“Here’s your coffee guys”

Catching up with emails this morning, after a weekend away at the ILTSA AGM in Winchester by eye was caught by a Blog entitled

“Why are we always called ‘guys’ in restaurants?”  by Alison Fearn. Now I’ll be honest, but this is not the usual sort of post that I would read but the titled alluded to one of my pet hates at the moment, OK it might be because of my name or it might be an age thing, but to me it is systematic of the dumbing down of service.

I will deal with the “guy” part first. I always thought that the word “guy” always referred to a male, and indeed looking in my copy of the Collins English Dictionary it gives the definition as “guy n informal man or boy”, I appear to be correct. My partner and I often take a stroll on the weekend and stop part way for a coffee. The other week we were at the counter and the young lad said hello “guys” what can I get you? My reply was “there is only one guy here”, (my partner being obviously of the female sex) “and my name is really is Guy and that expression is really annoying”. The “millennial” apologised, but on presenting us with our Cappuccinos he said “here you are guys”, now it was Sunday morning so we gave him the benefit of the doubt that his memory was muddled by a Saturday night spending his hard earned cash in the local bars.

When I was trained, admittedly before the days of mobile phone, I was taught to call people Sir and Madam. Whilst this might not be appropriate these days, I would be happy with someone just saying something like “hello, how are you”. In the modern PC world, it is not gender specific and polite. What are your thoughts?

I am going to the conclusion that waiting staff now no longer have any training.  I will recount a couple of incidents that happened in the Hotel that we stayed in on Friday Night. This was hotel that was part of the Holiday Inn brand. We ate in the restaurant, at 8pm and were very surprised to find that we were the only ones in there. We ordered our meal and Wine with no problem. When the wine waiter appeared with the wine I noticed that my glass was dirty and asked for a new one. The waiter was fine but disappeared for 10mins getting a new glasses, despite the fact that every table was set for dinner including wine glasses. Why he couldn’t have just taken a glass from another table totally baffled me. Then at breakfast, the waiting staff were clearing plates as soon as your knife and fork were placed on your plate, even if my partner was still eating.

This might be acceptable for customers who are “Millennials” who make up nearly 25% of the UK population, but that leaves 75% of the population. Remember no matter how good the food is we also expect a level of service and please please encourage your staff not to refer to everyone as “guys”