THE MISCONCEPTION: Other
people’s behavior is the reflection of their personality.


THE TRUTH: Other people’s behavior is more the result of the situation
than their disposition.

You go to a restaurant and your server brings
back something you didn’t order. When you
send it back, it takes forever for them to return with the correct dish.
They forget to fill
your glass and seem unable to remember
what you are drinking when they do check on
you. What sort of tip do you leave?


I waited tables for three years while in college, and I can tell you. If the kitchen got a
table’s order wrong, I knew my tip was
ruined. It wasn’t my fault, but people consistently punished me as if it was. If the food
was cold, or burned, or rare when it should
have been well done, the diners would communicate their dissatisfaction by leaving
nothing or, worse than nothing, a single coin.
Some people are polite right up until the moment of truth when they cast their monetary
vote of nonconfidence.

Others get violently
angry and while still chewing will demand to
see a manager. Waiting tables fosters a peculiar sort of acrimony among waiters and
waitresses. I never met a server who didn’t
know when a bad tip was coming. No one
was ever taught a lesson from being shortchanged. Over those three years, I knew the
service had more to do with the situation
than my own disposition. I could dampen
the fallout from the circumstances outsidemy control by being nice and funny, or strik-
ing up a conversation when I felt it was appropriate, but the customers still blamed me
when something went wrong.
So have you ever left a bad tip to show
your exasperation?
When you are at a restaurant, you have a
hard time seeing through to the personality
of the server. You place blame and assume
you are dealing with a slacker. Sometimes
you are right, but often you are committing
the fundamental attribution error.