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Post 0

Friday, August 22, 2008 - 5:38pmSanction this postReply
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"Yer getting old, Father Willie, an yer 'airs are turnin' white -
Yer mind now 'pears to be afripping way, way out o' sight...
The speed o' which ye used to be, seems not to be to others,
An' all the comebacks now are cluttered mutters, stares an' stutters.."

Where ye say ye live? perhaps tis the water?
For sure that's not how it is around these parts...


Post 1

Friday, August 22, 2008 - 5:48pmSanction this postReply
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Live Dramatically

In the future, don't step out of the frame and identify your drmamatic embellishments. Rather, live them out in real life (You really should have looked.) so that the telling of them will be true.

Post 2

Friday, August 22, 2008 - 6:51pmSanction this postReply
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I can't say anything good about service at McDonald's. When I go out, I like to get a plain hamburger. It's absolutely amazing how difficult a task this is.



Post 3

Friday, August 22, 2008 - 7:38pmSanction this postReply
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I can't say anything good about service at McDonald's. When I go out, I like to get a plain hamburger.

No cheese?!? Commie...


Post 4

Friday, August 22, 2008 - 7:40pmSanction this postReply
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Thanks for the responses, fellas.

Rev':
I live in arguably the 5th most socialist state in the union: Minnesota (after New York, California, Illinois, and some other state out on the east coast).

Ted:
Live dramatically?! Would that include taking (by force or threat of force) one of the young man's sandwhiches?? He was only a little more than half my size. If this were a lawless society, then I would have beaten him down for it (because of a strong sense of justice), but that's neither here nor there.

Chris:
My first job was at Micky Dees and I did it pretty well. I even held as one of many notions of concern the concern that I should, while at my job, be serving the customers!

;-)

Ed

Post 5

Friday, August 22, 2008 - 7:47pmSanction this postReply
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Didn't you read yourself? Drama as in acting out your thoughts - actually standing before the manager, looking in your wallet, scratching your head, and dramatizing your dismay. Then you steal the guy's hamburger.

Post 6

Friday, August 22, 2008 - 8:04pmSanction this postReply
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I swear, customer service is the hardest damn thing to teach people.  Everything else is idiot proof.  They don't even have to count out change!

Fast food service has improved dramatically here due to the terrible job market.  The Mickey D's by my work is awesome.

But the morning shift is always made up of real adults who actually care about their jobs. 


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Post 7

Friday, August 22, 2008 - 8:47pmSanction this postReply
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I think service quality comes from moral expectations and how management communicates them. Same in schools. When people are given expectations of a level of performance as a moral requirement it changes things. It becomes the first part of their job to figure out what they need to do differently to reach those expectations. They have to be told that they need to figure things out and not be spoon-fed the correct answer. One shouldn't encourage ignorance or sloth by trying to work with it - that just establishes a kind of co-dependency. Learned helplessness is a real problem and it exists only when it is allowed to work. They have to be given the goal and not a bunch of steps that will magically add up to the goal. Saying, "Thank you for coming to McDonalds" isn't the same as communicating any joy or gratitude for you patronage. Putting a sign on the wall that says "We appreciate your business" is just a waste of wall space.

I used to get a kick out of watching what happened when I'd give an answer before the question was asked. For example, I'd say, "A quarter-pounder with cheese and no fries, a small drink and I don't want a turn-over." I said that, in that way because I knew they were trained to up-sell the fries, and the turn-over, and if I didn't say anything about the drink size and the cheese, they'd ask.

But most of the time it didn't matter, the person taking the order had so turned off their mind, that they asked anyway, "Would you like fries with that?" "Would you like an apple turn-over?"

I was witnessing a positive feed-back type of downward spiral. The easier and more concrete and automatic McDonalds tried to make the order taking process, the more the employee turned his mind off. That was taught to them in schools that cater to ignorance or lack of performance.

Ed's example was a case of the mind getting turned off so far, that for a moment nothing was happening - reboot needed.

Post 8

Friday, August 22, 2008 - 9:41pmSanction this postReply
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Don't blame the cashier for the pro-forma "sales effort." Most big companies require their employees to make the offer no matter what. They expect the cashiers to be mindless selling drones.

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Post 9

Friday, August 22, 2008 - 10:28pmSanction this postReply
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Ted, that's my point exactly - management will tend to get what they put out as expectations!

I was in the company of a ten year old. He started whining about something he wanted... Clearly expecting his whines to motivate me. I asked him if whining worked on his parents, as if it were a serious question about a tactic. He looked confused, and tried again. I laughed and said I could do a better whine than that, which I demonstrated. He laughed and I got no more whining. It was startling how quickly he could see his behavior in the abstract and how fast he was able to change tactics when the whine no longer worked.

Is something happening to our young? Yes, the culture and the educational system and the parents are subjecting them to a poor environment for personal responsibility or growth and much of it comes from not understanding about setting expectations. Parents act like slaves to their children's whines, teachers act like they are at the mercy of pretended stupidity from their students, and the culture wallows in dumbness as it were the norm, giving it justification.

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Post 10

Friday, August 22, 2008 - 10:59pmSanction this postReply
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I have pulled that same "I can whine better than you" routine with customers and adult acquaintences. It is incredible how many people retain that behaviour past pre-school.
(Edited by Ted Keer on 8/22, 11:00pm)


Post 11

Friday, August 22, 2008 - 11:58pmSanction this postReply
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Ted: "It is incredible how many people retain that behaviour past pre-school."

Yes, for some situations, I think that introspection is the only way a person can effectively choose how to behave as opposed to automatically repeating some patterns they had as kids (which is usually at least partially dysfunctional). That is to be purposeful as opposed to acting automatically.



Post 12

Saturday, August 23, 2008 - 4:04amSanction this postReply
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I have pulled that same "I can whine better than you" routine with customers and adult acquaintences. It is incredible how many people retain that behaviour past pre-school.

Ain't that the truth.  You both must have had mothers like my own. "I can't hear you when you whine..."


Post 13

Saturday, August 23, 2008 - 11:31amSanction this postReply
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Robert Malcom’s verse reminds me of this one:

 

You Are Old, Father William

by Lewis Carroll

 

‘You are old, Father William’, the young man said,

 ‘And your hair has become very white;

And yet you incessantly stand on your head --

 Do you think, at your age, it is right?’

 

‘In my youth’, Father William replied to his son,

 ‘I feared it might injure the brain;

But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,

 Why, I do it again and again.’

 

‘You are old’, said the youth, ‘as I mentioned before,

 And have grown most uncommonly fat;

Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door --

 Pray, what is the reason of that?’

 

‘In my youth’, said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,

 ‘I kept all my limbs very supple

By the use of this ointment - one shilling the box -

 Allow me to sell you a couple?’

 

‘You are old’, said the youth, ‘and your jaws are too weak

 For anything tougher than suet;

Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -

 Pray, how did you manage to do it?’

 

‘In my youth’, said his father, ‘I took to the law,

 And argued each case with my wife;

And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,

 Has lasted the rest of my life.’

 

‘You are old’, said the youth, ‘one would hardly suppose

 That your eye was as steady as ever;

Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -

 What made you so awfully clever?’

 

‘I have answered three questions, and that is enough,’

 Said his father, ‘don’t give yourself airs!

Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?

 Be off, or I’ll kick you downstairs!’

 


Post 14

Saturday, August 23, 2008 - 2:55pmSanction this postReply
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Yes, Rodney - it was a poor parody or take-off of it..  ;-)
Composed on the spot, as it were...

(Edited by robert malcom on 8/23, 2:56pm)


Post 15

Saturday, August 23, 2008 - 3:31pmSanction this postReply
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In part, this is a cultural phenom.  I was born and lived 27 years on the East Coast, various portions.  In the deep South, you had to virtually fight off the salespeople, and, as a customer, you were ALWAYS right.  On the West Coast, at least in Long Beach/L.A., you have to usually throw a fit just to get a salesperson's attention.  I think that this is historically derived.

The buyer/customer was king in the centuries of slave owning in the South.  In that semi-aristocratic culture, to be a merchant was like being a servant.  And heaven help you if you were delivering TO the store.  Then the manager who had to suck it up all day with arrogant customers got his turn. 

I worked for a little while at a Burger King in Columbia, South Carolina, and had been night manager of the Varsity (Greasy V) restaurant in Athens, GA, as well.  So, I know how to judge employee performance to some extent.  When I moved to Long Beach, one of the things that struck me immediately was that it took from 3 to 5 employees to do the same job that one employee was expected to do up and down the East Coast, and the West Coast employees typically had an attitude as well, as in, "We're just doing this sh*t job until we graduate or get accepted to a local gang, so the fact that we notice you at all is a favor, for which you had BETTER to grateful." 

When I objected to various related behavior, I found that I could expect retaliation, such as a huge cockroach in my burger. 

In general, out here, consistent with the Hispanic culture, in which only a person who has paid off all the right people in the chain of power could possibly work in a store - much less own or manage one, a store employee is seen as a superior person, condescending as a "hefe" to allow the miserable lower class customer to purchase from him and often overcharging or failing to give posted sales discounts.


Post 16

Saturday, August 23, 2008 - 3:47pmSanction this postReply
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Oh sorry--I actually thought yours was pretty good, and thought it might have been something Carroll was parodying.

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Post 17

Saturday, August 23, 2008 - 3:54pmSanction this postReply
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A couple of young people at a crappy restaurant treated you poorly, and you take that to mean something is wrong with the entire generation? I'm kinda offended.

Post 18

Saturday, August 23, 2008 - 4:37pmSanction this postReply
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Uh oh....

Post 19

Saturday, August 23, 2008 - 5:04pmSanction this postReply
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Here comes the frying pan...........;-))

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