Catering nightmares

Often times, to paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, the rich are not like you or I. In fact, they can be real tightwads, especially when it comes to paying for simple services.

This I’ve heard from a local caterer who has had many years’ experience making the events of the rich and powerful in Manila truly special. Naturally, he does not want to reveal his identity, nor the names of his clients. But he has been sought by prominent businessmen, art dealers, power brokers and politicians to prepare excellent meals — and he is not ashamed to say, he offers (or offered, I should say; he is no longer in the catering business) his food at a very reasonable price.

But sometimes, customers are not all that reasonable. Especially if they live at posh addresses in Makati and in the South. “One woman, the wife of this prominent businessman,” this caterer remembers, “called me up at 10:30 at night. They wanted a Chinese dinner catered for 30 people… the next day!” Normally, he wouldn’t accept such last-minute requests, but this was for a prominent group, and the caterer reluctantly agreed to do it. “I was eager to please and this client was a friend of the family.”

The meal went off without a hitch, the guests enjoying their sumptuous Chinese feast and having so much fun, indeed, that the wealthy client neglected to pay the caterers or tip the waiter staff that night. The caterer felt the hosts were “too busy” entertaining their guests, so he let it slide for a day. Then another day. Then another. Phone calls were made to the client’s office — the client even asked for payment terms for a measly P13,000. Finally, a month went by without any payment for the catered event. The caterer bumped into the client in a five-star hotel, and made eye-to-eye contact — but the deadbeat simply looked away, as though he didn’t even know the caterer.

Eventually, this caterer had to make a call to a respectable friend of this client and threaten to tell the rest of his prominent group that this person chose not to pay his bills. It worked; a few days later, he received a check payment.  Many years later, the caterer heard news that the ritzy residential address where the event had been held faced foreclosure for non-payment of debts. What goes around comes around, as they say.

This caterer — college-educated, trained in the US — is still flabbergasted by the amount of cheapness among the upper-upper classes. He recalls a certain top corporation that wanted its event catered — so he faxed over an elaborate menu with numerous appetizers and main courses: somewhere in the neighborhood of P750 per person. What followed was an endless volley of phone calls and faxes, each exchange from the wealthy corporate offices seeking to lower the price per head… “just a bit more.” They requested changes in the items — “take out this one, that one, make the price lower” (this, mind you, from a corporation that made billions in profit each year). Exasperated, but still young and eager to please, the caterer agreed to adjust the menu and shave down the price to P450 per head. He was already approaching zero profit, but felt making such important contacts in the corporate world would benefit his business.

There was one more added insult, though. The head of the corporation summoned the caterer to his private office. Flattered, the caterer rode the elevator up to the topmost floor, and was finally seated across from the prominent tycoon— who instantly applied pressure to lower the catering price… just a bit more!

Eventually (and naively, in retrospect) the caterer complied. The final price was P375 per head. The event was staged in a spectacular and scenic location (outside Metro Manila), and the caterer and crew couldn’t help noticing when the chairman arrived by helicopter. That helicopter ride alone, he reflected, probably cost more than what I’m being paid for this catering.

The icing on the cake was that, at the end of the night, the caterer asked his staff how much they had been tipped by the rich client. They made a covert sign, joining the thumb and index finger: “Zero.”

All that trouble for a client rich enough to travel by chopper, but too cheap to provide a tip for the “common” help.

He’s had many such catering experiences from hell, so it’s no wonder that he’s sworn off the business. And it’s no wonder that he’s developed a seasoned opinion about so many rich clients in Manila: they love to pinch every centavo until it screams.

He is quick to clarify that not all rich clients he has worked for are deadbeats. Many are generous. But one caveat seems to hold true: if the rich clients are self-made, they have a clearer understanding of how it is, trying to work your way up in the world. They know what it’s like to strive, in the expectation that you will be rewarded for good work. So they tip accordingly.

But if the wealth is inherited, there is less tendency to lavish it on the simple help. In fact, such people are more likely to maintain as much distance as possible from those who strive. This seems to be a universal truth.

One vivid example greeted this caterer when his staff was preparing to serve an exclusive meal at a rich client’s home in the South. The polished  narra floors, it was sniffily decided, could not be trod upon by the simple waiters and catering staff. Their shoes must be removed. So the caterers complied, laying their footwear in some out-of-sight pile at the back of the house, and proceeding to deliver food-laden trays in their bare socks, which can be quite tricky and dangerous. Of course, when the guests arrived, they simply marched across the polished floors in their Ballys, Bruno Maglis and high heels. The distinction between “us” and “them” could not be made any clearer. The capper? At the end of the evening when all the guests had left, the client threw a tantrum and blamed all the catering staff for scratching his beautiful floors.

Often, the rich are obnoxious in their demands, even petty. Like the grand dame of a household who scolded the catering staff while they were washing up the dishes in her kitchen after a well-executed event: “Keep that noise down!” she shouted from an upstairs window. The staff was told to carefully run each plate and glass under the tap and place it quietly in the rack, so as not to emit a single clattering sound.

“I could write a book,” this caterer now says, shaking his head at all the outrages and indignities visited upon those who seek to serve. But he probably couldn’t name names. No, not in Metro Manila.

He contrasts all this with an event he catered for a respectable, middle-class family. The guests arrived, enjoyed the meal, and at the end of the night, the caterer received a fat envelope of cash containing the payment for the event and a generous tip for his staff. This is how people who are still aspiring, and still operating by the rules, play the game, he reflected. Not so with the rich, it seems.