While in training at my first restaurant job I asked a party where they would like to sit in the dining room. The owner pulled me aside and said to never give people a choice. They'll get confused and think that there's a "best" table and that their dinner could suffer if they feel like they didn't get it.

I don't know if it's "real" or not but between work and my personal life I've got decision fatigue. Help make decisions. Especially about non-important ones that feel important at the time.

Circuit City stores, back when they had entire walls of VCRs and tape decks and receivers, all of which were "on sale" (ahem), instructed their salespeople to always give customers definitive advice in their price range. "Oh, this Sony is the absolute best tape deck." Once people had reassurance that they were making the right choice, even from a total stranger, they'd open their wallets. But not before.

The current stereotype for this is the peppy young salesperson having "this exact model at home".

I wonder what kind of mansions they live in, because I've seen the same 20something dude have like 5 different washing machines and 7 different fridges at home =)

Fascinating.

It seems like some table choices are better for the customer, some are better for the server. As a customer I like to be away from the other tables and the server wants everyone together in a noisy clump.

I absolutely loathe those setups in some tiny restaurants where they line up 2 person tables in a row with 6-12" between tables so you can hear the stranger next to you talking more clearly than your partner across the table. Nothing else triggers my unbearable social anxiety like it. I've gotten seated at those when there's, like, an entire half of the restaurant empty.

I suspect the other option here is to just ask. “We’re getting to know each other. Do you think we could sit in the booth in the corner over there?”

Yes, I remember that campgrounds in the American Rockies let you choose your spot, while in the Canadian Rockies they assign you one. And I realized we were simply happier in Canada!

It's definitely real! At least as far as my N=1 dataset is concerned. I dislike having to pick a seat when they're all kind of the same. Just tell me where to go, I have to make enough decisions at other times in life.

In one of my best sales jobs, I got a full day training course on choice fatigue and how to guide customers to both maximize revenues and their happiness. The business I worked for had high rates of customer return, so the training was centered not around scalping the most money today but how to develop a lifetime relationship where we maximize LTV.

It was pretty fascinating. I ended up doing a fair bit of independent research on the topic to see if it was just same sales BS or a known psychological phenomenon, and it turns out it's a well-known branch of psychology/sociology. (Not necessarily related to the Decision Fatigue / Ego Depletion theory which has been tough to replicate, but is probably true in some respect).

Coincidentally enough, I took that education to my next job, which was waiting tables, and it held up there very well. The key, in my opinion, is actually being deeply knowledgeable about the product so your recommendations are authentic. Bonus points if you use the product.

There is obviously better tables. Near the windows. Away from busy traffic.

Ah, so applying the parenting strategy to adults.

“Allow the illusion of choice”.

I don't see how that's relevant. You can tap the RAW button in the iOS camera app to switch between the two choices, both of which looks great. Most DSLRs only have one option because the second one (in-camera JPEG) looks like crap. They can barely do auto focus/wb/iso/shutter/aperture let alone postprocessing.

Not just Jobs! There is no end[0] to research[1] showing that many options is terrible[2], and "too many options" is terrible by definition.

0. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/2018/07/31/br...

1. https://mediaroom.iese.edu/new-research-shows-why-the-human-...

2. https://bigthink.com/thinking/choice-analysis-paralysis/

That's a bit silly in this context. It's not like the person's intentions aren't fairly clear when they decided between buying an iPhone or buying a $3000 DSLR setup. Is it really so evil that Apple "decided" the person who bought the iPhone probably wanted the pictures to be heavily post processed instead of raw data from the sensor?

And honestly history has mostly vindicated him.