When I'm their customer v. when they're MINE
The difference is pretty simple: when I am the customer -- when I'm paying -- I expect not only attentive service, but interpretable service. Even though I have a brand-new NJ teaching certificate in English as a Second Language, I'm only the teacher when I have students. When I'm being paid to do it. If I'm a customer, on the other hand, it is NOT MY JOB to help service providers to do their jobs in English.Pictured is a mild version of what I might run into as a customer: a local restaurant, which serves up a pretty good lunch buffet, cannot spell "Dunkin Donuts," and as a result what should be a landmark to help others find them actually gets in the way. Likewise, it's not "Penning," it's "Pennington Road." Like I said, it's a mild problem in this case: locals can find them. There was a more severe case when I had some dry cleaning done at a nearby shop, needed a receipt, and nobody in the shop understood the English word "receipt." It took me 20 minutes to explain what I needed.
You could argue that as the specialist I should be more patient. You could also argue that for me to BE patient might open up business opportunities for me. But in most cases I'll reject those arguments. In the first place, I'm paying them for the privilege of being forced to be patient. In the second place, I have never been offered work, never even received an inquiry, as a result of an encounter like this one. I have no reason to believe I ever will. So now, dry cleaners have a requirement in order to get my business: they must have someone on duty who speaks English.
Labels: office space
posted by Ron @ 7:51 PM
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