When it’s good to have friction on the menu

Grit is what makes life interesting.

In today's world so many experiences happen without a glitch. Order a takeaway on our phone and it turns up on the doorstep. Buy a book with next day delivery. Watch a movie on demand. It’s all there for us to have.

In turn, we expect things to be immediate, seamless, frictionless.

Yet when things are so easy, they lose a certain element of what makes them pleasurable. Expectation through having to wait. Interaction with human beings. When experiences are frictionless, there’s no grit. And grit is what makes things interesting.

Recently our family of four went out to a restaurant for lunch. When we arrived our reserved table wasn’t ready. They were very apologetic. Could we come back in 10 minutes?

When we were then shown to our table, it all seemed a bit chaotic. It was clear that the front-of-house and kitchen were under-pressure. Our waitress had forgotten to put the order in for a side of bread. My wife’s starter was lukewarm.

It was all handled well however: apologies flowed, our wine glasses were topped up for free and a few items didn’t make it onto the bill.

And then we got chatting to the manager. They’d had a big problem. They’d moved to a new online reservation system but there was an issue - the old system was still taking reservations. Which meant they were double booked for lots of tables. They were doing what they could to rectify the situation.

Both of our sons have part-time jobs in hospitality. It opened up an opportunity for a conversation and a glimpse behind the scenes. Instead of being annoyed that things weren’t going smoothly, we became empathetic. It gave us more time there too - instead of one dish quickly following another, it forced us to slow down.

We discussed what was happening around us. It was a great case study in how to deal with these things, how to respond and how to keep the customer happy.

And rather than say to ourselves when we left ‘what a nightmare that was’ we said ‘what an enjoyable experience’ that was. It was open, honest and real-life.

Because of the friction, perhaps we’d had a better time than we would have otherwise.