I Respectfully Defer

In "Setting the Table," restaurateur Danny Meyer unravels the ethics of his business model which, simplified, focus on treating your employees as wonderfully as possible. Whereas most business-minded individuals are focused on results, customer services, price or something on that end of the spectrum, Meyer keyed in on one very important psychological facet of human nature: projection (or transference).

Let's say you wake up in a pleasant enough mood, head to Starbucks for your usually morning brew & they mess up your order. With your patience still in check & time to spare before work you ask the barista to re-make your order. She gives you attitude. Patience dwindling you decide to ignore her & wait for you drink as planned. Five minutes later you are still waiting. With no patience left you ask where your drink is but snotty barista says "you'll have to wait for me to re-make it. I'm a little backed up..." as if your desire for a correctly made drink when you had one a minutes ago that was close enough to what you ordered is selfish, indulgent or wasteful.

Finally you have your drink. You vow never to go to Starbucks again. Bitch.

Ah, but now... now you are in a bad mood. This bad mood could be fatal or magically disappear if someone, friend or stranger, cheers you up. As it more frequently plays out my guess is you will proceed to silently curse the oversized-bag-man who is squishing you up against the subways doors, will the woman who cut you off while walking into work to trip, bashing something against the pavement & hope against hope that the taxi driver who took you through Times Square rather than using the West Side Highway will be deported back to where ever he is from. Maybe you even lose your temper with your co-worker, get jumpy with your significant other or ignore your Mom's phone call just because you're positive she will annoy you even though she only called to ask about your Christmas Wish List.

Transference. Projection. These are the predictable train-wrecks caused by human emotions & this is what makes Danny Meyer, in my opinion, a genius.

If you focus on how you treat your employees as he proscribes and, in fact, do treat them very, very well - their good mood will bounce around amongst themselves, transfer to your customers, boost morale & production which leaves your business running smoothly as well as profitably. Genius, no?

Anyone who doubts this method need only look at how many successful, popular & money-making restaurants Meyer has opened under the umbrella group Union Square Hospitality. Thanks, Danny for putting the hospitality back in the Food and Beverage business!

Now, to get increasingly personal. (As a side note, I worked for two of the Meyer/USHG restaurants and loved it.) Two incidents, one last night & one this morning, happened which call to mind the very "projection" topic I'm currently exploring.

Walking home last night I finished crossing 3rd Avenue as the blinking orange "Do Not Walk" sign stopped blinking. Anyone anticipating their next pedestrian move knowwwwsss the cross-walk sign perpendicular to 3rd Avenue is about to turn white. Meaning "Walk." Well, there was a bit of a crowd on 88th (the street in question) who were concentrated on the taxi cab coming up the street rather than focused on the now yellow traffic light. Without touching ANYONE (seriously, I didn't barrel through the crowd) I walked in between two strangers standing on the corner then proceeded to cross the street.

The gentleman, if I can seriously call him that, yells "Hit her!" to the cab.

Now listen here, asshole... First off, you're a moron. The light, now red, means the taxi is obviously stopping. If you would like to wait in order to witness the complete end to his inertia before you cross the street be my f-ing Beauty and Best guest. However, I'm confident enough this guys is coming to a halt & not trying to race against the yellow light to cross 3rd Ave. So I'm gonna walk. Is that OK with you? Oh! Also, I wouldn't wish death on people. Life has this ironic way of shedding light on mean & angry people with something we like to call KARMA! Safe travels, buddy. Watch out for falling A/C units or whatever.

Mind you, I said NONE of this to him & laughed a "F-You" as I rounded the corner because I really thought it was funny he was obliged at that moment to use me as his "tackle all would be J-walkers" muse.

For a more lovely story let me relay to you what happened on my subways ride this morning.

Being that the 4/5 is the only transportation on the East Side its an understatement to say it's crowded in the early mornings.

As I finagled myself into the last spot available on a car, I was pressed nearly face to face with a woman somewhere between 30 &40. I noticed she was staring at my face and my overly self-conscious guess was "Do I have a booger? Is she looked at my upper lip because I need to bleach or something?" But to my relief she broke my feverish concern saying "This is a very weird question but do you use Latisse?" I laughed. No, I do not use Latisse my eyelashes are real and they come from my Dad but funny you should ask me that because my best-friend says I should be the spokes person.

This could have played out very differently if I wasn't such a nice person. If, for instance, I had the Starbucks morning I ran down a few paragraphs above, maybe her comment would have offended me. If I did use Latisse but secretly prayed it would look so natural no one would ask me about eyelash enhancements this question might have caused me sadness or even depression if I was prone to over-reacting.

Instead, I laughed and found both humor and compliment in what she was wondering. We continued talking for awhile before she got off at 14th Street. Our conversation put me in a good mood AND gave me something to blog about. All and all, I would say that I'm primed to transfer happiness and project pleasantries this morning : )

Adrift but Unbroken

The thing that frustrates me the most about my day is the lack of certainty & reliability which surrounds my only form of transportation in NYC: the subway. It can start my day off on a depressingly bad note or it can end my day by bringing me near tears when I "just want to get home" but can't because the MTA is financial helpless, understaffed & often just having an exceptionally fucked up day.

And then I read a story like the one below & feel a sense of shame lined with guilt for ever allowing my troubles to trouble me so troublesomely. It happens all the time. You're feeling bad about your looks then you see an infomercial for a child in a 3rd world country with a cleft palate & suddenly, all does not seem lost. Your friend is complaining about the lack of variety in the grocery store chip aisle. After paying you walk past 2 homeless people outside the grocery store who likely wouldn't give a shit what flavor of chips they were eating. It's a lesson in not only humility but memory. We consistently have to remind ourselves or be reminded that we have it pretty frickin awesome.

Reading through the December issue of Vanity Fair I came across a story that gently reminded me of that tendency towards forgetfulness. A story that made me wonder what true character is & if every individual will have theirs tested at some point or another.

While technically the US is currently at war, Iraq/Afghanistan is a different beast than the war our grandparents dealt with in WWI and WWII in some ways. Mainly, I don't think we feel the daily impact of today's military expeditions the same way families or the US did during the late 30's and early 40's. This does not mean I'm unaware or worse, unwilling, to acknowledge similar, extraordinary tales of survival & rescue that are happening as I type. It only means that part of who we are as a military agency now is based on the history of then.

When I started perusing this article I wasn't sure what to expect really. The story was upfront and well written so it wasn't hard for me to continue reading ... but then it became hard for me to put down! The fact that three men both willingly and out of necessity worked together to protect each other, encourage each other & fight for each other is a beautiful. They survived more than insurmountable odds & experienced something that certainly changed them forever.

Of course I don't know this but my guess would be that in the same predicament, I would have flung myself overboard after day 2. I like to think of myself has brave, optimistic & resourceful; but, I feel like if I was clinging to maintain life in my undernourished body while clinging to the sides of a small, slowly sinking raft with sharks circling & praying that I would, indeed, give up... I might give up. I don't know how these men did what they did. This isn't a movie. This isn't a novel. It really truly happened.

If by reading their story a sliver of tenacity or courage rubbed off on me then I would re-read it every day of my life.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/12/unbroken-excerpt-201012