It also blows hiring. I was eating lunch with the CTO on my interview loop, and he was pitching me hard on the company. He treated the waitress (who gave us perfect service) so poorly that I instantly knew I would never want to work for this guy. Thinking back to every profoundly bad manager I've ever had (not bad in terms of 'ends' but bad in terms of 'means'), they all correlated with crapping on anyone they encountered in the service sector.
Who are all these people who chronically mistreat the waitstaff? I've been to restaurants with hundreds of different people and I've never seen anyone act abusively towards the servers.
I know people who work in retail, and suck people exist. There are not a massive proportion of society buy even a bit of a percent is a lot of people overall. You would might that people out for a nice relaxing meal, or shopping in the middle of a holiday, would be pleasant to deal with: but you'd be wrong. I know a number of people in retail and I can tell you (through indirect experience) that the general public can be unrealistically demanding and completely unpleasant if their demands are not met, repeatedly, yesterday.
By way of an anecdotal example: I know someone whose father thinks there is nothing wrong with clicking his finders and yelling "BOY!" at a waiter to get their attention. Except in Italian places - there it would be "Luigi" rather "boy". I bet he consumes a lot of spit when he goes out for a meal...
For many reasons many people out there are dicks. I might well be one of them if I'm honest with myself, though not one of the worst by a long shot. And if you work in retail or catering you are likely to meet far more than your fair share of them. Remember: most workers in a shops or restaurants deal closely with far more members of the public in a day than most of us encounter closely enough to notice in a year.
I might look better were it not surrounded by other typos and even one place where I appear to have typed completely the wrong word (or partly rearranged a sentence and failed to finish making the new form make sense...).
Possibly it's a random local experience, possibly the bad attitude towards people delivering pizza is caused by bad service, or possibly visa versa, but: in my experience, pizza delivery people suck.
Nearly all waiters/waitresses I've ever come across in restaurants have been fine or better, and the people in my local Chinese and Indian takeaways are really, really friendly.
But Dominos and Pizza Hut drivers? Eugh, they're all (and by "all" I mean "all who work in the two shops near where I live) really grumpy and sometimes even rude. If I order a pizza, there's a 50% chance I'll have to actually concentrate on not yelling at them. I've twice felt the need to complain to the Dominos franchise owner about a driver, something I've never done in any other industry, not because I wanted to get back at the driver, but because the service was genuinely so poor that I felt they deserved to hear from me. For example, if someone orders a Pizza for delivery, the driver should try and deliver it, not just decide that ringing the bell is too much hassle and that it would be easier to leave the pizza outside the door getting cold.
Probably just a coincidence, but an interesting one.
Well, I for one, fancied myself "The Deliverator"... right up until life imitated art and I obtained a bullet hole in my car during a robbery attempt. Having no arachno-fiber weave of my own, I sought umm... safer employ.
Perhaps its only the crazies that can stay with the job for more than a short while.
In the town where I went to college, you could easily make 20$ an hour as a delivery driver. This not including tips. Because the town had a high rate of drivers having been killed in robbery attempts. I think it's safer to work as a lumberjack than as a pizza delivery boy.
Its an opportunity for those without much self esteem to exercise power over someone that can't fight back without significant loss. Only dumb people piss off the people handling your food, but there's a big overlap between these two groups.
it happens daily in china, it's the norm--it shows who's boss and if you don't do it, you ironically don't gain respect. maybe the angel investor lived in china for a long time? :)
this is an excellent anecdote, lucky the waitress f'd up.
Nassim Taleb had a good quote that can be stretched to fit this. "Answer e-mails from junior people before more senior ones. Junior people have further to go and tend to remember who slighted them."
It's more enlightened self-interest or utilitarianism than categorical imperative, but the gist is the same. Don't ignore the people you foolishly regard as unimportant.
To quote from the other end of the spectrum,"The people you are after are the people you depend on. We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances, we guard you while you sleep. Do not f--- with us."
Oh come on, it's _not_ about having people "remember who slighted them".
It's about not being a dick.
Most people understand this just fine - you don't be a dick to the CEO or the Venture Capitalist because you're not a dick. You don't be a dick to the waitress or the janitor because you're not a dick. It's pretty easy.
_Some_ people though, have to work hard at not being a dick to the investors 'cause there's something in it for them, and don't bother working hard at not being a dick to waitresses. The only reason they have any trouble with it is because they _are_ dicks.
And as the article and a lot of these comments point out, other people _do_ notice.
While that's a good quote, it's not quite relevant for people such as waiters. In my experience, being polite and tipping generously regularly gets me a speedier and more pleasant service. Sometimes it won't make a difference, sometimes it will make even more of a difference, such as a free drink or two, but more often than not it does have a positive impact on the service you receive.
That's true not just with waiters, but in many service situations - for example, in Oxford (a fairly small city with fairly low numbers of taxis required) a lot of the drivers know me, and when I call for a ride it takes a taxi, in my experience, roughly half the average time to arrive, simply because the drivers on duty know that I will be a pleasant customer and a good tipper.
Getting better service shouldn't be a neccesary reason to treat people well, but it's certainly a nice bonus.
In fact, that's why I was careful to call it a variant; my sentiments are the same as yours. I'm actually happy that you've articulated the distinction.
Trying to dig up the source for this quote leads to quite an array of people it's been attributed to! So far I've turned up variants sourced to: Abigail van Buren (the old name of "Dear Abby"), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a Reader's Digest letter-writer named James D. Miles, and Malcolm S. Forbes. Most of the attributions are questionable, though (e.g. I haven't found anybody actually pointing to where in Goethe's works such a quote can be found).
I have heard of companies that actually have their secretaries weigh in on what candidate should receive job offers based on how the secretary was treated when no one was looking.
When you need your shoes polished, that food you ordered served or the litter picked up from the front drive, suddenly the "least valuable people" are just as valuable as you are.
Nobody's "least valuable" unless their entire existence seems to serve to act to the detriment to absolutely everybody around them.
'Least valuable' is not the employed poor. They're the entrenched criminals and severely mentally ill - those who only consume resources and can't be rehabilitated.
Your comment got me thinking. (The best kind of comment.)
My first thought on reading it was: is that equivalence valid? A society is a collective; a collective functions at the behest of its members. My experience of human nature suggests to me that society will contain members who both are and aren't kind to "less valuable" members. So can, or should, a society enforce kindness towards them, even against the members who are disinclined to be so?
Another related question: should we measure a society's value by its total accumulated success, or the success afforded to its "less valuable"?
Total accumulated success is easily shown to be a false measure with a thought experiment. Consider two thousand-person communities, one full of middle-class professionals, and one with a single multi-billionaire and the rest are all downbeaten impoverished workers. You'd have to be pretty crazy to suggest that the one with widespread crushing poverty is a better society.
I recently read a small autobiographical book by Richard Branson, and apparently at one point he took part in a TV show where he would judge aspiring employees. I thought it very cool that he disguised himself as an elderly driver who picked up the aspirants from the airport and noted how he was treated.
That's really no excuse. Don't go on 2-3 hours of sleep a night if that means you can't treat people around you with respect. Or, at least, don't venture out among people who don't understand and appreciate the situation you're in.
First, you always have a choice. It just that the alternatives aren't always so attractive.
Second, OK, so excuse may be the wrong word - but I disagree that it doesn't say something (negative) about a person who puts him self in a situation where he will be yelling at waitresses.
"...makes 1 mistake of being rude to the waiter..."
This is where you are losing everyone. A mistake is forgetting your keys or making a math error on a spreadsheet. Treating someone with no respect, hitting someone, etc. Are not "mistakes".
A lack of sleep creates stress. There are a lot of other ways to create stress. Time pressure, money pressure, conflict, disappointment, home life, and embarrassment all create stress.
When getting into business with a partner, you need to know how they will deal with stress. If this person does not deal well with stress when faced with a little sleep deprivation, especially over something as simple as coffee, then it's a huge red flag.
Imagine that it's crunch time, you're all running on minimal sleep, and you're trying to get a demo perfectly solid so you can either get your next round of funding or sell to interested parties; i.e., there's a lot on the line.
Do you really want this type of person shrieking at everyone in the room because they're not typing fast enough? Do you think that's going to help you and the team?
That is simply a luxury of time you often cannot afford. Who knows when his next explosion could come? Could be in 6 months at crunch time. Unless you're desperate for the help then it's best not to get in to bed with this kind of person - yep based off that one experience.
I can honestly say I've never been rude to a waiter, taxi driver, shop assistant... etc.
And I certainly wouldn't claim to abide to a higher than average moral standard, I've been rude to my friends and to people I dislike. But not to my colleagues, not to strangers and not to people working indirectly for me (i.e. waiters etc.)
It is quite possible that in the future I might be rude to a waiter, but that would be the exception, not the rule. So yes, it's possible that if you judge someone of a single incident you might have caught the one in a thousand occurrence, chances are against it, far more likely is that you're seeing their normal behaviour.
I'm not defending the behavior of being rude to the waitress nor saying that the entrepreneur had bad judgment in leaving the deal.
My point is that it is not helpful to think of people as "jerks". I actually think it can promote rude behavior to label people "jerks" because people may justify to themselves that it's okay to be rude to a "jerk".
Theoretically I would agree with you, realistically I'm unable to think like that. I'm naturally very quick to make snap judgements (perhaps more so that other people or perhaps it's normal, I'm not sure), but I'm generally good at keeping an open mind. So while I may instantly decide I dislike someone, it's not hard for them to change my opinion if it turns out I was being too hasty. On the other hand, if they continue to act in that way, it becomes a deeper hole to dig themselves out of.
Very few people get that far. I think there's only one person whom I would call a "cunt" genuinely rather than endearingly, and that's my former boss. He was rude to colleagues, both below and above him, to friends, to waiters, to his girlfriend, and even to clients. I hated the two years I spent working for him, and there is nothing he could do now to change my opinion of him. Thankfully I haven't spoken to him in almost a year, and most likely never will again.
One person I used to be enemies with - for a few years we hated each other and were horrible towards each other whenever our paths cross (in my head he was at fault entirely, and I know he feels the same way) now works for me full time. Because of his talent I overlooked our relationship and gave him the break he needed, and in the 18 months since then we've had a great working relationship. Now I wouldn't say a bad thing about him.
The above is a drawn out way of saying: it is possible, if perhaps not common, to label people without it having negative consequences.
Actually, re-reading, your words were that if you label someone negatively, you're more likely to treat them badly. That may be the case, but for me, I'm no more likely to be rude to someone I label a jerk as someone I don't label a jerk, but that I notice acting like a jerk. The label isn't something I decide to add because of something, it's a connection my brain makes automatically - unless there is evidence that someone is not a jerk, there isn't a difference between them acting like a jerk and being a jerk.
(Written from my phone in bed so won't re-read what I just wrote, hopefully it makes at least a little sense.)
I just wanted to comment on the excellent picture choice. Didn't realize it was a cup of coffee until I read through the article.
I then imagined myself as the entrepreneur, staring down into his coffee on the table, pondering the deal. I don't think I would've had the same visual response with a stock photo of a coffee cup. Not sure if that was your intent, but good job either way.
When I was younger all the grownups would offer advice like "Don't choose an immature name like Goat Butt to use online. No one will ever take you seriously." Remember that?
I'm glad you're dedicating yourself to proving them wrong.
I never did figure out that it was a coffee cup, but for some reason I really enjoyed staring at it. I'm still not sure why.
Looking through the rest of your blog, the visual design is really well done, in an understated way. If you felt like expounding on this sort of thing, I'm sure you'd find an enthusiastic audience.
I spent about 5 seconds puzzling over why the graphic was there. I'm not sure what I think about that. On the minus, side that''s 5 seconds I will never get back. On the plus side, it built tension that I was probably able to use to read the article. My words apply only to people who are new to your site because of course after a reader has seen a few of these designs, he or she will not have the puzzlement reaction I had.
While reading this my mind pictured a scenario at a booth at Buck's restaurant of Woodside, CA. I've had my fair share of investor meetings/coffees there and it immediately came to mind.
Figure out the mistake and help them to correct it. If you're impressed by who someone is and that sort of thing then don't do it because you never know where they will be in 5 months, let alone 5 years.
If you're just a decent person don't do it because it's disrespectful and you bring disrespect to yourself by treating others that way. It also shows you to be out of control with your emotions.
One of the things that struck me most in the past few days was while waiting in line to get into Hipmunk party @ SXSW to see Alexis outside handing out bottles of water. Out of all the people I've met, ideas tossed around for startups, everything @ SXSW, Alexis had the most impact on me in terms of his dedication to helping people out.
$40k for 15% post means he was screwing you to begin with, unless it was money which came with a technical cofounder attached, or someone with huge industry connections in a non-tech vertical product company, or happened in 1975.
You should thank the investor for giving you another obvious sign to warn you away.
As just money, it would be horrible. As a whole package, it's basically the standard for incubator, quite successful, and has a great oversubscription ratio.
The title of this bothers me. It suggests that you shouldn't yell at waitresses because it blows investments but, really you should not yell at waitresses and it also happens to blow investments. Don't put on a shoe for people you are doing business; be the person you would pretend to be.
You can also do this with driving. A maxim I once heard was during a deal/hiring/etc process suggest going out for lunch and having the other person drive you both there.
You can learn a lot about a person by the way they drive and they way they eat lunch (esp interacting with service people).
You should be careful with judging people by how they drive. Cities have different levels of traffic congestion, traffic engineering and expectations. So the driving may say more about the city the driver is from than their personality.
This story is often repeated in all types of business - it is a really useful tool when recruiting any kind of talent, or, for that matter, any kind of relationship.
It's an absolutely remarkable character test! Useful when dating someone, interviewing someone or any number of other scenarios. It baffles me that people treat others in such a rude and public way - and moreover, it's stunning how frequently it occurs.
He said something along the lines of "I'm very sorry for my friends rude behavior. Nobody should should act like that". I think the angel investor got the point.
@jschuur Don't you think the investor will take the easy way out and not shout at people when discussing investments, but not actually change as a person?
I think these type of behaviors are deeply set. They can be changed, but I think it is more likely that the investor learns to be more subtle when discussing with an investment target, rather than actually becoming a nicer person, which requires a real change of character.
I agree that this points to deeply rooted a deeply rooted mindset and behavioral issues. At the same time though, this is an opportunity to do the right thing and attempt to show the guy that this is a fundamental and not compartmentalized problem he has (not that I'm criticizing the entrepreneur here).
Maybe, over time, this will resonate with him, when he sees other people's reactions when this happens again. If not, you've done all you could.
Exactly. Doing nothing because "It won't help" is tacit acceptance. Only by slowly wearing away at the behavior can you change it, but you still need to try.
If the investor hasn't learned these things before now, there are good reasons to suspect he won't change overnight.
Even if he thinks it over, he may do a cost-benefit analysis and come to the conclusion that for him, personally, it works out better to shout at the waitress. Possibly because the coffee really is that important to him. Possibly because it weeds out business partners who don't like his style.
Too subtle. Easy for him to think it's fine to treat a waitress that way and that he can still function with 'real people'. He needed to be reminded that this is a sign of a fundamental character flaw.
Not to rub it in, but on the chance that this might lead him to redemption.
I do not believe that anyone is saying that you should judge an individual based on one mistake, or one interaction with a waitress. However, the advice is to look at this incident in context, seek out trends (or the lack of trends), and add this to your perception of the individual.
I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, and treat the assholes as outliers. It's too easy to assume the worst, but that's what a lot of people do these days. It's kind of sad.
I'll agree that saying "better safe than sorry" is probably the wrong way to view life, but taking what other people say with a grain of salt lets you question what people say more and come to your own decisions about life.
Also, "people suck" includes yourself, so you can think about it as a way to think about what you are saying and doing and see if it is up to a level of quality that you are comfortable with.
