Sexual harassment in restaurants is the norm. The rise of the #metoo movement has already sparked plenty of think-pieces on the topic, but very little new information for women and non-binary folks in the industry. Whether it’s leering guests commenting on your smile or an inebriated manager at the holiday party asking about your sex life, the cavalier attitude toward harassment in hospitality has been status quo for decades. Even at its most benign (like the daily comments I remember from working in a chocolate shop about “how I could possibly stay so slim!”), there is often an unspoken understanding that bodies – especially women’s bodies – are being served up along with your food. This mentality is bolstered by the way we pay for food and drink – if our tab covers what we consumed, then what is tipping really for? We are buying our servers time and attention, and it doesn’t take much of a leap to unconsciously conclude that we are buying them, however temporarily.
This might also be related to the fact that the hospitality industry remains resistant to automation in an increasingly automated world. We go out to eat and drink desiring a human element, and nothing is more elementally human than desire. Few but the largest hospitality groups have anything resembling an HR department, and I’m sure if they hired one the initial team meeting would be a nightmare. I don’t want to pretend that the mandates of professionalism look the same in a cocktail bar as they do in a board room. I also don’t want to make excuses for bad behavior and egregious harassment – especially since I’ve worked with plenty (largely women-owned) businesses that have no trouble setting a tone where employees feel safe and respected. When owners and the highest-level managers show basic respect and no tolerance for abuse, those attitudes do trickle down. Tough decisions sometimes need to be made, but I’m fortunate never to have dealt with anything like the high-profile cases exposed recently.
Restaurants are different from board rooms in one other very important way: they are open to the public. Mitigating harassment from within is a lower hurdle than preventing it from guests, who may not even shed their sheep’s clothing until they’re 3 drinks and a 350-dollar tab in. And at that point, what are your options? As a server, do you turn down a $70 tip that would turn a slow night around? As a manager, do you maintain your zero-tolerance policy, call it a $350 loss, risk a bad yelp review and the discomfort of a few adjacent tables? What if you believe, in good faith, that saying something will turn an unacceptable infraction into an even more abusive and potentially dangerous situation? I don’t want to aim low, for a world where “mild” harassment is tolerated and excused. But I also want to trust the people most affected when they say what they need. As a server, I’ve served plenty of people who made me uncomfortable with looks, comments, body language or notes written next to generous tips. Some of them I would have rather kicked out immediately. Others I felt perfectly fine shrugging off or sending a male coworker to serve.
That’s why I appreciate this simple solution from Homeroom in Oakland, CA, recently reported in the Washington Post and ABC. There is an intuitive 3-color system, understood by all staff, to categorize instances of harassment. Management is then trained to respond based only on the color the employee reports, without demanding details of the incident or dismissing the perceived discomfort. A Code Red (for touching, overt comments, or repeated incidents) results in immediate ejection. A Code Orange (usually comments on appearance or mildly suggestive remarks) means the manager will take over the table, no questions asked. A Code Yellow, which is used for more benign behaviors like staring, allows the server to decide if they want to keep serving the table or not. Ironically, three colors turn out to be an effective response to the shades of gray we keep worrying about. After all - harassment, like all human interaction, happens in an instant. It is a shared experience between two people, and the full consequences of it can’t necessarily be described – even moments later – with a simple play-by-play. This simple system allows employees to call out abuse without having to justify their feelings or risk being dismissed. It offers more control and removes some of the barriers to getting support. But it also does so without a great deal of extra handwringing and company meetings – exactly the kind of solution that stands a chance in the fast-paced and dimly-lit world of hospitality.
There are obvious situations this strategy does not address. What happens when the code red is your manager? Your boss? Or the table of high-profile VIPs? Shockingly, there are intricacies and complications to these power dynamics that cannot be solved with red, orange and yellow But policies are not meaningless. Anecdotally, I can think of times when it would have been so much easier to have a safe word and a clear course of action to deescalate. Times when, since I didn’t have that option, I grinned and bore it and walked home feeling a bit less safe in the world. If that feeling, shared by thousands of women in this city alone, can be prevented – well, it sounds like a start to me.