Is The Customer Always Right?

Earlier this week I went for a cheeky Nandos with my gal pals in between mock exams because sorry diet but you can't really treat yourself with a salad now can you?

 It was nice to get out of the house because most recently I've been feeling like a hermit crab locked away in her bedroom, studying hard and getting back ache from leaning over this damn desk all day.

For once I wasn't sitting in my pjs until lunch time without a scrap of make up on. I actually got up early, had a shower and was all glammed up (or as glam as you can be for a Nandos anyway) in this sassy new get up from new look before eleven. I probably should have taken a picture or something but it's getting dark now and mumma doesn't want her tea to go cold. I mean it's not often people will actually offer to make you one, normally I get hit with the reply "You got legs, make it yourself!"

When we finally did get to Nandos we ended up being served by a boy we knew. I still can't get my head around the fact that half my friends have jobs now- like real adult jobs where they have to be sensible and smile at those awkward moany customers when they would rather be curled up on a sofa eating pizza and watching Pretty Little Liars.

I suppose it will be even weirder when our friendship group starts getting married and having kids. I mean god imagine us lot as parents!

Anyway, the point of this post was that normally the waiters who serve us in restaurants are just people in uniform who bring you food and say "Can I get you anything else?".

 But now I was being served by a person who I knew had the worst potty mouth ever, who once asked me to have sex with him in the derogatory way boys do when you're looking particularly unattractive that day, who walks around with a pack of boys following him like he is a god, who posts those cheesy pictures online of him and his girl snogging and whose mum I have seen scream at him so loud when he got a bad grade that he nearly cried!

And it got me thinking that these people who serve us do actually have feelings and a life and a family. That it isn't really those people's fault if our food is cold or undercooked or hasn't arrived yet because they are cooking it fresh and not just warming up last years Chinese noodles. That we shouldn't ring and shout down the telephone at the person who just happens to be on other end about the fact our brand new oven has just blown up.

I've seen so many people scream at the staff in Starbucks for not putting cream on their mochas or giving them the wrong change. I've seen people wonder into toy shops on Christmas Eve and complain to the manger for not having a certain bike in store and insulted him when he suggested that they shouldn't have left it to the last minute.

In fact, as shocking as it is, 95% of retail staff have admitted to being verbally abused by customers, and many of these workers then go on to suffer psychological damage, even feeling that they have no choice but to quit their jobs! 

It's just not acceptable.

 I know we can have days when it feels like the world is against us and that everything that could possible go wrong has gone wrong. I know that those members of staff get paid to serve us. I know that they say the customer is always right. But what if they aren't? What if they are insensitive, bad tempered monsters who make the staffs' lives living hell?

Is the customer always right then? 

Of course not.

At the moment I'm in the process of  looking for a little weekend job just to top up my bank balance but it's awkward, argumentative customers who quite frankly make me terrified to apply.

At the best of times I'm clumsy, blind as a bat and socially uncomfortable and yeah sometimes it can feel like I've been laid the worst set of cards ever. But I'm willing to push through all that because at the end of the day, I'm not going to survive much longer on this planet without some sort of income.

So when I saw this boy serving us, it got me thinking that life would be so much easier if people treated staff members more like humans and a lot less like robots. That is a reasonable enough request right?

Love Beth xx