We're Going To Play A Game - Getting Fit Fab

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No not the creepy Saw movie kind of game, it’s the fun entertaining kind. I was reading this article that I found on faceook, Craigslist Surveillance Restaurant, sounds odd right? Well I thought so too but I was intregged and clicked on it. To my surprise it was about a restaurant wanting to figure out why they were getting complaints of being slower than other places surrounding it.

Here is a transcript from the article (which was taken from the original post Craigslist- which has been flagged to remove):

We are a popular restaurant for both locals and tourists alike. Having been in business for many years, we noticed that although the number of customers we serve on a daily basis is almost the same today as it was 10 years ago, the service just seems super slow even though we added more staff and cut back on the menu items…

One of the most common complaints on review sites against us and many restaurants in the area is that the service was slow and/or they needed to wait a bit long for a table.

We decided to hire a firm to help us solve this mystery, and naturally the first thing they blamed it on was that the employees need more training and that maybe the kitchen staff is just not up to the task of serving that many customers.

Like most restaurants in NYC we have a surveillance system, and unlike today where it’s a digital system, 10 years ago we still used special high capacity tapes to record all activity. At any given time we had 4 special Sony systems recording multiple cameras. We would store the footage for 90 days just in case we needed it for something.

The firm we hired suggested we locate some of the older tapes and analyze how the staff behaved 10 years ago versus how they behave now.

Now after ready that little section I was immediately drawn in as to what exaclty the restaruants issue was. Could you guess? I’ll give you a hint, it has to do with technology.

If you guess CELL PHONES, you’d be correct. According to the stats on the website in 2004 it took from start to finish (average time) 1 hour and 5 minutes. In 2014, roughly the same time period (within days of being apart), the new average time is a whooping 1 hour and 55 minutes. That’s an entire 50 minutes MORE than 2004, but why ?

This is another excerpt from the article, which shocked me, and was almost a slap in the face.

Before even opening the menu they take their phones out, some are taking photos while others are simply doing something else on their phone (sorry we have no clue what they are doing and do not monitor customer WIFI activity).

7 out of the 45 customers had waiters come over right away, they showed them something on their phone and spent an average of 5 minutes of the waiter’s time. Given this is recent footage, we asked the waiters about this and they explained those customers had a problem connecting to the WIFI and demanded the waiters try to help them.

I’m sorry to say this, but after CA & I sit down if we haven’t already, one of us “checks in” on Swarm to say… We Were HERE. Maybe check email, twitter, facebook, reply to emails, and check to see what else is going on. Unless we have a coupon (usually TGI Fridays) we rarely show the waiters anything from our phone, so we don’t do that. We are mostly good about putting at least an appetizer in, since we’ve been dating for over 18 months, we know exactly what we like from our most frequented places.

But this next part, is totally and 100% ME… I feel a “little” bad, but not too much.

26 out of 45 customers spend an average of 3 minutes taking photos of the food.

Raises hand extremely HIGH… that’s me alright, especially with loving instagram, and lets state the obvious, being a blogger. A typical night out for CA and I is roughly, 45 mins to an hour, the expections are of course if we are with a large group, or if it’s for one of our sushi dates. Sushi dates roughly last 1 hour 30 mins to 2 hours, they’ve also been known to last over 3 hours, when the owner & cook come and drink with you.

After pondering the impact that cell phones have now a days, I decided that CA & I would play a game any time we had a date night, just he and I.

{Source}

Phone stack game, sounds good right? I prposed this to CA and he was all for it, even said he “wouldn’t mind a few free dinners”. Insert snarky sideways glance emoji here. So our rules are below:

1. Checking in with Swarm is allowed

2. Taking Pictures of food {you can’t KILL me, so I need this}

3. Answering parental and sibling phone calls are OK.

4. Phone use can not be longer than 3 minutes max; ie checking in, taking pictures.

5. You MUST not get caught checking phone while S/O is on a potty break.

5. Whoever picks up the phone for longer than 3 minuts that isn’t pertaining to rule number 3, will have to pay for dinner the NEXT night out or drinks.

We are doing the next night out, just incase either one of us is short, and can’t pay that night. I am not sure who will break first (he thinks it’ll be me), but we shall see! I will be sure to Instagram it the first time that one of us breaks the rule! I will probably impliement this for at home for nights in that either of us cooks, so we can still communicate sans free of technology.

So, the million dollar (not really I’ll give you ONE dollar.. that’s cool right?) question is would you do this with your friends or S/O? To see who would break first and grab their phone?

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