I stopped by this old sit down Deli the other day and actually did the unthinkable; I sat down. I know there’s less calories when we eat standing up but what the heck.

I was the only person in the place. Business was dead.

At first, I thought it was an off time but confirmation came quickly and repeatedly that business was dead.

How do I know this?

Because the waitress didn’t shut up about how dead it was.

She was complaining to her coworkers (within 5 feet of me)

She complained to me and that’s where I want to take a quick time out.

I see this way too many times and not just in sit down Delis.

Why would anyone complain to their customers about how slow things are?

I don’t care if I was down to my last ten cents in revenue at Castain Training Systems, there is no need for me to dump that on my clients.

Doesn’t do much to build their confidence in doing business with me and . . .

What a freakin downer?

Forgive me if this is insensitive but I’m going there anyway . . .

People have enough of their own problems to deal with and then we reward them for their business by dumping our problems on them.

Not even remotely bueno gang!

Here’s the part that really, and I mean really annoys me to no end. In fact, let me go all caps on you and tell you that it ANNOYS ME TO NO END . . .

To say that the service I receive sucked would mean she would actually have to quadruple the level of sub sucky service she provided.

So, there she is, with only one customer and yet, she never checked on me once, the food took forever to get to me and the sounds of me slurping my empty coke didn’t provide her with the necessary hint that I was ready for a refill.

Why aren’t we tripping over ourselves to provide incredible levels of service (at all times) but especially when we have all this extra time?

Probably because it would take more work than complaining about our circumstances.

Your turn . . . What are your thoughts about servicing our customers when business is slow?

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