Waiter shaking a senior businessman's hand in a restaurant © iStock | Michael Blann

In an article by USA Today, several CEOs who were interviewed agree that how a person treats a waiter can reveal a lot about their character. The message was to watch how someone treats people who can’t benefit them or serve their interests. It’s a measure of their true character.

For example, when someone says to a waiter, “I could buy this place and fire you!” or “I know the owner, and I could have you fired!” it immediately raises a red flag about their true nature, regardless of their influence, wealth, and power.

“A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter or others is not a nice person,” said Bill Swanson, a retired chairman and CEO of Raytheon Technologies. 

Swanson also warned us to “watch out for people with a situational value system, who can turn the charm on and off depending on the status of the person they are interacting with. Be especially wary of those who are rude to people perceived to be in subordinate roles.”

“How executives treat waiters probably demonstrates how they treat their actual employees. Sitting in the chair of the CEO makes me no better of a person than the forklift operator in our plant.

If you treat the waiter or a subordinate like garbage, guess what? Are they going to give it their all? I don’t think so,” added the late Brenda Barnes, Sara Lee Corporation’s former chairman, president, and CEO, who was also the former CEO of PepsiCo.

Waiter Rule

The Waiter Rule, or how we treat waiters and waitresses, does not apply only to restaurant servers. It also applies to the way we treat busboys, hotel maids, bellmen, garbage collectors, cleaners, security guards, mailroom clerks, ride-sharing drivers like Uber or Grab, and all other service workers.

Former Office Depot CEO and current Conference Board President and CEO Steve Odland was once a waiter himself more than 40 years ago. At one time, he was serving sorbet to a customer and accidentally spilled the purple dessert on her expensive white gown. Odland then feared and “thought I would be shot on sight!”

A waiter spills purple liquid and coffee from a tray © iStock | Ben Borgards

However, lucky for him, the obviously rich and influential customer told the then-teenage Odland, in a reassuring voice, “It’s OK. It wasn’t your fault.”

She then left the future Fortune 500 CEO with one important life lesson that has stayed with him to this day: You can tell a lot about a person by how they treat a waiter.

Waiter Test

Meanwhile, in another restaurant, Bill Swanson, the retired chairman and CEO of Raytheon Technologies, shared that he once was eating with a man who appeared nice to him but became “absolutely obnoxious” to a waiter because a particular wine was out of stock.

The man’s rude behavior towards the waiter made Swanson immediately realize that, though the man was nice to him, the man was actually not a nice person.

Muhammad Ali's Waiter Test by Motiversity

Similarly, former Au Bon Pain and Panera Bread co-founder and CEO and current Act III Holdings CEO and Managing Partner, Ron Shaich, also had an experience when he was interviewing a job candidate for general counsel.

She was “sweet” to Shaich but suddenly turned sour and “amazingly rude” to someone cleaning the tables. So, as “sweet” as she tried to be to Shaich, she still didn’t get the job because the CEO doesn’t hire such “sweet” people to be around in his company.

Two-faced woman © iStock | TatyanaGl

Shaich also practices asking his assistant, Laura Parisi, how job candidates applying for executive positions treated her before she transferred the calls to him. If job applicants were “pushy, self-absorbed, and rude” to Laura, they can just forget about getting hired as far as he's concerned.

“To some people, speaking in a condescending manner makes them feel important, which to me is a total turnoff,” Seymour Holtzman, former chairman of Casual Male Retail Group and current President and CEO of Jewelcor, expressed his disapproval.

Former CEO of Witness Systems and current Director of Matcha, Dave Gould, warns that CEOs who blow up at waiters have an ego out of control: “Those people tend not to be collaborative.”

A man in a suit angrily points at a waiter in a restaurant © iStock | RRice1981

Personal values and ethical practices

During a contract negotiation between Dave Gould and another CEO, a waitress unintentionally spilled a full glass of red wine on the CEO’s expensive suit. 

Surprisingly, the CEO quickly made her feel at ease and even joked about it as if to say the spill actually helped… because he had no time to shower that morning.

In witnessing this, Gould trusted that the other CEO was a person who was capable of handling and working through any differences with people from all walks of life.

Going back to Odland’s story, when he was a busboy more than 40 years ago, he said:  “People treated me wonderfully, and others treated me like dirt. There were a lot of ugly people.

I didn’t have the money or the CEO title at the time, but I had the same intelligence and raw ability as I have today. Why would people treat me differently?

Your value system and ethics need to be constant at all times, regardless of who you are dealing with.” 

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