The Virtuous Customer/Service?

The week was a hectic one; I hardly had time to scratch my head… not quite that, but you get it.

So Saturday rolls around, and I decide that I would not be making any lunch or dinner… too tired for that.  Maybe, I could run out and get us something for lunch.  I have been avoiding eating out for a pile of reasons, but today was necessary.  A woman is tired!

I hate crowds, so I usually avoid them.  (I am the person who goes to the supermarket just as they are opening the shutters).  At this particular place, the rush hour is usually anywhere between 11:50 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., so I get there at 11 a.m., which is when the soups will be ready (soup on a Saturday is a big deal at this place).  As soon as I arrive, I am immediately let in, because they are below the threshold.  I am glad. The cashier tells me that the soups (Beef and Vegan) were both ready, so I place my order – one beef and one vegan.  I decide to add a Patty to my order, because it has been ages, so why the heck not.

Who could be happier than me that this entire trip (to and from) outside of the sanctity of my personal space was going to be less than 30 minutes?  The introvert in me is doing cartwheels in my head (because that is the only place I can do them).   I look around for an unoccupied space – one in which I will be distanced according to my comfort.  I spot one and quickly head there.  I am observing the servers do their thing.  They seem confused though.  Each customer’s receipt has a number, but there doesn’t seem to be any real system in place.   I am thinking, “Dem must know.”  I am distracted, so I don’t even realize that 15 minutes have passed; plus, of late, I have been working on myself and exercising and practicing patience.  Perfect opportunity to see if my work is in vain.

The servers are serving soups around me, behind me, on top of me but not TO me. 

“108, 110, 114, 112, 111, 113, 115….”  They are shouting.  The people before me and after me are leaving with their soup order…

My number is 109, so what’s happening. 

Den suppmm coulda really go so? 

It is now 20 minutes in.  At the 15 minute mark, I had observe one server quietly say to the next “10 more minutes for the patties”

“Where is the breakfast I ordered 30 minutes ago” one lady said annoyingly.  Apparently she is number 117.  The server cannot find this lady’s order and confusingly says to her, “what did you order… may I see your ticket”.

This lady is about to lose her mind…. She doesn’t though.  She hisses her teeth and reluctantly hands the server her ticket and places her hands akimbo. 

Okay, I am thinking, let me see if they are going to tell me (and the other customers) that the patties are not ready.  By this time we are going into the 25 minute mark, and I am repeating one of my daily prayers behind my mask, “Dear God, Let love into my tone”.  You see, we don’t always come across the way we intend, and people do not care about intention, they care about perception.  This happens to me from time to time, so I am working on fixing that because I have no ill-intentions and would love if that could reconcile in my tone, for the most part…. I am too direct, apparently.

I am also saying this knowing fully well that most times what offend us are those trauma-related triggers that remain unresolved and have nothing to do with the person, who has “offended” us (but that is for another discussion). 

So here I am repeating my prayer, because I am on the brink of saying something.  Remember that I am also working on patience, so I have several things contending with in this little outside trip that is now taking way longer than it needed to be. 

What a Sabbath lesson this finna be!

Just wait it out, my mind tells me.  Then something else says to me, “you have a right to say something’. 

“Dear God, Let love into my tone. Amen” …. I walk closer to the counter and say,  “can you say what is happening with 109…. It has been way too long”.

She avoids eye contact and looks down as if she is caught red-handed.  “aahhhmmm, you will soon be served”.

Okay, so now I am legitimately becoming irritated, because what the heck does soon mean within the context.  So I ask, “what does soon mean…?”  After all, her soon could be the country people “soon” that they tell you when you ask for directions… “just up the road… you will soon get there…” they tell you, and you drive for another 40 minutes before you arrive at the destination.  Anyway….

“We are waiting on the patties….about 5 more minutes” she answers, almost beneath her breath.

Dear God.  Let love into my tone.  Amen…

“Ok, but don’t you think this is something that should have been told to the customers before, so I could decide if I wanted to wait or not?  I have been waiting for over 25 minutes.”  I don’t know if she received the “love into my tone”, but I tried my best to be as calm-sounding (no raised decibel – just conversational) as I possibly could be, within that scenario. 

Her body language suggests that she is aware of her blunder.  “Sorry about that miss.”

Three minutes later, my order is ready and handed to me.  “Sorry for the wait,” she offers with a half smile.

“Thank you, “ I said, with a lot more “love into my tone”.  I then make my exit with my two large soups and the piping hot patty.

But the question that begs to be asked is, at what point of customer-service-foolery, should a customer continue to be silent or say something.    I know patience is a virtue and all, but does that mean that patience requires one to be long-suffering in ones attempts to acquire a good or service?  Should I have waited for the 30-minute mark, or should I have just not said anything and waited indefinitely.  Is that what patience requires?

What does that mean anyway –  “patience is a virtue”? One source says it is the ability to wait without getting angry.  Another source indicated that this is attached to the ways in which we approach the situation that requires us to wait.  In other words, the source asserts, we should (in every situation) make every effort to “supplement knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”[1]  One other source agrees that patience is very necessary to cultivate but argue that it is not about just sitting and enduring but more about how you respond to that which you have endured.  This makes sense, I suppose.

In my estimation, it would have been prudent for the cashier to indicate to me, upon taking my order, that the patties would not have been ready for 20 – 25 minutes and then let me decide if I wanted to wait.  After all, the soups were ready, which means that I could have been out there in 5 minutes and not as long as it took.  By not doing that which I deem to be customer-service-common-sense, she took away that right and decided that I had all the time in world.   

In the end, her body-language told me that she knew they were in the wrong, and so I am hoping that she would have operated differently the next time something like this happens.   As for me, I am happy to have let love into my tone, but was I patient enough or was I right to inquire about my goods when I did, thereby asserting my right for better service?

I do agree that patience is a virtue, but at what point during the poor customer-service experience is the customer allowed to assert our rights?  I think I did well, all things considered.  Fundamentally, the difference is how we approach the situation – both the customer and the server!

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[1] https://www.christianity.com/wiki/bible/patience-is-a-virtue.html