Hello and welcome back to New Employee Orientation for Customers. In my last post I discussed the notion that some of the folks I have come in contact with over my years of serving coffee have forgotten (or perhaps never learned) how to behave in public places. So I decided after a New Employee Orientation class I recently attended for my current job that perhaps the general public could benefit from hearing the some of the same tips and reminders I was given in that course. Let’s get started.
Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot. While bartending at a restaurant on top of the mountain last winter a woman asked me if we served lattes. Before I had a chance to respond, she said something along the lines of “lattes are, you know, the ones with all the milk.” Her tone of voice suggested she thought she was talking to a toddler. Now of course this woman had no idea that I’ve worked in coffee shops since college and have made (and drank) about a bazillion lattes in that time. I didn’t expect her to know that. But the presumption in her tone that I was either an infant or an idiot offended me.
The woman running the orientation class spent a good portion of it discussing how we should talk to guests, she even gave us a list of everyday lingo we should avoid using (words and phrases such as “hello” and “how’s it going”). Apparently we are to assume our guests are well-educated and we must talk up to their level. Similarly I would like to ask our guests to assume that I too have half a brain and would appreciate it if you spoke to me accordingly.
Your mother (or maid or husband or wife or personal servant) doesn’t work here so please clean up after yourself. It was stressed in orientation that as employees of Vail Resorts and the Arrabelle we’re expected to dress and present ourselves a certain way; neat and tidy uniform, no visible piercings or tattoos, no unnatural hair color, and we must always appear clean and smell freshly scrubbed. It seems like a no-brainer that one should not come to work un-showered but I suppose there is some idiot out there who made a habit of it and out of fear of encountering more such idiots, they decided to take action.
The same goes for cleaning up after yourself in public places; it should be a no-brainer. Yes it is part of my job to keep my workspace clean, to buss tables and sweep the floor but it’s just rude and sloppy to create a mess and make no effort to clean it up. If you drop a napkin or a straw wrapper on the floor (right next to a trash bin) please pick it up. If your kid spills an entire hot chocolate on the floor please apologize and let me know and I’ll clean it up (see, there’s that symbiotic relationship respect thing). And for the love of God people I don’t know what is happening in public restrooms across America but after a summer spent cleaning up you-don’t-even-want-to-know off the toilets in Starbucks I am baffled. The only two conclusions I can draw here are that either your bathroom at home is disgusting or there is someone waiting outside to clean it after every time you use it. Whatever the case, please have a little respect, if not for me who has to clean up after you, then at least for the person who enters the stall next.
No cell phones while ordering. In orientation it was made clear that the use of cell phones by employees is strictly forbidden in guest areas. I get this. It’s common manners and easy enough to abide by (just because you can talk to anyone anywhere doesn’t mean you should). So I ask you, dear customer, to please please pretty please extend the same courtesy when you’re ordering your coffee.
While this list is certainly not exhaustive I consider these three points to be at the very top of the list and I think if we all took the time to consider them in restaurants, coffee shops, or even the supermarket we would all be on our way to more pleasant customer service experiences. Check back next week for my third and final post in this series.
Do you have a funny/horrible/heartwarming customer service (as either the one serving or the one being waited on) story to share? Is there anything you would add to this list?
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