Why I Secretly Like Bad Service at Restaurants

Portland is a great city to live in if you like food, and being fully stocked with food service jobs and adorable hipsters, it's also got its fair share of inattentive, negligent, or dismissive service. (Not that all hipsters are rude, or that all establishments with "bad" service are staffed with hipsters, but a perceived correlation is often commented on locally.)

I secretly enjoy this. I don't actually mind that much when it's impossible to get the bartender's attention (as long as it seems clear that everyone else, regardless of gender presentation/age/race/height/whatever is having the same struggle). I kind of like it when restaurants have a long list of rules by which you must abide in order to earn the right to be served (Wait until after ordering to claim a table! All parties must be present! No late joiners! No substitutions! No BS!). I love chefs who refuse substitutions and modifications to their art. I'm usually willing to cheerfully endure some inconvenience in order to have the novelty of not being pandered to in the American capitalist tradition.

This aversion is reinforced by restaurant goers who feel entitled to "good service", which are plentiful, if Yelp is any indication. It seems that our cultural equation for a satisfying gastronomical experience = quality of food + quality of service, with perhaps a few other components, like ambiance or cleanliness, thrown in depending on the individual. It's not enough that others are preparing our food for us, bringing it to us, and providing a space in which to enjoy it. Many of us seem to expect, nay deserve, attentive, sincere, prompt, warm, efficient service in exchange, presumably, for the generous and precious gift of our money.

Digging deeper into this quirk in conversation with @kennyskitchen recently, I described my aversion to sycophantic service as a result of an association I've formed between being fawned over for having money. The implication, it seems to me, is that "the customer is always right" because the customer has the money, and the bottom line is what keeps the business afloat. This translates, for me, to either a sort of uncomfortable desperation (we can't survive without you, so we'll be super nice so that you'll give us money) or a manipulative business strategy (the path to success is making you feel like royalty in order to stimulate your generosity), and neither of those options feel that great to me, relationally speaking.

I would rather call a spade a spade. I have no (okay, few) qualms with calling something a business transaction if that is what it is. If I sell you my bike, and we agree it's worth $100, I don't expect you to have any sort of particular affect or to manipulate our relationship in any way in order for that deal to feel good, because money has effectively taken the place of our relationship, and mixing the two ideas feels icky. So it's not so much that I want people to be rude to me. But when we're exchanging money for a good or service, I don't need to feel pandered to to boot; I don't need to feel like my side of the exchange is inherently worth more than yours because it involves cash. I'm okay with you setting some boundaries around the way you provide that good or service in a way that works and is sustainable for you.

Turns out I'm not alone in my urge to separate money from relationship -- or at least consider it a different kind of relationship. Dan Ariely is fascinated by how money can undermine or replace social norms, and has contributed research to whether, how, and why this might be the case. In his book Predictably Irrational, he uses the example of a Thanksgiving dinner to illustrate this instinct: what would happen if we offered our mother cash as a sign of gratitude after she'd cooked an elaborate dinner for us? Would it be likely to go over well, or would she be insulted?

Ariely's experiments show that offering a small financial incentive actually lowers effort, because "meager compensation profanes the gift effect and disincents the giver":

Bringing money into the relationship takes the giver’s work out of “gift” market, and brings it into the “pay-for-effort” market. When it was done for nothing, the protagonist was a “donor.” When small money was on the table, he or she became an underpaid employee.

Motivation is increased by the feelings that come with donating time and skill, not (up to a point, anyway) by financial reward. I believe that the capacity for generosity and love exists inherently in all people, and that operating within a container that privileges financial gain over relationship is what creates and draws out of us self interest and greed. I have a lot of questions about why this container of our culture and economy has evolved in the ways that it has, and would love to hear your theories as to why that might be.

In contrast, a gift economy tends to move people out of the tendency to view exchanges as transactions, and instead think of those exchanges as natural component of interdependent relationships. By operating within a culture that expects and demands a financial return for the efforts and gifts we bring to the world, we are setting ourselves up to take the heart out of the very things that give meaning to our lives and sustain and nurture our relationships. This has major implications for all kinds of interactions, from personal questions like how best to to get friends to help you move (hint: don't offer them money), to social issues such as universal basic income. It calls into question, for me, how the conditions of our tit-for-tat culture set us up for feelings of scarcity, resentment, and entitlement, when we could instead be fostering connection, gratitude, and abundance through the necessary acts of sustaining ourselves and others, through the creativity, work, and service that is our instinct and birthright. Says Ariely:

When individuals commit acts of personal generosity, it sparks a gift culture that replenishes a store of trust ... This sharing is not done in a communist, carving-up-the-spoils manner, but rather in the tradition of bravery and sacrifice for our collective benefit. When those in power act within a gift culture guided by a spirit of generosity for common cause, it creates a tangible trust asset that supports the flow of credit, money, and markets.

My ideal, of course, is to live in a world in which I offer care, support, food, service, and shared resources without thought to what they are "worth" or what I will receive in return, in every aspect of my life. I would love to go to a restaurant and receive genuine warmth and hospitality from those who are offering me love in edible form. I sense instinctively that muddying that transaction with money necessarily profanes the act of giving on which it is based (unless some serious intentionality is going into that act of service, which does sometimes happen), so it's no wonder that a system based on the exchange of money for goods and services leads to greed, resentment, entitlement, and deception. I think that Ariely's use of the word "profane" is profound, because it points to the truth that gifting and service are acts of our highest self, and when undertaken out of a sense of true generosity, or received with gratitude, elevate us and those to whom we give.

Since I don't yet live in that world, I spend a considerable about of time thinking about how to move toward it in my daily life. I can feel the accumulated effects of the "pay-for-effort" culture in my psyche, and in some cases have to consciously work to unravel those feelings of scarcity and entitlement that seep in around the edges when I interact with loved ones. I try to remember to offer food, house cleaning, and other gifts to my housemates without getting overly caught up in what is "fair" -- or just to hold the idea of fairness a little more loosely, in balance with generosity. I'm considering what it means to be generous with my time, space, attention, and other non-monetary resources, in ways that energize me and bring more connection into my life. Inspired by my partner @kennyskitchen, I'm working toward filling my life only with things that I would do for free, regardless of whether I'm getting paid for them. And I try to recognize generosity in all forms and express sincere gratitude whenever it occurs to me to do so.

What areas of your life do you hold sacred by striving to replace transactionality with generosity?

Image credit: Hometown Bistro by Joanna Rosa