‘The customer is always right’ is supposed to be a maxim of business – but are they? Because, as anyone who’s ever worked in a service job knows, the customer is too often an abusive, entitled asshole. Whether it’s the Shaniquas throwing chairs in a fast food restaurant, a Karen demanding to see the manager or a Boomer complaining that they’re not being waited on hand and foot, these customers are wrong, wrong, wrong.
I greatly admire a boss who’ll stand up to them and back their long-suffering employees. I’ll never forget, on my first day as a taxi driver, taking some rich old duck to pick up her shopping. She bailed up the Chinese manager, “Now, I’ve a bone to pick with you: one of your girls was very rude to me the other day.”
He was having none of it: “No! I saw! You were rude to her. You very rude old lady.”
I thought, now there’s a boss I’d work for.
Like this bloke.
A Yarra Valley cafe owner has taken aim at a group of diners he says left a teenage waiter in tears.
Ben Arnold, who runs My Little Kitchen in picturesque Healesville, said his staff were shaken after the group of eight diners reacted angrily to being refused a table.
On Facebook, Mr Arnold vented, saying the customers had no right to direct their anger at one of his youngest employees.
“No means no! It’s that bloody simple,” Mr Arnold wrote.
Healesville is a resort town. You’d kind of expect that seating is going to be scarce, and book ahead. The last time I was in Healesville, even trying to make a reservation a day ahead was dicey. Anyone who thinks they can just swan in with a big group like that and get a table without a reservation is an entitled dickhead.
And going off at the staff because you’re an entitled dickhead isn’t making you look any less of a dickhead.
“Understand that you are not entitled to a seat in any venue, and had you made a reservation or even a phone call, things could be different right now,” he wrote.
He said many of his team are teenagers in their first jobs.
“So if you think it’s okay to make a teen cry while at work you can kindly f*** off from my venue,” he said.
Good on him.
Mr Arnold said the incident was part of a bigger problem plaguing hospitality, warning the struggling industry will suffer even more if young workers continue to be mistreated.
“The future of hospitality is standing in front of you – the people who will own and operate the venues you will want to go to in 10 or 20 years’ time... If you burn them now our industry is over,” he said.
In the meantime, with that kind of attitude, they’ll be unknowingly eating a lot of snot and spit. First rule of dining out: do not piss off the staff if you don’t like consuming bodily fluids.
Community members jumped in to back Mr Arnold’s stand, condemning the treatment of young staff and calling for more common decency.
“Well said. The stories I hear about the way some entitled people treat young staff – kids who are actually out there having a go and contributing to their community – are absolutely disgraceful,” one wrote.
Another said they hoped the young staffer would “regain their confidence”, while a third praised Mr Arnold for “calling out the bullies who think they are so smart when in a group”.
There are some total prick bosses in hospitality – and then there are legends like Ben Arnold.
