If Looks Could Kill

We'd all be doing time for slaying our servers

I’d just finished a lunchtime keynote presentation for American Messaging Services at their annual sales conference. My contact, Debi, handed me final payment for the gig and invited me to join their offsite dinner at an Italian restaurant down the street. I was grateful for the offer, but debated whether to go.

After returning my borrowed server vest to the banquet captain, I headed back to my room. Stretching out on the couch, I opened my laptop with the intention of looking for a movie to unwind from five days of flights, airport layovers, event production, and presentation delivery that had kept me fully occupied.

I could have stayed there and easily justified my need to relax—but that wasn’t the whole story.

Being on stage in front of a company is the easy part, because I’m in charge of the interaction with the group. Despite the risks I appear to be taking, posing as a bad waiter who becomes the keynote speaker, I’m in control of the situation. Even while I’m irritating the guests and pushing them to the limits of their tolerance, I know what to expect and how to manage the reactivity.

One-to-one or small group interactions, on the other hand, feel more risky and scary to me. My neurodivergent wiring actually helps me deliver my waiter routine because I’m weird and awkward in real life. When things get normal, I’m a fish out of water, which is why I hesitated to join a bunch of smart professionals for dinner.

Whenever I catch myself vacillating about whether to stretch out of my comfort zone, however, I mostly say yes, even if I’m squirming a bit. That decision pays off 95% of the time, because I gain invaluable life experience and walk away with stories to tell.

I was just about to start the movie Game Night when it became clear I was side-stepping the dinner invitation. I closed my computer, got dressed, and headed up the street to Farina’s Italian restaurant in Grapevine, Texas.

The president of American Messaging greeted me warmly, gave me a clap on the back, and welcomed me in. It’s no surprise their company is thriving. The team is made up of highly relational problem solvers, the majority of whom have been with the company for twenty years or more. Low churn, high morale, pride in their deliverables, and care for one another characterizes their culture. I was immediately invited to an available seat.

I hadn’t been there more than fifteen minutes when one of the restaurant servers approached our table, the same way I’ve approached innumerable guests. Over the course of my career I’ve topped up 150,000 thousand glasses while holding the pitcher high above the rim, subjecting just that many people to my eccentric service.

I was busy chatting to the gentleman on my left when the server’s hand, pitcher askew, suddenly intruded itself into our conversation. I immediately and automatically got annoyed, then suddenly realized I was being punked—the same way I’ve aggravated other meeting attendees on countless occasions. One of the sales reps had taken a server aside, enrolled her in the ruse, and set me up.

My keynotes are all about the immediate reactions we default to in the face of unfamiliar situations. It takes a lot of practice to seamlessly relate to a circumstance that challenges our expectations.

There are exceptional people in the world who are psychologically nimble and alert enough to roll with reality without missing a beat. Like this woman who bucked the trend of annoyance exhibited by the rest of the guests sitting with her at this black tie event.

A response this immediate and creative is rare.

Most of us default to knee-jerk contortions, dirty looks, judgments, demands or expressions of alarm until we realize that we’re in the middle of a piece of theater and have a chance to adjust our behavior.

We all find it challenging at times to remember that our whole lives are theater and that relating to the drama with a lighthearted touch is always appropriate.

Given the number of times I’d elicited unconscious reactions from others, it was a delicious new twist in the history of my waiter story to be caught sporting the same alarmed expression in the first moment of being fooled.

Thanks to the ingenuity and spirit of play that caused a member of this fun-loving group to punk me at their dinner, I now have another wonderful photo to add to my collection of silly humans reacting with glowers, stares and alarm to a challenging moment.

It’s a wicked stare from the startled mug of silly ‘ole me.

: )

Many thanks to Peter Barnett of American Messaging who arranged and captured the ruse.