Mini Episode 20 - Why don’t waiters just write down my order?

Katrina from East Gardens wants to know why waiters love to wait to complete your order

Dan: (00:19)
Welcome back to bad decisions. Is it back maybe just welcome to bad decisions, either way. I'm your host, Dan Monheit co-founder of Hardhat, and we are here to tackle your weird and wonderful questions about human behavior. Today's question comes to us from Katrina, from East gardens.

Katrina: (00:34)
So I was out for dinner with some friends last night, and a few of us had alterations to our order. One of us has no dairy, another one got extra cheese. Um, and then there's a vegetarian and I noticed that the waiter didn't jot anything down. So my question is why don't waiters just jot down orders.

Dan: (00:51)
Ah, yes, the old I'll just remember it trick. We all know that sense of anxiety. We feel when our waiter decides to take mental notes, just like they're on the podium of the world memory championships, rather than just doing the job and writing down the orders with that little pencil on that little pad of paper. Just like that. Our enjoyment for the evening now rests solely on their ability to remember Aunt Pam's finicky and frankly, unnecessary modification to the stir fry. Or there was uncle Jerry or uncle Gary who wanted the satay sauce on the side, not allergic just a preference. I hear you Katrina. I mean, why show off surely it is in everybody's best interest to just go with old faithful pen and paper, maybe an iPad. Hell, you could use a, a tablet and a chisel for all. I care, just please write it down.

Dan: (01:35)
Right. But what if we're wrong? What if we just aren't trying to impress us at all? You know what, if you have ever found yourself distracted in a, uh, intimate moment because you left washing the machine, then listen on or don't. This bias actually works either way because we are talking about the Zeigarnik effect. The Zeigarnik effect describes how we remember incomplete interrupted or unresolved tasks more easily than those. We finished starting a task that we are interested in, brings this overwhelming desire to complete it. That desire stays with us right until we do so, and then disappears. So in 1927, Boom Zeigarnik an iconic Lithuanian psychologist. And of course our heuristics namesake ran an experiment to test how easily children could recall the details of task work. Two separate groups were left to work on a series of puzzles and basic maths problems. One group was interrupted midway through while the other was allowed to complete what they were working on after an hour away from their activities, the children were asked if they remembered what they'd done while 12% of the completed group recall their tasks.

Dan: (02:38)
This figure jumped to 80% for the interrupted group. The incomplete tasks were still ticking away in the minds of group two. When we start and then complete the task, we're rewarded with a dopamine hit and an accompanying sense of satisfaction. When instead a task goes unfinished, we're left, motivated and invested in keeping it top of mind in the hope of completing it and cashing it on that reward a little bit later. And that's where our hospitality friends come in. As it turns out, Bloom also observed that wait staff could remember complex and nuanced food orders while they were still outstanding. But as soon as the plates were cleared and the bill was paid, the orders vanished from memory storing the orders of customers in working memory makes it easy to provide good customer service as well as keep tabs on who still needs to pay brands conduced as a organic effect by skipping the whole story instead, consider providing just enough to hook your audience safe in the knowledge that you'll come back and close a loop down the track, think cryptic headlines in complete catch phrases or ending it all with a…

See what I did there. All right. Katrina. I hope that answers your question on why waiters. Don't just write down your order, but between you and I, I also think they're just trying to show off a little bit if you are not Katrina, but have also observed a weird or wonderful human behavior that you would like me to get to the bottom of shoot it through to me. You can get me on email askdan@hardhat.com.au or all over the internet at Dan Monehit. Catch you next time.