Caveat Emptor: or, How There is No Such Thing as Customer Service

Three examples that there is no such thing as customer service:

1)The JetBlue employee who jettisoned all over a passenger then did the same to himself, out an Airbus 320.

2)The crazy McNugget lady who apparently has been drinking too much of the McDonald’s Kool-Aid, even for their taste.

3)The waiter at my local Mexican who threw a wrapped burrito at a customer because she dare have the audacity to come back and tell him that he got her order wrong.

Excuse me people, but what the f@#$?! Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that in each and everyone one of those cases the person providing and/or asking for the service provoked the other in a manner that they weren’t accustomed causing a chain of events that spiraled out of control. But, whatever happened to the customer is always right? Would it have killed the McDonald’s employees to see that this woman was obviously upset and told her that they would pop some “chicken” nuggets in the microwave, or deep-fryer or whatever they use to reconstitute processed meat-parts that in some countries dogs won’t even eat? They couldn’t just say to her, “Ma’am, we don’t normally serve them at this hour, but if you wait a few minutes I’ll get some from the back freezer for you.” Is it really that hard? Really? Apparently, yes.

Apparently, the people who have decided to enter the service industry don’t really understand what the word service means. To define: to be of use. Meaning, here’s how the equation works: Request + Service = Results. As far as I can tell, no one is being useful on either side of the equation. As far as I can tell, no one wants results; we all want to walk around like sycophantic fools pretending that bad attitudes and a sense of entitlement will actually get us somewhere. Get your heads out of the sand, little ostriches. Puffing up your feathers to seem bigger still gets you eaten on the savannah.

Then who’s at fault, the attitudinal employee or the self-centered douche who refuses to comply to what it means to be a good customer? And the winner is…both! So what if the over-worked waiter gets your $5.50 burrito order wrong, that doesn’t give you a right to storm back into the restaurant like Hurricane Bessie and get up in his grill. Nor does that give the waiter the right to rip the burrito out of her hands, make her another one then throw it in her face all whilst screaming at her in Spanish to (unrepeatable actions).

How about we all take a deep breath? How about we realize that in this lightening-speed, need-it-now society there are still a lot of things that take time? How about we realize that there are still a lot of things that don’t take any time at all? Like a deep breath and a smile.