Day 22: Application #1, Bartending, and Classroom Management

OK, Application #1 is in to a place that I think has it all:

• palm trees
• waterfront view
• boat slips for sail-in or motor-in dining
• outdoor deck
• great food, full bar, extensive wine list
  

I've started diligent research on the menu by (a) eating there with husband and (b) dropping in a few times at the bar for a take-out food order. The same bartender, female, has been there each time, and each time I am profoundly amazed at her ability. Not in mixing drinks -- I wouldn't know. I'm talking about her unspoken communication skills. You see, each time she gives me a wide smile and friendly greeting. Really it's a picture-perfect smile, well-voiced greeting, and each time her service for my take-out order has been impeccable. Yet somehow she communicates subliminally an additional crystal-clear message:

Me: (sitting down at the bar) Hi.
Bartender - Explicit communication: (Big smile) Hi, welcome to XXXXXXX. What can I get you?
Bartender - Subliminal communication: And I am NOT going to take any CRAP from YOU!

It's not just me; I see it in her manner with all the customers. It's an incredible skill. I wish I had it.

In fact, I think education could be tremendously improved if we had a way to help more teachers develop that skill. The folk wisdom for new teachers used to be focused on how you appeared to students on the outside. The advice: Never smile before Christmas. A quick Google shows that many teachers take exception to that adage nowadays (see here and here), but I still hear too many stories from my own children about teachers who lay everything out in explicit communication like this:

Teacher to students: And I will NOT tolerate ANY WILLFUL DISOBEDIENCE.

My children report that any phrase like "willful disobedience," especially used at the middle or high school level, is a guaranteed mocking target and completely destroys any possibility of student respect or cooperation.

The sheer complexity of classroom management and the skills needed for maintaining authority and control among 20+ children who generally want to be somewhere else is the top reason I am swerving my career path into the restaurant business instead of teaching, despite having 20+ years experience in educational research. In fine-dining restaurants, your customers generally want to be there, they want their interaction with you to be a success, and they don't have any motivation to test your patience. I suspect that all these qualities may not extend to customers who go exclusively to the bar (particularly after some time has passed), which is likely why bartenders have developed their extraordinary communication magic.

Teacher quality, teacher preparation, and evaluating teacher effectiveness are all hot topics in education at the moment. So even though I am now entering a different career field, I have a suggestion:

Send student teachers to bartending school. At least for the communication part.

Or, just send teachers to lots of bars to observe the masters. Somehow I suspect teachers will embrace this type of professional development more readily than most of what they get offered (excepting any projects I worked on, of course). And based on what I hear from teachers, this would also likely be more respectful of them and more targeted to their true needs.

Should I think of developing this skill as a waitress? One of my sources (How to make megabucks waiting tables) makes the following - and surprising - claim:

(p. 45) An interesting phenomenon may develop as you become a better waiter. As you get more skilled in anticipating your customers' needs, and less forgetful of your customers' wants, you will start to find that you don't need to be as nice as you once did. Of course, niceness is always, um, nice, but once you are meeting all your customers' expectations, you will find that you sometimes make better tips when you're a bit brusque with them, less chirpy, more curt. Who knows why this happens, but sometimes customers feel like they have to live up to your expectations of them as a good customer.

The author also issues a warning:
Beware, however: This strategy works only if you are a good waiter. If you try to have an attitude and don't deliver the goods, you'll end up with numerous customer complaints and empty pockets.

So I don't think I'll take that risk, certainly not at first. For now, it's focus on nice. And on Application #2.