• Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

The Waiter Rule: A Window to Personality

September 12, 2007 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

'The Waiter Rule,' Interpersonal Skills - How you treat a waiter can predict a lot about character

Window to An Individual’s Personality

This article in USA Today says that how one treats a waiter can predict a lot about the person’s character.

The article quotes Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson and Sara Lee CEO Brenda Barnes.

A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter, or to others, is not a nice person. Watch out for people who have a situational value system, who can turn the charm on and off depending on the status of the person they are interacting with. Be especially wary of those who are rude to people perceived to be in subordinate roles.

How executives treat waiters probably demonstrates how they treat their actual employees. Sitting in the chair of CEO makes me no better of a person than the forklift operator in our plant. If you treat the waiter, or a subordinate, like garbage, guess what? Are they going to give it their all? I don’t think so.

“The Waiter Rule”

'The Waiter Rule,' Interpersonal Skills---How you treat a waiter can predict a lot about character We presume each person’s influence is a function of his/her rank or title. Consequently, we may fail to treat everybody as we wish to be treated.

All of us, especially the ones from the service and hospitality industries, have our favourite stories of people who treated us with dignity: perhaps a manager who remembers her employees’ kids’ names or a fellow-passenger who helped us handle luggage on a flight. We also have our tales of people being indifferent in various contexts: perhaps a new secretary who got yelled at for mistakes by an executive-on-fast-track.

Fundamentally, the ‘Waiter Rule’ indicates that how we treat seemingly insignificant people, whether on a date or a job interview, can provide pointers to our personality and priorities.

Call for Action

Contemplate the following:

  • 'The Waiter Rule:' how you treat a waiter can predict a lot about character, Consider your own experiences when you were touched by others–their thoughtfulness or consideration. How did you return their kindness? Additionally, think about circumstances when you felt disrespected or discouraged. How did you react?
  • Now, reflect on how you treat people: your loved ones, your staff and colleagues, ushers, store attendants, and the rest of the people you interact with everyday. Do you accept who they are and accommodate their concerns? Are you generous? Do you treat them as people or as a means to an end? How can you change?

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Related

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Don’t be Rude to Receptionists and Support Staff
  2. Avoid Control Talk
  3. Want to be more likeable? Improve your customer service? Adopt Sam Walton’s “Ten-Foot Rule”
  4. But, Excuse Me, I’m Type A: The Ultimate Humblebrag?
  5. A Trick to Help you Praise At Least Three People Every Day

Filed Under: Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Attitudes, Courtesy, Likeability, Personality, Virtues

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. John says

    March 20, 2009 at 4:46 AM

    Very good article. As a waiter, I can attest to the validity of this rule. A restaurant is an excellent place to meet with a potential employer – you will really get to see how they will treat you as an employee down the road.

    I have also noticed that those who are mindful of affording respect to strangers tend to have stronger character, are more honest, and generally happier people.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Popular Now

Anxiety Assertiveness Attitudes Balance Biases Books Coaching Conflict Conversations Creativity Critical Thinking Decision-Making Discipline Emotions Entrepreneurs Etiquette Feedback Getting Along Getting Things Done Goals Great Manager Leadership Leadership Lessons Likeability Mental Models Mentoring Mindfulness Motivation Networking Parables Performance Management Persuasion Philosophy Problem Solving Procrastination Relationships Simple Living Social Skills Stress Thinking Tools Thought Process Time Management Winning on the Job Wisdom Worry

About: Nagesh Belludi [hire] is a St. Petersburg, Florida-based freethinker, investor, and leadership coach. He specializes in helping executives and companies ensure that the overall quality of their decision-making benefits isn’t compromised by a lack of a big-picture understanding.

Get Updates

Signup for emails

Subscribe via RSS

Contact Nagesh Belludi

RECOMMENDED BOOK:
The Story of My Experiments with Truth

The Story of My Experiments with Truth: Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi's transparent glimpse into the mind of a truly great soul who demonstrated that an individual dedicated to conscious living, honesty, and love can overcome any violence or hatred.

Explore

  • Announcements
  • Belief and Spirituality
  • Business Stories
  • Career Development
  • Effective Communication
  • Great Personalities
  • Health and Well-being
  • Ideas and Insights
  • Inspirational Quotations
  • Leadership
  • Leadership Reading
  • Leading Teams
  • Living the Good Life
  • Managing Business Functions
  • Managing People
  • MBA in a Nutshell
  • Mental Models
  • News Analysis
  • Personal Finance
  • Podcasts
  • Project Management
  • Proverbs & Maxims
  • Sharpening Your Skills
  • The Great Innovators
  • Uncategorized

Recently,

  • Be Open to Being Wrong
  • Things Will Look Up Soon
  • Can You Be Terminated for Out-of-Work Conduct?
  • Inspirational Quotations #989
  • The Hidden Influence of Association
  • Managerial Lessons from the Show Business: Summary of Leadership from the Director’s Chair
  • Inspirational Quotations #988

Unless otherwise stated in the individual document, the works above are © Nagesh Belludi under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. You may quote, copy and share them freely, as long as you link back to RightAttitudes.com, don't make money with them, and don't modify the content. Enjoy!

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.