Having been in the service industry for almost thirty years, I am intimately familiar with the necessity of good customer service. Every business owner strugles with finding the right mix of Do's & Don'ts on how best to build relationships with and retain customers.
With the economy in its current perdicament and environmental issues on the minds of most Americans, I would expect to see trends toward cutting back on wasteful practices. To the contrary I still see unnecessary wasteful tendency in the resturaunt business. Meals that are typically more food one person should eat in a sitting and drinks that never run out. When was the last time you odered an iced tea or coffee and didnt end up with three or four refills. Personally, I prefer not to have my coffee cup topped off everytime waitstaff passes by. I dont mind being asked, but don't just pour me another glass of tea without my acknowledging that as my preference.
How many drinks are left unfinished simply because policy dictates that wait staff keep the cups full? Its even more offensive to when the refill arrives in a new glass while you're finishing off the one you already have.
As a society, Americans are some of the most glutonuos, wasteful people in the world. We could feed small nations with the amount of food and drink we throw away everyday. This is not a sustainable social model! It is utterly avoidable and unnecessary to produce so much waste from resources as valuable as food and water.
That's what I think; what do you?
AP
I'm amazed to find someone who believes that refills are wasteful and cups representing buckets are glutinous. While living in Europe my family and I were shocked to find that there was so such thing as LARGE drinks. The average size beverage in Germany was an 8 oz. cup, non-refillable, in fact it was almost offensive to expect a glass be automatically refilled. I personally use to expect a refill but now days and because we just recently reintegrated back into an American lifestyle, I am now appalled to have the server drop another glass on the table but fails to grab the two other glasses they dropped off earlier, maybe because they’re still full. Thank you for the enlightenment and for the conservation of blatant excessiveness. Actually now that I consider it, maybe this is why America is struggling with obesity.
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