Ran across an interesting story by chef and restaurant co-founder Erin Wade, about how her restaurant dealt with a perennial problem: customers harassing staff. Women in food service often feel they have to grin and bear it, since they depend on customers for their tips.
At Wade’s restaurant, Homeroom, the servers (all women) would inform the managers (all men at the time) when there was a harassment problem. But men and women are drawing on very different life experiences, and it’s often hard to convey what was communicated by tone of voice, facial expression, and body language. Based on my own and others’ experiences, I’m guessing the conversations went something like this:
Server: That guy at table 3 is harassing me!
Manager: What did he say?
S: It wasn’t what he said, it was the way he said it!
M: No, but what exactly did he say?
S: He said, “I know what I want for dessert. But it was sort of, um…
M; He was probably just drooling over the menu.
S: He was drooling over my chest!
M: I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it.
S: Whatever. (She goes back to work. Minutes later, there’s the sound of screaming from table 3 while she’s being groped.)
When a customer — out with his 4 kids — put his hand up a server’s shirt, the staff let Wade know that they’d hit their limit. And they worked together to come up with a solution.
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Wade describes the system they created:
We decided on a color-coded system in which different types of customer behavior are categorized as yellow, orange or red. Yellow refers to a creepy vibe or unsavory look. Orange means comments with sexual undertones, such as certain compliments on a worker’s appearance. Red signals overtly sexual comments or touching, or repeated incidents in the orange category after being told the comments were unwelcome.
When a staff member has a harassment problem, they report the color — “I have an orange at table five” — and the manager is required to take a specific action. If red is reported, the customer is ejected from the restaurant. Orange means the manager takes over the table. With a yellow, the manager must take over the table if the staff member chooses. In all cases, the manager’s response is automatic, no questions asked.
The servers now report that harassment has been vastly reduced, and almost nonexistent at the “red” level, because it gets derailed early on. Harassers usually start with the milder verbal stuff and then escalate. Removing the server as a target isn’t a perfect solution — the harasser may do the same thing in the next restaurant tomorrow — but it makes for a much more positive workplace when the servers know that management has their back.
The key to all this was realizing that women can be trusted to understand their own experiences. There’s this persistent stereotype that women are looking for any innocent remark to pounce on and “cry harassment.” In real life, women are much more likely to succumb to the pressure to downplay it, accept excuses, not make a “fuss.” Complaining to management is usually a last resort. It’s empowering for women to be treated as if they actually do know what they’re talking about. Particularly when it’s a topic where life experience has unfortunately made them experts.
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From ericlewis0:
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