facethereckoning

Currently, I’m working again as a valet parking employee in Dallas, primarily working at a fine dining establishment. It’s a great restaurant, I do recommend going there for dinner, but only after you’ve saved up at least $150 (for two people).

The valet company I work for is the same one I worked for during college. It’s a good company, I have nothing bad to say about them. Others in the past might, but it’s not really any of my business. As with any employer you find yourself working for, YMMV (your mileage may vary).

Anyways, the establishment I currently run is a great restaurant, and I think they push for excellence. I respect the management there quite a bit, and they’ve always been nice to me and very gracious.

You may have noticed that my current style of writing has been a bit short, and abbreviated. It’s deliberate. I’m currently frustrated with this restaurant and to a degree, the valet company I work for.

This restaurant employs secret shoppers. Recently, I got the ambiguous review about my performance that I’ve ever received. My manager called me and read to me, my review. Here’s the items I remember:

1. I was too business-like, or professional.
2. I did not grab his wife’s door on the way in or out…
3. It took me 30 seconds to approach his vehicle.

Let me provide some context about why those three points of contention are ridiculous, and also let me provide you the information that the secret shop checklist requires of me. The checklist requires two points to be checked for me, and that is to get their name when they arrive, and address them by that name when they leave. I achieved 2 out of 2 possible requirements for me, on that secret shop checklist. That’s it. I’m worth two points.

#1 – There is no too business-like, or too professional, given the perception people have of a valet. This is made impossible by the class-system our society imposes on those who work in the service-industry versus your white collar clientele who frequent these service providers. I’m not sure what more I was supposed to have done. 9 out of 10 people who visit that restaurant DO NOT want me to chat them up like we are old friends. They expect to visit and dine at a fine establishment, as quickly as their reservation states. I will always be in their way, for my identity as a “valet” lends me no respect for even the smallest of talk.

#2 – Doors. At this fine establishment, I’m the lead. I distribute tickets and greet the customers. My co-workers grab the doors for the ladies. If a co-worker is not around to do so, I will make that effort to get the lady’s door but if we are enduring a rush (see contention #3), the customers DO NOT wait on me. “Honey, go ahead and let the hostess know we are here while I wait for the valet.” or else they just get out of the car and wait for me to come to them. Getting doors is a courtesy we proactively provide, but is also a courtesy we often times are restrained from doing, not by our choosing. All in all, it is physically impossible to single-handedly execute this courtesy. Secondly, the speed at which customers desire to just be at their table is often times faster than we are. These are limitations we accept, but combat nonetheless in an effort to provide the best service possible…why? Because we want the best possible tip. We rely on tips. Tips is all we have at the end of the night. It’s all about TIPS.

#3 – Thirty seconds. This is not that much of an eternity in the world of valet parking at this fine establishment. Here’s the usual spiel I perform when welcoming customers “Good evening, welcome to . May I have your last name please?” Customer gives last name, often spelling it out for me as I write it. I write it down. “Mr. Doe, enjoy your evening.” This exchange, if done quickly, takes a minimum of fifteen seconds, but often times is a bit longer to account for the customer to exit the vehicle, relinquish the keys, and then for me to roll the window down, prepping the vehicle to be taken by the next runner for parking. There is absolutely NO WAY that I would willingly stand there and wait a customer out for thirty seconds before approaching the vehicle. If you know me at all, I despise the feeling of being impeded. As a valet, it is a matter of sanity that the driveway be clear of vehicles, in the event a customer leaves, we’d like them to get out of there ASAP.

–I’m the valet, the guy needed something to write. I have contention with every point he made, including me being too professional and business-like. I work in a primarily professional setting, to be otherwise is asking for trouble. The lady’s door? We can’t help it when your wife opens her own door and we can’t help it if during rush period your impatience means you get out without our help. We will serve you as quickly as the situation allows. Thirty seconds to come over to the vehicle… total crap. No valet in any state of mind stands there and waits a customer out.

The day the secret shop report came out, and I was told what had been written about me, the restaurant staff had a fairly good laugh at my expense. “Hey, quit being so professional!”. The bartender, his review was, “Cordial but lacked warmth.” So, the secret shopper was quite consistent across the board for writing pretty ambiguous crap and just looking for reasons to write something about everything he experienced. The management from the restaurant agreed with our feelings in regards to their staff evaluation as well.

I did some research, this fine establishment has hired a secret shopper firm to do this on a regular basis. Like any business, including valet companies, you need to provide something consistent in order to retain clients. This secret shop firm promises detailed, constructive reviews… this is a good thing. However, secret shoppers FAIL at gauging the overall customer experience. Secret shoppers by their very job description cannot be without agenda when visiting a client’s establishment. They must SELL the write-up every time they do one. This includes writing ambiguous crap apparently, at least for this secret shopper, since he couldn’t slam me for being unprofessional, says I’m “too professional and business-like.”

This secret shopper does NOT witness the clientele that visit this restaurant on a regular basis. Businesses buy out the dining room to hold company parties. Corporate and/or high-end attorneys engage in happy hour at this establishment. The same corporate playboys hook up with high-end hookers for rendezvous at the the adjacent luxury hotel… and they pay big bucks to remain discreet. I’m not trying to tout the controversial people that visit this place, but what I am trying to convey is the type of money, and the people who have it, that visit this restaurant. These people are professionals. They are sports celebrities, owners, attorneys, entrepreneurs, and people who can afford dropping $300 for dinner and wine on a weekly basis. I can count on seeing the same people every week, and NONE of these people EVER complain about me being too professional or business-like. After three months, they know my face and some even know my name.

…but a single secret shopper… provided by a firm that exists to tell restaurants what they want to hear, because if they don’t, the restaurant will find someone else…

… is about to get my valet company fired from the restaurant.

In a perfect world, a secret shopper would be objective and offer praise for a good establishment. They don’t. They simply mark the checklist and see if the restaurant met the standards. If it did, the restaurant management is happy and leaves it alone. If the checklist did not meet up to standards, the secret shopper writes a personal review and then the restaurant management gets mad and starts emphasizing improvement or firing people.

My valet company is about to fall victim to this. Customers do not complain about us. Customers do not write ambiguous reviews about us. We are not respected nearly enough to warrant that kind of attention… but valet parking people are always great fodder for criticism, blame, and jokes… we are at the bottom of the totem pole.

I like this restaurant, but I think they are being horribly unfair, unrealistic, and rely on information that is too subjective, and too small in scope to be a real contribution to their operation. The only real benefit is that the idea of a secret shopper encourages focus. If you remember from earlier, I nailed BOTH of my required points, because I do respect the idea of a secret shop. If this restaurant’s management would spend time with us while we work the magic that gets their customers inside the restaurant, I think they would see the ever-adapting dynamics we have to employ that do not fit into the rigid expectations of a secret shop checklist.

Customers, if they don’t like something, will complain about it.

My valet company, specifically me, my runners, and the other who run that account. Do NOT receive customer complaints, but only secret shop complaints.

This is an assumption (only because the restaurant never tells us who, but only from the secret shopper) but it baffles me that the management cannot see how the secret shop is purely selective in their evaluations, and that the customer base does not agree with secret shop findings. I promise you, if customers actually complained… my valet company would have been fired a long time ago.

My valet company, in response to the threat of losing the account, has enacted rather draconian changes into how we operate the parking situation. This has resulted in me losing one-third of my available spaces top side due to reasons of risk. This fear of claims or accidents is no more or less likely now. This loss will result in me having to send cars down into the parking garage much sooner. Parking cars in the garage will require more time to both park and retrieve. The more time required will require more valets, which will increase man-hours, and decrease overall pay to the point where gaining quality runners will be impossible, because who wants to work at an account with no money? Overall, the changes to top-side parking availability severely hampers our ability to meet the service goals of this restaurant. The quicker we have to go to the garage guarantees that there will be traffic buildup, regardless of how many valets are available. The customer service requirements will suffer because truthfully, only a handful of mature valets are available who can handle the standards of this restaurant. This handful are needed to lead the other accounts we service.

Lastly, and this is the straw that threatened the camel’s back, is that a former employee of my company, who now has his own valet company that services only ONE account currently, has made an offer to the restaurant I am assigned to. Apparently, this offer was good enough to get my company’s attention, and enough to get management to take away one-third of my top space… truthfully, this smaller company is more than likely exactly what this restaurant needs to fill its level of detail.

Overall, the seeming inability of the restaurant’s management to recognize exactly what we do, the valet company’s draconian measures taking away one-third of my top side spaces affecting traffic flow during peak hours, and this competing company who will have the ability to dedicate a more consistent staff, I almost wish that we did lose this account considering the stress, but this is a fight worth seeing through and an excellence to strive for. We’ve lost the account before, and this restaurant came back to us because we are the best company in town, although, for this place… we fight to be the best of the worst.

My grandfather is in the hospital. It’s hard to say whether these are in fact the inevitabilities of death and grief coming to claim their tolls. The reality is that he is 84, and his body just doesn’t heal/recover like it used to. He’s at that place where medical treatment merely delays the inevitable rather than fixes the problem. As usual, we’ve been given the worst prognosis that my grandfather will not survive outside of the hospital. We’ve been in this situation before, but never this close.

His body doesn’t work optimally anymore. It hasn’t for quite a while now.

I don’t know how to grieve for him. He and I are not particularly close so my feelings for him are felt vicariously through my father. In all of this I’m more impacted by what I perceive to be my father’s loss, not mine.

This does not mean I’m without feeling for my grandfather, it’s just that I feel as though I’m inadequate in them. I feel bad that I feel so unaffected by this. It is possible that I’m making up for in strength what my father will take time in not providing as he grieves. My dad has been grieving for a long time now, he’s tired and emotionally spent preparing for this. At some point, I too have become burdened by watching my dad deal with this.

My Grandmother died when my dad was entering into high school. For a son to lose his mom is an emotional trial that I could never empathize with. With my Grandfather’s prospect of passing, my dad must deal with the final phase of losing his mother. At least, that’s how this has been playing out for him. My Grandfather is the last remaining connection my dad has to my Grandma, and while my dad must deal with the inevitable loss of his Dad, the residual loss of Grandma will be felt as well. I guess my Dad never fully let my Grandma go. I’m pretty sure this is a sentiment shared by his brothers and sister as well.

In the meantime, all I know to do is just stand here completely visible, and watch.