The Customer is Always ... a Pain in the Arse

Time for another rant as an incident today provoked the old ‘angry’ shoulder twinge. Grrrr!

A friend and I were the only customers in a restaurant, which though for the main part offers a take-away service, but has installed a table inside to cater for diners wishing to escape the recently inclement weather.

However, on a shelf above the table there is an iPod dock blasting out music, which from the counter is at an acceptable level, but seated below it, interferes with relaxed communication. 

I decided to ask one of the staff members to turn it down a little bit, but to my utter amazement she replied: “I can’t do that. Customers at the doorway won’t be able to hear it. That’s the restaurant. We play music.”

I looked around the empty restaurant and pointed out that we were the only customers, and that I was only going to be around for 20 minutes tops, but she shook her head and repeated: “I can’t do that.”

Very nearly apoplectic by this stage, I managed to suppress the urge to throttle her, but I had to ask whether she really thought hearing Taylor Swift emanating from the doorway was really going to swing a restaurant choice.

Belonging to the Swift is shit camp, it appears I am not the target audience and I won’t be eating there again as my custom is clearly not that important to her. (Although the volume of the music did mysteriously decrease a few minutes later.) But as a restaurant battling rivals at every angle on a busy Brighton street, can she really afford to be so intractable toward someone who chooses to spend money in her shop?

But what this brings me to is an eternal mystery which has rumbled on ever since I moved to a small town where the motto ‘buy local’ is loud and proud. Why, oh why, do people decide to open a shop or restaurant when they don’t actually like people?

It has to be a bit of an occupational hazard, and people making a nuisance of themselves by actually asking questions or making requests is part and parcel of getting them to part with their cash, surely? 

Yet in my efforts to shop local I have been followed by someone grumpily rattling his keys because I’d unwisely arrived ten minutes before closing time, I’ve had contemptuous eyes rolled at me for not being able to locate an item without assistance and been subjected to the ‘invisible woman’ treatment because the female assistant behind the counter was far more interested in chatting up the men who’d sidled up beside me.

Perhaps I just spent too long in Japan, where people call out a welcome when you enter a restaurant, or bow to important customers in a department store. Where being helpful is second nature, and being unable to help obliges them to utter the most abject apologies.

But then I remember going to a shop in London and spending rather more than I intended because they were simply so lovely and helpful. When I remarked to the shop assistant on the quality of the service compared to other shops I’d been to it sent his bushy eyebrows skywards.

“Why madam,” he said in astonished tones. “You can’t have been shopping in the right places.”

Quite.