People know if your heart isn’t in the right place. Don’t matter how smooth you are, how charming, how highly you think of your acting chops. You can be Debonair to the capital-“D,” but that doesn’t mean squat because heart isn’t seen or heard. It’s felt. Heart pours from the pores, and no amount of gleaming incisors or flirtatious grazing can reproduce them pheromones.
If you’re putting on a show, putting up a face to compensate for lack of heart, it’ll seep through the cracks. People front but can’t nobody front forever.
Everything starts with heart. The rest of the package matters: luck, talent, image; but a glossy veneer don’t hold much weight.
What is heart? It’s looking out for others, even/especially when they can’t help you in return. It’s networking with Priority One to put others in position for success, and developing your own career the ancillary mega. Heart is doing what you say you’re going to do.
The service industry – waiting tables – is primo case study for heart. The experiments happen in rapid succession, the outcomes are measurable and immediate (read: cash $) and servers wear their attitude like a paisley tie around the neck. There are servers who see customers with a dollar amount tattooed to their forehead. I don’t want to serve them because they don’t tip well – sometimes a judgment made on past experiences; more times than not, made based on race, dress, or apparent educational level.
Some treat serving as a reflection of themselves. The bartenders who talk more about themselves to the customer than vice versa (when did this start happening? When did it become okay?) Or the seasoned server, coaching trainees about her personal philosophy rather than the fundamentals of good service: When I serve, I’m on a stage, you know? I’m a fun server, I’m a flatter, I’m a schmoozer. (Why not try being professional and helpful, instead of working on your bit?) And the server who postures about, pretending to care beneath a waxy smile, who asks questions like, Is everything delicious? (if you’re not going to give them much of a choice, don’t waste your breath) and says My name is blah blah blah, feel free to ask for me next time (if they planned on it, they’d ask for your name.)
Then, there are servers who want their customers to have the best experience. They look the customer in the eye. They listen. When they train you, they say This is the proper way. This is best for the customer. When they work, they do things because it’s the right thing to do, not because they think they can glean more green.
In the long run, they’re the ones who earn the bigger tips, anyway. Because they didn’t have to rely on gimmicks or bits or up-selling to convince someone they cared.
They just cared.
Heart doesn’t always come easy. Especially not living in a city where it feels like few people are listening, and everyone’s looking out for themselves. But in the long-run, it makes life easier. Because you never have to look around to see what other people are doing, or how they’re doing it. You always walk tall – the consequences be damned – when you start with heart.
Photo Credit: Diego Santi
