Not in Front of Company
I always thought it bad form for a wife and husband to argue in front of dinner guests. It’s just not cool. All it does is make the guests wish they could crawl under the rug. (Well, okay, sometimes it’s pretty entertaining–as in Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor entertaining, but usually not).
I feel the same way about business. If you have to bawl out an employee–excuse me, I mean if you have to clarify or correct behavior–do it in the backroom, your office or virtually anywhere except in full view of your customers. The same applies to staff arguing openly amongst themselves. Check out this review of a restaurant in Maryland:
“atmosphere unpleasant” by ****
November 07, 2009 – The food is good but some of the staff needs customer service courses. We showed up at 2:00 pm thinking we got there in time before they closed which is 3:00 pm. We waited 40 minutes to be seated only to hear time again that the grill was closing. Some of the staff were arguing, in front of me and several other customers, about seating us because it was too close to closing time. It was a very embarrassing experience because, “hello, I’m can hear you.” I actually thought they were going to turn us away because we were too far down on the seating list. When we did get seated we were rushed and got second rate service. No food is worth indigestion.
Wanna bet they never went back? And what effect has that review had on the restaurant’s new customers?
Being polite. What a concept.
This sounds like obvious advice, but I have–more than once–been exposed to bickering couples and business managers yelling openly at their staff. Both times it made me uncomfortable and reluctant to spend any time with the offending couple/business in the future.
So, if you have a staff member who needs “correction,” take it outside–and make sure staff know you expect them to keep their cool in front of customers when you’re not around.
If you find yourself arguing with your spouse in front of company, then perhaps you should serve less (or more?) alcohol. Whichever works best.
