Marriage Counseling: Use the Waiter Rule to Evaluate a Date or Partner
Working my way through college, I waited tables and tended bar. Though I have several degrees with an emphasis on human behavior and psychology, I swear I learned more about people from slinging hash and pouring drinks. I can remember accidentally spilling a few drops of an ice cream drink on a ladys skirt and being totally humiliated as she screamed at me in the restaurant. I also recall a very kind man who didnt get upset even though there were repeated problems with his order.
Rudeness to service staff reveals information about a persons character reported in a recent article in USA Today. Office Depot CEO Steve Odland, who also waited tables as a teenager, states, You can tell a lot about a person by the way he or she treats a waiter. It seems that he is not the only CEO to discover the Waiter Rule.
The Waiter Rule has been identified by many executives, including Raytheon CEO Bill Swanson. There is one rule that Swanson says never fails: A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter, or to others, is not a nice person. Swanson first identified this phenomenon when he...