I have before my eyes a scene, probably from China, that they showed on television. The entire staff came out in front of a restaurant to apologize to an offended guest. I remember that group of bowing figures in uniforms. I do not know what they had done to offend the man. Had he found a hair in his soup? Had the waiter looked at him askance? It does not matter. What mattered was that he felt offended, and the restaurant wanted to preserve its good name, because the customer is their king.
When we pay, we make demands. When we earn money, we respect our customers. Even if we do not want to, the free market and competition force us to. Yet not everyone treats us well as their customers. Some do not even want to acknowledge that they have customers who leave large sums of money with them and whom they should treat—if not with humility, then at least seriously. Whom am I referring to? Those elected in free elections, whose salaries are paid from citizens’ taxes. Handsomely paid, they want to forget that serving the Fatherland is like working in a Chinese restaurant with rules.
If only once some senior municipal official were treated the way he occasionally treats selected citizens, perhaps he would open his eyes and realize that the motto “the customer is king” should be close to his heart.
If, say, he went with his wife to any restaurant in the city, wanting to celebrate their wedding anniversary in this romantic way, and encountered a waiter who did not want to speak to him…
“The menu, please,” the dignitary says politely. But the waiter seems to have water in his mouth. “Do you have a menu?” the undeterred and still amiable senior official asks.
“I’m sorry, but I am only permitted to answer questions that you formulate in writing,” the waiter replies calmly.
“But that’s ridiculous!” the official begins to get irritated. “I’m only asking whether you have a menu. Surely that isn’t a secret in this establishment!”
“It is not a secret. But I would prefer you to put the question in writing; then the slightest misrepresentation will not creep into my answer.”
“But this is stupid, completely insane! Just tell me where our coats are. We’re leaving!” the official shouts.
“In writing, please,” the waiter repeats obligingly and disappears.
The furious local-government official takes his wife and gets into the car. He presses the accelerator too hard; the roads are in terrible condition, so he skids and dents his car’s fender. Even angrier, he drives straight to a mechanic. There he experiences a pleasant change: his close friend works at the shop. The friend promises to hammer out and repaint the car that very day.
“It will look elegant, better than before. You won’t recognize the car—we’ll tune it up and spruce it up; it will be two years younger. And these aren’t empty promises,” his friend assures him.
Comforted and pleased, our hero goes to the city center to buy something for a romantic dinner, this time at home, so that no one can spoil his mood again. He enters the nearest little shop, but the owner, upon seeing him, walks past without a word, opens the door, and runs out. Only his back is visible.
“Hey!” the official shouts after him. “Wait, I want to buy something from you. Why are you running away?”
But the shopkeeper is already in his car and drives away. The official, an honest man, takes nothing from the shop he has been so suddenly abandoned in and, somewhat disgusted, goes to the next supermarket. He enters slightly unsure of what awaits him, but nothing happens. The salesperson does not react strangely; he even smiles. The dignitary does his shopping and goes to the checkout. The cashier asks him for a credit card, because that is the only way to pay there. The official hands over his card, and the cashier puts it into the reader. A moment later, as he returns it to his customer, he says with a smile:
“I’m sorry, but instead of 500, I charged 5,000 zlotys to your account.”
“How is that?! Cancel the transaction immediately!” the elected representative of the nation shouts, beside himself.
“I’m very sorry, but the entries in the reader have changed, and there is nothing I can do for you, Sir.”
“You thief, you swindler!” the official loses his temper. “Give me my money back immediately!”
At this outburst, the cashier takes the purchases away from his customer and informs him that he will not receive them either, because he is behaving insolently.
“I’ll take you to court,” the official threatens.
“By all means, court is fine. The products you bought will probably expire by the time the hearing is over. And who will win? Who knows—and whether I will still be working in this shop then is also uncertain. The market situation is unstable,” the salesperson adds with a sigh, thinking: “Get lost, you naïve fool. I’m in charge here now!”
The official, elevated high by the citizens, storms furiously out of the shop and heads straight to the mechanic-friend with whom he left his car. But another grim surprise awaits him there. In place of the foreign car stands a small Fiat bearing his license plates. The mechanic runs up to his shocked friend and begins explaining the situation.
“You see, that’s how it turned out—we kept hammering and hammering and… a little Fiat emerged.”
“Have you gone mad? This is some kind of nightmare! I want to wake up! You, you, you…”
“Old friend,” his apologetic friend interrupts. “I understand you, and I don’t blame you at all for being angry with me. You know, it just turned out that way, like with Chuck and Garry. But I am very sorry. Isn’t that enough?”
The defeated official gets into the little Fiat and drives away, passing a large banner. On it, a man with an apple in his hand smiles as if saying: “The customer is king.”
But “I’m sorry” is no longer enough for customers.
Grażyna Hanaf