Customer – um – Service?

On occasion, my daughter and I go on a working date. What that entails is breakfast at a local restaurant that has a quiet atmosphere, free wi-fi, plug-ins for our laptops, and keep-the-coffee-coming service. Daughter does her graphic design work and I write.

This arrangement has worked well at one particular establishment fairly close to home. The food is mediocre, but the rest of the checklist makes the cut, so we keep going back. Unfortunately, our favorite waitress was not on shift this morning. In her place was Brian, who would win top prize for being the most annoying, irritating, unpleasant server on the planet. I’m not kidding even a little.

Squeaky voice and giggle aside, Brian is altogether too familiar with his customers. I really, really hate it when people I don’t know call me “honey” or “dear”. I don’t care if it’s Valentine’s Day. I am not, never have been and never will be your honey. Nudging me with your elbow, even as an intended friendly gesture, is so not appropriate for a customer service professional – and I use that term very loosely where Brian is concerned.

After we ate our eggs benedict (poached medium requested – poached hard received), Daughter and I opened our laptops and got to work. Brian plopped himself down at the table across from us to do whatever little jobs he could do while sitting there and watching our monitors. Oh yeah, he kept making little comments as if we were expected to carry on a conversation with him. We didn’t.

At one point, Brian got up and sighed deeply, saying that he was glad the rush was over and that we were now the only occupied table in the restaurant. Daughter responded, “Good. Then it will be quiet so we can get our work done.” Brian just laughed. He didn’t get it. With every pass by our table – many of which were simply to snoop, I’m sure – Brian made no attempt to hide his interest in what was on our computers because he said, “Oh, you’re on Facebook!” I looked him right in the eye and said, “Excuse me?” I saw no remorse.

Finally, Daughter and I looked at each other, simultaneously closed our laptops and packed everything up. What is usually a two or three hour working session ended up being about 45 minutes. And that included eating breakfast.

We went home and made a pot of coffee.

And it’s quiet.