Jeff Burkhart: Service workers don’t get enough respect

“Hey, Jeff!” said the man I knew from any of a dozen different nights. We had seen him in good times and in bad. He was a welcome fixture at the bar. He was more than a regular, one might call him a friend.

“Hey, Thomas,” I said, shaking his hand vigorously.

“This is my co-worker, Ralph,” said Thomas, gesturing to his companion.

I extended my hand to shake his.

“Get me a beer,” the friend said.

You see a lot of dialogue these days about “earning respect.” And I wonder about that. I believe that respect should be freely given. It is not something to be earned. Respect is a bottom-line denominator. It should be the very first thing that happens between two people. Everyone deserves that. There’s a great meme that asks: “Why I am nice to food servers?” with a pie chart that is all one color. It then explains the filled-in color as “because they are people, too.”

But, people sometimes mistake deference for respect. They believe that other people should show them respect first before they show any. And then they get to be the ones who decide who deserves what. Just FYI, that’s not respect — not in the least. The simple way to understand why it’s not is to consider it from the other person’s point of view. But some people refuse to see things this way — only their opinion counts, and only from their perspective.

Thomas was taking his co-worker to task.

“Why did you talk to him like that?” Thomas asked.

“Because he’s the bartender,” Ralph said.

“Yes, but he’s also my friend.”

Ralph just shrugged.

I have seen this before. Once my own co-worker brought in her long-estranged brother.

“This is Jeff, my friend,” she started, gesturing at me behind the bar.

“Water” was all her brother said, gesturing hand to mouth.

“Why did you talk to him like that?” she asked.

“Because he’s just a bartender,” the brother had said.

She looked at him for a long minute before answering.

“So am I,” she said.

This disconnect is especially apparent with rude people. They believe that being aggressively rude is a way to get things. The irony is that I have never seen that happen. No server/bartender/manager/car salesman is going to move faster or work harder because you are being aggressively rude to them. Why would they? Would you?

“Hey,” said the new man sitting at the bar, which in and of itself wasn’t a problem. Trust me, offense doesn’t have to be taken, even if it is given. Because sometimes it was unintentional or unconscious. We have all had moments where something came out wrong, so a little forgiveness goes a long way. And in bars, things often come out the wrong way. But then he snapped his fingers. And now there was a problem.

“Please don’t do that,” I said.

“I was just trying to get your attention,” he said.

I nodded. And then I dropped it, because once you’ve made your point there is really no reason to keep going. He, however, didn’t.

“You must be new here,” he said.

“Nope,” I said. “Been here a long time.”

“Is Paul here?” he asked.

“Paul?” I asked.

“The owner,” he said.

“I am sorry, none of our owners are named Paul.”

“He’s the manager then,” the man replied.

“No one by that name works here.”

“Ask somebody else,” he said.

Will Rogers is often quoted as saying that he never met a man who he didn’t like. But then again, Rogers didn’t work in the hospitality industry. He worked in the satire industry.

Your bartender or food server isn’t going to be your best friend the first minute you meet them. They are there doing a job. I am not saying they shouldn’t be friendly, but recognize that they probably already have friends. Their first responsibility is to take care of customers, not be their best friend. Sure, that might happen later on. But every night we meet new people. It’s the finding of common ground over time that builds relationships.

“I am not sure I like you,” said my wrong name-dropping friend.

Leaving me with these thoughts:

• See? We did have something in common.

• “No man is great if he thinks he is,” Rogers also said.

• Rogers’ quote “I never met a man …” is incomplete. What he actually said was: “I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn’t like,” and that is a different thing.

• The golden rule is generally regarded that you should treat people the way you would want to be treated. It is not wait and see how they treat you first and then do that. Someone else said that.

• “Do unto others as they do unto you,” wrote Anton Lavey, noted Satanist and author of “The Satanic Bible.” Just saying.

• Satire, now there’s a thought.

Jeff Burkhart is the author of “Twenty Years Behind Bars: The Spirited Adventures of a Real Bartender, Vol. I and II,” the host of the Barfly Podcast on iTunes (as seen in the NY Times) and an award-winning bartender at a local restaurant. Follow him at jeffburkhart.net and contact him at jeffbarflyIJ@outlook.com