I’ve been an independent health insurance agent for about seven months now. Before I began, I had brunch with a former coworker, who’d left the dead end situation where we’d both worked as agents. I greatly appreciated her taking the time to meet with me, answer my questions, and encourage me to be far more successful.
We checked in with one another a month later at a different restaurant, after I’d quit my former job and started training with the company where she worked. I was just one of the latest agents who’d defected to that company for both greater opportunity and to set my own schedule. For the second meeting, I’d chosen the place and we’d invited another agent to join us.
With the success of those Saturday mid-afternoon “brunches,” more agents from our former workplace, who now worked as independent agents for the new company, joined us. We celebrated, shared strategies and marveled at how wonderful our new opportunity was.
Throughout this entire time, we rotated who chose the restaurants and enjoyed trying out new restaurants…until we finally hit one with bad service. It was inevitable. I was so distracted by the horrible service that it became the focus of my experience rather than connecting with my coworkers, which was a shame since we all work from home and hardly see one another in person.
When I returned home, I looked up the restaurant’s website and left the following message, using the “contact us” feature:
“Although the food was absolutely delicious, I will NOT return because the service was lousy. STRIKE 1: host didn’t escort me nor point me in the direction of my friend, who had arrived ahead of me and had left her name. Instead, the host informed me that “we don’t write down names, but you can walk around and find your friend.” I opted to just call my friend, so she could come to the front and escort me to the table. STRIKE 2: Although the server brought all 6 of us water, she, nor any other member of the wait staff, refilled our water glasses. For a place that has the word “grand” in it, shouldn’t refilling water glasses be an achievable low-hanging fruit? STRIKE 3: I expressly asked for a to-go box because I wanted dessert, ordered dessert, but never received it.”
By the following Monday, a manager reached out to me, first by email and then by phone. She first apologized for the service I received. Then she asked for details, specifically who was the host and server because she wanted to address those women. Then she offered to send me a $25 gift card to try the restaurant again. I’m planning to return to next Sunday.
In the meantime, the one thing I didn’t comment about, but was certainly a factor in my experience was the demographics of the restaurant. As soon as I walked in, I was pleasantly surprised at the diversity of the diners. Even with the upscale atmosphere, I was most impressed by my fellow diners. Given the poor quality of the service, I wondered if the staff, who were also people of color, didn’t feel that my table, which consisted of 4 women of color, a child of color, and a white woman, weren’t important enough to give adequate service to or if all the other tables were experiencing the same thing as well.
What stopped me for mentioning this observation in both writing and during the telephone conversation? Conditioning. I’m so used to not being listened to by white people when I suspect race is one of the factors involved in an incident. I can talk all day long to other people of color, but I don’t want a white person to dismiss my entire claim whenever I suspect race is a factor.
As a a matter of fact, the main reason I hardly ever visit a nail salon in east Austin is because of bad service. Time and again, if the clientele is mostly women of color, the service has been bad. If the clientele is mostly white women, the service has been much better.
The following week, I’d met a friend at one of my favorite restaurants after yoga. As I told her about my experience the previous Saturday, I looked around and noticed the same rich diversity at that restaurant as well. The big difference was their service, along with their food, had been consistently good. I went to their website and left the following:
“I recently commented to a friend that the only places where I’ve had bad service at a restaurant, the clientele is mostly blacks and latino with the notable exception of TNT. This is not to say that EVERY restaurant with a majority person of color clientele has bad service. Far from it. It’s just that, the times I have had bad service in Austin, the clientele has been mostly been people of color. I started writing on their comment sections after my experiences in the hopes of doing my part as a woman of color who also enjoys good food, good service and good company. With less than 6% of Black people in Austin, I now feel compelled to balance things out and thank TNT for being consistent with the quality of your food and service. I’ve noticed that your restaurant has a good racial mix of people and your staff members are well trained. Please keep up the good work. I especially like to detox at Bikram yoga and come to your restaurant to retox!”
At this point, I felt very comfortable mentioning race since the overall comment was positive. The manager answered immediately, stating how my comment just made her “heart sing.”
Since I normally eat at home, weeks passed before my next dining review. This next review happened to be the very next monthly “meeting” (more like “happy hour brunch”) with my coworkers. Once again, diverse crowd, delicious food and great service.
“Just had lunch at G—— in the Domain with two of my coworkers. We are successful women of color who work from home and meet once a month to talk shop and pump each other up for another month of being independent health insurance agents. Since we try out a different restaurant every month, I’d like to compliment G—— not merely for the wonderful service, drinks and food, but for providing an inviting experience that an ethnically diverse clientele enjoy. I especially want to commend the service that M—– provided us, from refilling our chips, dips and water glasses without being asked, but cheerfully engaging with us throughout our entire dining experience.”
Again, since this was a positive review, I stated all the factors, which led to my enjoyment of the experience. As a matter of fact, I shared my review of the last restaurant with my coworkers. They agreed that the service was horrible and they’d been tempted not to tip. One in our group hadn’t tipped, but the three of us had. The next day, the general manager replied that she’d share my comment with the manager of that restaurant location.
And then the incident at a StarBucks in PA happened. I’m not a StarBucks customer. Yet, I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to add my two cents, especially since I’d begun letting management know my experiences. In this case, I wanted them to know my perspective on Dining While Black.
“Kudos to CEO Kevin Johnson for his refreshingly straight-forward apology over the arrest of two Black men who were accused of trespassing at a Starbucks. As part of your company’s investigation into this incident, I’d like share with you 3 criteria to tell if something is about race, taken directly from Ijeoma Oluo’s book, “So You Want to Talk about Race,” pp. 14-15: 1) It is about race if a person of color thinks it is about race; 2) It is about race if it disproportionately or differently affects people of color; 3) It is about race if it fits into a broader pattern of events that disproportionately or differently affect people of color. Lastly, trespassing laws are reasonable, but only enforcing them when black people trespass is a racist practice. Since this incident, many white people have self-disclosed conducting business meetings at Starbucks without purchasing anything and not being approached by management, much less being arrested. I hope this incident leads to more training for all the Starbucks locations to ensure that people of color aren’t demonized/criminalized for doing the same thing that white people do without adverse consequences.”
Like a good teacher, I led with a compliment before diving into the criticisms and suggestions for improvement. I received a boiler plate response, then I heard on the news a few days later that Starbucks would close 8,000 locations for a day’s training to counter “unconscious bias.”
To be clear, we Americans will need the rest of our lives to counter unconscious bias. The collective effort against unconscious bias includes the big movements along with the billions of tiny gestures, far too small to ever make national headlines.
