restaurant industry.
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The truth is, many restaurants don't have pre-shift meetings, and some that do still don't have a solid system or strategy around how they do it. Many restaurant managers think of pre-shift meetings as a necessary evil. They make it boring and glum by merely talking about new specials, 86’d items, and pointing out the negatives, like wrong uniform or schedule issues.
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Many restaurant employees I’ve worked with wanted to become managers. They all had similar reasons for it: a bigger paycheck; a desire for authority and recognition; a more stable schedule. But most of them also didn’t understand what it means to be a restaurant manager.
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Between wearing many hats, the pressure to wear them all well, and juggling what can seem like a thousand daily tasks, restaurant management is survival of the fittest. It’s a job where shifts notoriously last 10-14 hours (sometimes longer), which can be taxing on the body and overwhelming on the mind.
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Everyone's a coach now! My Instagram feed doesn’t lie. Coaches for this, and coaches for that. They are everywhere! Health coaches, life coaches, business coaches, fitness coaches, relationship coaches, wealth coaches. And I love this one: lifestyle coaches, e.i. undercover network marketers.
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With anything I do, say or write, I am not looking for people to agree with me. If anything, I'm looking for people who challenge my ideas. It kicks me into a higher gear of thinking; ideas are born. I get excited that I got them thinking and I get more to write about. This article is born from that.
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When the hostess finally looked at us, she asked the worst question any service professional can ask. "Can I help you?” She followed it up with a raised eyebrow. My cynical side wanted to come out say, “Well, I don’t know, can you?”
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I had no idea I would be in the restaurant business. After arriving in NYC with no contacts, only $40 to my name and absolutely no English skills, my first job in the restaurant business was as a bartender in one of Brooklyn’s busiest restaurants in 2002.
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Even with all the winning elements in place, 50% of restaurants go out of business within 3 years of their opening date. There are many opinions as to why this happens, hence the common “tough business, low margins, low profits” comments. The truth is, those restaurants don't make it because they lack HEART.
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If you think service is why people return to your restaurant, It's a safe bet that you won't stay in business. "What?!” Let me help you out. You don't think people come to your restaurant thinking: I hope the staff is rude to me, my food tastes lousy, I wait for my drinks for an eternity, can't find my server when I need them, and hopefully they say "duces" on my way out, do you?
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Ask any restaurant owner/manager what their biggest challenge is, I guarantee, hiring and keeping the best staff will make the top three on their list. Restaurants have high turnover, averaging over 66% annually, and with the payroll standard of 30-35% of total sales, let’s face it, there isn’t any room for hiring and training the ones that will bring your business down.
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