by Marcy Burlock

Created on: May 16, 2009

I must wonder sometimes if the average customer believes that the food service worker is their own personal maid, butler or waiter? The art of being polite to them seems to have gotten lost somewhere in the shuffle. A simple please and thank you wafting in the wind never to be spoken allowed. Well I guess these people don't deserve your kindness or your gratitude.

The problem being, these customers don't deign food service workers to be 'people' at all. They are there to perform a service and I can talk any way I like to them. If they are busy and the only one operating the cash register at the time, well I will just stand in line and yell out to all who are behind the counter that "Can someone else take customers? There is a line up here." Trust me, do you really think they don't know that? And do you really think that if there were others who could take the cash immediately right then and there, they wouldn't do so? Trust me, having worked in food service we are taught you drop everything you are doing and serve the customer first. Unless it's a job that must be done for safety reasons, such as sweeping behind the counter or mopping it so no one falls and hurts themselves.

There are others who are so rude you would think they weren't even talking to a person. Take this example from yesterday. At a coffee shop, a man walks in and waits in line for a few minutes. Not an incredibly long line by any stretch of the imagination, but too long for him. He yells out so the entire shop can hear him, "Can anyone else do cash?" If that wasn't bad enough, before he even goes to the one cashier who is serving, he spots the sandwich maker and indignantly states, "Can someone else make my sandwiches, she's too slow."

Now granted you do find this sort of behaviour from customers at other places of service. Restaurants, clothing stores and grocery stores. I have noticed though, that customers tend to treat those in the food service industry, such as McDonald's and Burger King worse than they would treat their own pets.

Now I'm not saying all customers mind you, there are plenty of very polite, friendly and wonderful customers who are a pleasure to serve. I'm talking about those few, and seem to be increasing ones who seem to think they can speak to these workers in any manner they feel like at the time.

We must remember these are still human beings, with feelings, families and lives beyond this store, who are doing us a service by providing us with our morning coffee. We must learn to respect them and treat them with dignity.

After all, how would you feel if it was you or your child behind that counter? Makes you think twice about how you treat people now doesn't it?

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