Have a Good Moan

The other day in a restaurant I listened to guy moaning at the waiter about his food. It appeared that what he thought he ordered and what he got was different. The waiter tried to explain to him that he had received xyz and pointed to the item in the menu, but the customer’s problem was that he had eaten the same item somewhere else and he expected the same thing. Often menu items have the same names but are slightly different from restaurant to restaurant.

This guy went on an on about it…. He asked to speak to the manager as well and went on and on at the manager. He used phrases like “you people”, “don’t you know how to do things properly”, “you take advantage of customers”, “you don’t care about your customers”, “your menu is misleading”, “I am very disappointed”, “do you think I am stupid” etc etc. It was quite awful. And then he went on and on about the meal to his dinner partner. The manager offered them a desert on the house but the guy was not having it and this set off another round of moaning.

So what do I mean by having a good moan? Don’t treat small, trivial issues as if it’s the end of the world. Deal with the problem and move on. Get on with your dinner or whatever you were planning to do. This guy in the restaurant could have just told the waiter that in restaurant x they made the dish with white pepper not black pepper. End of story. His dinner partner looked like all she wanted to do was go home and the waiter probably wished he had spat in the food!

Deal with the issue accordingly. This guy made this a really personal issue - the fact that he thinks the butcher/baker/candlestick maker didn’t care about him and they were out to rip him off is a mind thing, it's not real – it’s an illusion. Don’t blow small things like this out of proportion – don’t make it personal, it is not personal.