You Are Spaghetti Bolognese

Compared to most people, you are well grounded and down to earth. You have old fashioned values. Your taste tends to favor what's tried and true. You love comfort food. Familiar situations put you at ease. You think that the best cooking comes from your family's kitchen!

Working in the service industry has certainly opened my eyes to the perils and rewards that plagues a person sooner or later. I have learned and experienced many things since first starting work at Max B's. Truth be told, I started with an innocent air, wide-eyed and quite naive in terms of customer service. When I first started, I was eager to provide good customer service to each and every one of my customers. While this certainly hasn't changed, the attitude and way that I approach it may have matured or evolved.

I won't dwell into it much further as I am still working at the same place and don't really want to go into detail. What I will do is share some of my experiences and express some of my opinions.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but waiters and the like are actually human! As such, we also have feelings and moods. Rule number 1: Don't come into a cafe or chocolate bar expecting to be treated like royalty. Yes we are there to help you; and yes we will. But that doesn't mean we're are going to cater to your every request. We might, but we're doing it out of courtesy and not obligation. So be reasonable and keep in mind that no one is there to serve your every whim and fancy.

Secondly, just because we aren't your average white (not trying to be racist here) person, that doesn't mean we aren't educated and can't speak English well. If we get your order wrong, most of the time it IS our fault, but that doesn't give you the right to berate us on not listening or not understanding. We realize we made a mistake and we are trying to correct it. Giving us a sour face and complaining about our asian (Face it, this is reality) heritage is not going to make anything go faster. It'll just brand you as racist and discriminatory. Truth be told, most of us probably have a better grasp of English than you. And please stop and think for a second that maybe, just maybe we got the order wrong because of your bad pronunciation or confusion. Hey, it happens!

Next up, we always try (well usually anyways) to greet you with a smile and greeting. We're just trying to be friendly. So what do you expect when you give us a scowl in return? You expect us to be happy about it? How can you expect us to treat you with respect when all we've done is smiled and ask for your order, and you scowl at us and expect us to mind-read your order off you? Really, how far do you think that will get you? We will serve you, but only because we have to. Now had you smiled or even given us a neutral look, we would have (again usually) gone out of our way to give you the best customer service that we can. Why? Because that's why we we hired in the first place. To provide good customer service to each and every one of our customers. But can you honestly expect us time and time again to serve those that scowl and grumble at us? We might if you're the first few customers of the day, but chances are sooner or later we're gonna feel it too. We're still human. Sure we might have built up a better tolerance for these kind of things, but sooner or later we crack as well.

And lastly, if you honestly feel that we've given bad customer service, let us know. Or our supervisors. We're always trying to improve ourselves. And if we did give good customer service, give us a small pat on the back. Or better yet, drop us a tip. You have no idea what wonders a small word of appreciation can do.


So the next time you go out someplace, think for a second and put yourself in the 'person-who's-serving-you's shoes. I do, everyday.