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Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

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Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#41

Post by gyardley »

gabrielroth wrote: post #37
gyardley wrote: post #31

I don't get the bribe terminology at all - offering better service to people willing to pay more is a pretty standard form of price differentiation. We certainly don't call it a bribe when a webservice charges more for faster responses to support requests or access to a dedicated rep. We don't call it a bribe when an airline charges more for more leg room. Why should we call it a bribe when the restaurant's maitre d'…

Obviously, it's a bribe because it's pocketed by the employee rather than passed up to the employer.

That's how front-of-house restaurant employees are predominantly paid in America.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#42

Post by jerf »

sp332 wrote: post #29
drivingmenuts wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems unethical to me, strictly speaking. Sure, everyone's doing it. Doesn't mean cheating someone else out of their fair share is right, though.

"Fair share"? As if each person deserves to be served? Talk about a sense of entitlement. The restaurant will serve whomever it likes. You wouldn't think it unethical for the restaurant to give regulars a friendlier smile, or a specific table they like? If you have a personal relationship with someone, no matter how tenuous, they will give you better service. It's not "cheating." Especially for busy restaurants, ther…

'"Fair share"? As if each person deserves to be served?'

Everyone does deserve to be served. Why? Is it because it's an immutable ethical truth? No. It's because that's our culture. The US is a pretty egalitarian society. It isn't perfect but it's still in our cultural DNA.

A lot of the objection is the issue of slipping the seater a $100. If it was an open auction at the door and everybody had to bid for seats, that would just be the way it is, but in America the act of slipping someone $100 to be seated is basically sneaking out of the egalitarian society into a society of privilege, and the egalitarian among us find that offensive. If you want to buy privilege, which is a perfectly valid thing to do, buy it on the open market, not with bribery.

If everybody engages in bribery, and everybody knows it, the sneaky cheating aspect goes away, though I tend to agree with other posters that this creates a moral hazard. Not being a cultural relativist, I am free to say I believe the egalitarian culture here produces superior results to a culture that accepts bribery routinely. It really does lead fairly directly to things like paying off inspectors to not do the inspections, in a non-trivial percentage of the population.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#43

Post by RK »

donohoe wrote: post #16

Related, but unrelated - this is some advice for events like weddings or any open bar where there is a crowd (think SXSW). Go to the bar early. Talk to the bartender, take $20 out of your pocket and tell him/her/them: "Hey, this is for you. I don't have change and I want to tip, and I have no idea how much I'll actually drink... Thanks!" I started doing this because I used to bartend and a lot of people skimp on tips…

I was recently at a conference reception where each person was given two drink tickets. My friend and I went up for our first drink and my friend tipped the bar tender well. The rest of the night that same guy just kept handing him his tickets back...

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#44

Post by BobbyH »

acabal wrote: post #28

Interestingly, this sometimes works the other way around too. I frequented a coffee shop in my town for a few months (I later moved house). The baristas came to recognize my face, even though I didn't make smalltalk or introduce myself. I would come in, order a coffee, and work on their wifi for a few hours before leaving, more or less every other day. One day the barista recognized me and said, "this coffee's on the…

If you think about it, it is economically rational behavior for a barista/bartender to do this for regular customers. After all, she gives you a drink that is free to her and gets back real money as a tip. The only loser is the coffee shop or bar, who has trouble tracking the number of drinks served.

My friend runs a bar and this is a huge problem for him that he calls a "bribe back". The only solution he found is hiring good people, as monitoring the bartenders makes him look like he doesn't trust or respect them.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#45

Post by dagw »

forensic wrote: post #9
drivingmenuts wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems unethical to me, strictly speaking. Sure, everyone's doing it. Doesn't mean cheating someone else out of their fair share is right, though.

it's not unethical. It's the market economy.

Except the maitre'd isn't the restaurant, and what he's selling technically isn't his to sell. So as such it's more of a black market for stolen goods. If the restaurant had a stated policy where tables where auctioned off at busy times then that would be different.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#46

Post by willyt »

scott_s wrote: post #18
acon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think bribing government officials to get preferential treatment is also OK? If not, what is the difference?

Government officials are not a part of the market economy. It's paying for service, it just goes through unofficial channels. I live in a small college town. I eat at the same vegetarian restaurant for lunch almost every single weekday. I sit at the counter with a book, and make small talk with the cooks and servers as appropriate. I unquestionably receive preferential treatment from them. The cooks sometimes slide m…

OK, what about if you employed someone to tender contracts for you and one of the tenderers took this person out for an extravagant lunch in the expectation of influencing the bidding process? Wouldn't that be immoral?

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#47

Post by MichaelApproved »

Great article but I wanted to discuss how the link is to the print page where there is no navigation, ads or ability to see other content. I suggest the ?printable=true be removed from the url out of respect for the content providers.

A lot of time and money goes into creating content. This is clearly a well written and interesting article since it's on top of hacker news right now. Why screw the website out of the extra traffic to it's other pages and possible ad revenue by linking to the printable version?

I can understand not liking ads but this site isn't a content farm with tons of ads. There is only a tiny, handful of ads on the right with plenty of room for the content.

Sure, people on hacker news know enough to change the url if they want to explore the rest of the site but articles that become popular here also get picked up by other services with less savvy users.

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#49

Post by gojomo »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #47

Great article but I wanted to discuss how the link is to the print page where there is no navigation, ads or ability to see other content. I suggest the ?printable=true be removed from the url out of respect for the content providers. A lot of time and money goes into creating content. This is clearly a well written and interesting article since it's on top of hacker news right now. Why screw the website out of the e…

The site could easily prevent deep-links to print versions if they cared. If they don't care, why should we?

Re: Bribing maitre d' to skip the line

#50

Post by bryanh »

I thought the line "Bribing, it turns out, has as much effect on the briber as it does on the bribee" was particularly telling. I mean, bribing someone (successfully) touches on everything: a sense of exclusivity, an appearance of prominence, a seemingly meaningful interpersonal connection, and it streamlines the whole process. No wonder if feels so good...
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