Are you Still working on that?

It happens more often than not. I’m dining across from a friend, and we’re both engaged in conversation. I put my fork down as I explain something passionately, though I still have a few bites left on my plate. The server is eager. Eager to assist? Maybe. Eager to keep us happy? Also maybe. Eager to get the table turned so that the next guests can be seated, or they can wrap up their side work and go home? Also, maybe. Maybe all of the above are true. The next words that are presented to me as their guest are, “Are you still working on that?” I politely say either “Yes, almost finished,” or “No, thank you,” and gesture that the plate can be taken away, but I’m quieting the voice inside me that wants to quip back, “Yes, I haven’t clocked out yet.”

It’s a small phrase, but it reveals something larger about how we think of service. It’s indicative of how we sometimes shift the joy of hospitality into the labor of efficiency. The implication that we are “working” on enjoying a meal is absurd, but so rarely questioned that the phrase has become equivalent to “Are you finished here?” or “Are you still enjoying?” Most of the people that I dine with don’t notice this at all.

And yet, more and more often, I see companies that are asking their customers to do the “work.” A recent post from Expedite described a disturbing new pre-arrival requisite asking the reservation holder to agree to be the “Table Captain,” taking responsibility for the atmosphere at their table. A friend was trying on clothing at a store, and the associate asked that she put all the items she wouldn’t be purchasing back on their hangers before leaving the fitting room. At one “full-service” restaurant, guests are greeted by a server and then asked to order via a QR code on their phone, doing the work of actually punching in the order and processing their own payment.

These businesses are missing the point of service. Customer service. To be more successful in business, be the easiest business to engage with. Make it simple for the customer to enjoy what you’re selling and to pay you for it, and the flywheel of success usually follows.

I do understand these businesses that are asking for customers to behave themselves. As a business owner myself, I feel the responsibility to make sure my team feels well cared for, and I recognize that the philosophy of “the customer is always right” stops at the point that it takes away the humanity of the people that I employ on my team. At no point would I suggest that we tolerate harassment from a guest, and maybe I’m very lucky in my establishment that this doesn’t happen frequently.

However, I recognize that the tone I’m responsible for setting as the business owner, from marketing to the moment the guest leaves my business, is a tone that makes it clear that we will care for you if you just let us do the caring. It’s very difficult for someone, even the worst of humanity, to make the leap from happy customer to abusive member of the public when the people caring for them are anticipating the hidden needs of the guest.

Does this guy who came in huffy from not getting the parking spot he wanted have an unspoken need of feeling special, important, or as though he’s achieved his aspirations? A simple “Congratulations, you’ve made it!” can diffuse his frustration and make him feel as though he has passed the “parking lot beast level” of the game of life for just this moment. Help him relish in his accomplishment. Pour him a little 3 oz. of bubbly to toast that he’s now in your care. Even the gruffest of the tough guys can be melted with a little extra hospitality.

The notion that we need to “protect” our teams by requiring a customer to agree to behave feels very incongruent with the notion that the business is actually there to make our customers feel better. And yet, we often build our systems and language around the one or two guests who behave badly — the edge cases that leave a mark. It’s a kind of defensive architecture that, while understandable, unintentionally shifts our focus away from the 99% of guests who simply want to feel welcome, seen, and cared for. When we operate from a place of fear of those 1% misbehaving outliers, we limit the potential for generosity that defines true hospitality.

Abundance in service means believing that most people are good, and that kindness offered first is usually reciprocated. It means trusting that when we create environments of grace, people rise to meet that tone. Hospitality, at its best, is not a transaction but an exchange of humanity.

The words we choose (“Still working on that?” versus “Are you still enjoying?”) are not semantics. They’re signals. They either remind guests that they are laboring through a meal or invite them to savor it. Language becomes a mirror of culture. When we speak with care, we create care.

There will always be outliers, but they are not the story. The story is the thousands of moments each year when someone walks through our door in need of comfort, celebration, or connection, and we have the privilege of giving them what they are seeking.

The words we choose when interacting with our guests are a small step toward creating a better, more positive connection.

Here’s a favorite quote of mine that I believe to be from Goethe (though my sources could be wrong):

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration; I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or dehumanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.”