The Beef and Reef Mystery Guest Sally Salkind has worked for two years as a server at the Beef and Reef Restaurant while getting her degree in office and reprimanded her for not following standard hospitality management. As a national restaurant chain, serving procedures at the very time when following pro- the Beef and Reef has specific written standards about cedures was most important how guest service should be provided and posts those standards in the kitchen, where all em them. T he chain also allows local managers considerab latitude in training employees and providing service, so long as unit financial results are satisfactory. Most of the servers go "by the book" in serving guests, figuring She asked Bill Gordy why, if the procedures posted on that the company knows best and that they can't gothe kitchen wall were so important, he had never said any- wrong by following company standards. But Sally has thing about them in her two years with the restaurant. developed her own very successful way of opening the service encounter and delivering service thereafter Since manager Bill Gordy has had nothing but good things to say about her performance, she has continued to serve guests in her own style. Apparently the guests like it; her tips are among the highest and her average check is the highest in the restaurant. Several days later, Bill Gordy called Sally into his "Sally, I had been considering promoting you to head server, but I can't promote somebody who can't follow simple instructions plovees can see Sally went quickly from surprise shock, to ange "I'm not dumb, Bill. I can learn as well as anyone But you never told me that I had to learn that stuff, much less taught me how to do it. You threw me in the water, and, fortunately, I could swim. I did darn well on my own, using my own talents plus some things I learned in my hospitality courses. How can you expect me to change my whole way of doing things with 20 seconds Early one evening, the manager, Bill Gordy, informed notice? the servers of a rumor he had heard at a national meet ing: corporate headquarters intended to use more mys- ery shoppers in the following month. He said, "I know you all do the best job possible, and I appreciate it, but next month, let's all lift our service to a new level." About two weeks later, as Sally Salkind started to walk to greet a couple who had just been seated, Bill Gordy whispered to her, "Mystery shoppers. I can tell them a position with the Beef and Reef organization after she mile away. Do it by the book, Sally, and you'll be fine."finished her studies, but she decided that she didn't Bill Gordy didn't have an answer for Sally's question He simply reiterated his criticism, told her that she had embarrassed him and the restaurant in front of "a big shot from headquarters," and sent her back to her station Sally had been thinking of trying to get a permanent want to work for an outfit that gave her little training in Sally tried to do it by the book: "Good evening I'm Sally and I'm going to be your server tonight." But then she got tongue-tied. She couldn't remember if procedure called for her to solicit a beverage order, recite the specials, or encourage the party to choose an appe- tizer. The rest of the meal went the same way. The party of two had to ask for information that Sally usually related in her comfortable, natural way. But when called upon to do it by the numbers, she couldn't remember1. What went wrong? Who was at fault? what the numbers were. She had never been so happy to see two people leave how to do the job, complimented her for the way she did it, then criticized her because she didn't follow formal procedures and memorize the silly little phrases. She would stick around for now because the tip income was good, but she would be looking 2. Discuss the pros and cons of a strict set of serving standards for everybody