Restaurants As Training Ground For Business

Rick segal had a story on his site that reminded me of one of my own.

One night, I had dinner at this crazy busy restaurant on Bloor st. The waitress absolutely rocked. You know the kind who never got frazzled, took all our annoying requests even though she was busy, proactively offered us water the whole nine yards.

At the end of the meal I gave her my business card and told her that if she wanted an entry level job as an account person for an ad agency, I would interview her. She thought I was nuts. Unfortunately, she never called, but the truth is if you are going to work in any form of business that involves customer service you absolutely should have worked at one time or another in the restaurant business. Why? Here are some similarities.

Waitress: The kitchen is behind on orders and everyone is hungry you have to make nice with the customer

Account Person: The creative team is behind on their project and the launch date is overdue and you have to make nice with the customer

Waitress: You are the only one in today as Tuesday's are never busy, but a busload of tourists decided to stop and only have a 45 minutes to eat

Account Person: You have won 5 new pieces of business but the CFO won't let you hire anyone to help you because it's not the end of the quarter yet

Waitress: The person orders a Caesar salad and denies it once you bring it to the table.

Account Person: The client assured you that you didn't need to worry about the fact that you didn't think the project was on brand, and then later denies it.

Oh I could go on and on but I think you get the drift.