I love coffee and i can't live without it. It fuels my passion to do these extreme sports i'm getting into.
It also helps me daydream of possible concepts and images that i can use on my creative works.
I average 5 cups of brewed coffee or 2 cups of espresso on a normal day but more if i need to create a concept paper.
Anyways, without too much testimonial about coffee... i actually just wanted to invite you guys to visit our franchised Coffee Dream outlets at Mango Square Mall, Cebu or at SM City, Cagayan de Oro. Thanks!
1 comment:
The story would be incomplete if I were not going to start with an incident that happened about a few weeks ago with one of the crew members of the same coffee shop. You know how it is when Dell employees sit in their outside chairs to smoke without ordering coffee from them? That day, I was sitting out with some of my trainees when one of the waitresses approached the table where we were at. She was banging the chairs making it apparent that she wasn’t happy about us sitting there.
As a reaction to her rude behavior, I stood up and went inside the coffee shop and demanded to speak to the manager. There was no manager around so I just talked to the same waitress who offended us. I told her politely that she should not be rude to people who sit out in their coffee shop though they didn’t buy coffee from them…for the simple reason that they might be their customers for all they know, or they may be future customers at some point and that rude behavior is going to turn them off making them lose potential customers. Obviously, the waitress did not get my point and started to be all defensive about it. She even became ruder in the conversation telling me that I should be embarrassed using their facilities without getting profit from me with obvious sarcasm. Realizing that it’s pointless to talk to her, I stormed out of the shop and shrugged the incident off.
Today, I stepped in their shop to order a cup of coffee almost forgetting about the incident. I politely ordered, paid and requested that my coffee be served outside because I wanted to smoke while having coffee. I went out and waited for the cup of coffee for some time but it never came. I finished two cigarettes when I felt too impatient to wait some more. I stepped in again and asked the person in the counter (who I later found out to be the Manager) how long it takes them to prepare a cup if coffee.
She then asked the crew something while I sat down and waited for the cup. But what flared me up was when this girl mocked me while she was ordering them to do it faster. The exact words were…..”faster, faster, make it faster” in an obvious tone of mockery referring to how I spoke English. Irritated as I was already with the long wait, I couldn’t let go of her mockery so I stood up again and asked her if she was mocking me. That was when she started to be belligerent. These were her exact words:
“I am not an American so I don’t want to speak to you in English……”
“I know you already, you were the one who fought with my waitress and I’ve done my research on you…I know you already. Makitid talaga ang utak mo.”
I demanded to talk to the manager because I realized it’s pointless to talk to her, but to my surprise, I was already talking to the manager. So I asked her, “is this the way you treat your customers?” This was what she said:
“It depends on the customers…ikaw, ikaw talaga, kilala na kita. I’ve researched on you. Taga Dell ka. Kahit dalhin mo ang HR nyo dito, magkaliwanagan tayo.
She said a lot of things that were insulting and very unlikely of a manager. I was not going to stoop down to her level because obviously she has breeding issues but then she swore at me ……..”tang ina mo!!!!” in front of her crew and other customers. I was really mad but I decided not to waste my time with her. She still said a lot of things that were not supposed to be said to a paying customer.
I am so mad. You have no idea how little I felt because I would have responded with the same rudeness but then I realized it’s more embarrassing if I was to stoop down to her level and that makes it all the more frustrating. So I just demanded for a refund because none of what she was saying would impact my life and it’d be such a waste of time if I went on arguing with her.
I know that the incident has nothing to do with my professional career with Dell, hence should not be channeled through the company HR. However, there are hundreds of employees who sit out and smoke in their shop who can also be potential victims of how they treat customers. If they didn’t want people to use their shop, then they should have put out a sign saying “For Coffee Dream customers only”. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what it means so I take it that Dell employees would have enough sense not to sit without buying coffee from them.
And it also doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if you’re running a business, you don’t run a business that way, especially if you’re a manager. My experience was so humiliating and embarrassing to the truest sense of the words. It was frustrating to put sense into somebody’s head when that person had no capacity, not even training, to level off with you as a customer, and yet all you could do was just storm out of the shop and not waste one more minute of your time because it’s freaking pointless.
I don’t know to what extent the company can help me with this incident but I trust that this letter will reach the proper audience for appropriate actions. Thank you so much.
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