By:  Judi Salkin, PR Manager

For heaven’s sake – listen!

I’m sitting here thinking about lunch and hoping that today’s midday meal will be a whole lot better than one I had recently.

It all happened at a sandwich shop that specializes in 6-inchers (you know the place).  It was nothing to write home about, but when I get it my way, it’s fairly satisfying.

I promise, on this day, I was not asking for anything too out of the ordinary when I ordered a simple sandwich, but the young woman behind the sneeze guard just slapped it together. It was speed over customer satisfaction – and she didn’t care about the subtle nuances that would have made it perfect for me, but would take a tad longer to prepare.

And we’re talking about the 15 to 20 extra seconds that would have made a huge difference if she had only LISTENED to me!

I have a pattern to my sandwiches. I like mustard on one side of the bread under the meat, easy mayo on the other side because that’s where I pile on the veggies, a little salt and pepper, and a light drizzle of oil and vinegar.  Simple, right?  I verbalized this to the sandwich technician, but alas, it was not to be.

This girl heard “mustard” and nothing that after that, and off she went. Great gobs of mustard squeezed all over the entire roll.  And she was ready to get on with rest of the ingredients – until she finally looked up and saw the horror on my face.

And this is where is got worse.  She missed a second opportunity to hear me when she chucked the bread (to my consternation) and started over, even as I tried to ask her to just scrape the yellow lines off half of the roll.  I was trying to be accommodating… to no avail.

After chucking the first roll, she didn’t bother with the mustard until she glopped it on top of the hot meat and cheese when it came out of the toasting oven and before racing a thin line mayo on the exposed bread.  And then looked up as if to say, “well??”

By the time I was finished with the veggies, all I wanted was to get out of there and forgot about the s-and-p and o-and-v.

She didn’t care at all about what she was doing and there wasn’t a manager to talk to about it, which is why after three tries at this location, I’ll probably never set foot in it again.

Now, getting my chips and coffee, that same day, well,  that’s a whole different story: With no chips in plain view, a kid in a green apron hunted up a bag for me, and they were tasty because of it. And my latte was good to the last drop.  See?  I can be reasonable and a happy customer with just a little help from the staff.

So what’s the point of this rant?

One counter person heard disappointment and took 30 seconds to try and make it better. If they hadn’t found the hidden chips, I still would have appreciated the try! When I didn’t see the cup sleeves, someone pulled one out and slipped it on my cup and thanked me for dropping in!

But the sandwich tech was unfortunately an automaton who paid absolutely no thought to my demeanor or my requests; she just rushed on to the next customer.  Sigh.  It seemed so easy to just listen.

Starting in grade school, I had to learn to listen to what I was being told, and it’s carried over into my working life from supervisors and editors to my position here at FGC.

So that I don’t just rush into a new job or when I’m writing a press release, I have to remind myself to take the 30 seconds to hear what both my team and the clients are saying. It’s not a lot of time, but it can be crucial for all of us. When I don’t take that extra time, I don’t always get it right.

To this day, I am still learning new tricks to listening and employing new ways to take that info and do my job better.  

Thirty seconds for me to read and digest their comments, and our working relationship melts together so nicely to present our best sandwich to the world.