When I first read the title, I thought it was going to be about posts where people say they know nothing about the question but then post a couple of paragraphs about something else. Sometimes they don’t even do that, just posting a line about knowing nothing about the question. I figure it’s a tactic used to inflate their number of posts. Still very annoying, especially in a long thread.
A very good example. Notice that the OP is a perfectly reasonable question which ends up with multiple total garbage posts. I’ve made jokes in thread before never throw out single sentence posts fo no reason other than to increase my number of posts. If you don’t know the answer, how about not adding extra noise to the forum?
Trust me, Lib, that doesn’t work. You would be surprised at the number of times per night I have an exchange that goes something like this.
Q: “Is there anything else I can get for anybody? Anything at all?”
A: [everyone] “Nope, thanks!”
Q: “Would you like some more to drink, sir?”
A: “Yes!”
Q: “How about some steak sauce?”
A: “Yes, A1, please.”
…and the funniest part is that never once – never once – have they detected the irony. Much as I’d love to leave people to their own devices, it just isn’t a good idea.
I do wonder, though…what’s wrong with asking a question that requires a specific answer? First of all, consider the initial approach to the table. Most people are accustomed to a specific order of business. First is a greeting, which most people ignore, followed by drinks (leading to the how are you doing/Coke bit). If I went up to a table and said “Hi, what can I get for you?”, I absolutely guarantee you I’d get a table full of blank stares as a response, and nothing else, for a minimum of ten seconds. Anybody who believes otherwise is welcome to place a wager at 2-to-1 odds; 3-to-1 that I get no response at all until I rephrase the question to be more specific. The house will win. I know my customers too well. Furthermore, sometimes a table has more than one obvious need: refills, napkins and steak sauce, for example. I can’t just ask them what all they’d like, for the above-mentioned reason. I suppose I could name all three in a single question, to which they could simply respond “yes”, but the tendency when I do that is to treat it as if I said “refills, napkins, OR steak sauce”, resulting in them feeling they have to choose one. Then I have to go through the whole routine again, twice. You might think otherwise, but you’d be wrong.
So, I’m left to the approach I described above: go through the items one at a time, until all bases have been covered. It’s the one that guarantees me the highest rate of accuracy, which, by definition, leads to the happiest customers. My apologies if you get offended when your server asks if you’d like some steak sauce or some more to drink, which is what the tone of your post strongly implies, but I’m afraid it’s my job to take care of these things.
CanvasShoes, they can’t send you your new bank card till you give them your secret personal ID number. This number is the new expiration date of the new card. You wouldn’t happen to know what that is, would you?
Well, when it comes to “how are you doing?”, it’s not having the question ignored that bothers me per se. It’s more the statement of the drink order as if it were a response to the question I asked. If I said, “How are you doing?”, and the person replied, “I’d like a Coke, please”, I would accept that the person didn’t want to go through the whole greeting routine and wants to get down to business. But don’t snap a response at me that has nothing to do with what I actually said to you. That’s what gets to me.
Actually, the same thing could be applied to every single one of my examples. “Would you like some more to drink?”, followed by “Can we get some napkins, please?”, wouldn’t bother me a bit. But “Would you like some more to drink?”, followed by “Napkins”, shows that you’re being an asshole or just not paying attention. That, more than the individual reponses, is what triggers the annoyance.
I’d say the same principle applies to the OP as well. Had the CSR bothered to listen to what CanvasShoes was asking him/her, the entire call would’ve been over and done with in less than a minute. Instead, it was turned into an ordeal that was quite possibly annoying for both sides (I will never cease being amazed at the propensity for some people to get pissed off at situations they themselves caused through their own stupidity). It all just seems so very unnecessary.
Wow, that’s some seriously bad subject-verb agreement and tense shift in the first paragraph of my previous post. Normally I don’t post to correct mistakes, but those just make me look kinda stupid. Ergo:
Well, when it comes to “how are you doing?”, it’s not having the question ignored that bothers me per se. It’s more the statement of the drink order as if it were a response to the question I asked. If I said, “How are you doing?”, and the person replied, “I’d like a Coke, please”, I would accept that the person didn’t want to go through the whole greeting routine and wanted to get down to business. But he/she shouldn’t snap a response at me that has nothing to do with what I actually said. That’s what gets to me.
The support people at my company are so awful with this that I just dread calling them for anything. Just about a week ago, we had a procedural change. I noticed something amiss and called them to see if something else (that hadn’t been covered in the main change) had also changed. The conversation went something like this:
Me: Do you know if we still need [form]? I see it’s not on the checklist anymore.
Support Lady: I’m pretty sure you do.
Me: Then why isn’t it on the checklist anymore?
SL: Um, why don’t you read me your checklist?
Me: Okay, New Handbook That’s Part of the Big Procedural Change–
SL: OH! Yes, you need this handbook!
Me: I know, I have the handbook. That’s not–
SL: See, you need to send out the handbooks.
Me: I know. That’s not–
SL: Everything that’s not specific to the loan is in the handbook.
Me: I KNOW. THAT’S NOT WHAT I WAS CALLING ABOUT. You asked me to read the checklist to you and I was doing that. Remember back at the beginning of the conversation, when we were talking about [form]? THAT’S WHAT I WAS CALLING ABOUT.
I also hate it when people respond to “what’s up?” with “what’s up?” I usually reply with “I asked you first.” When I ask what’s up, it’s because I want to know what is up!
I do this simply because I see “What’s up?” the same way as “Hello”. It sounds like a question but it’s really not. It’s just an acknowledgment of the person I see and recognize.
Monstro, the probable reason you do this is my belief that people who ask you “How are you?” usually don’t give a shit and don’t want to hear anything more than “fine”. Next time someone asks “How are you?”, give them details about how you are actually doing to see how fast their eyes glaze over.
Yes it is indeed. But it’s certainly not your customer’s job to take care of you and the things that offend you. I mean, you have a lot of balls to feign concern over offending people when your whole schpiel is that you are offended when customers don’t answer your questions directly. Why can’t you just get a little perspective? Their minds are not on the petty details of your tasks. They’ve come in there to eat after God only knows what sort of life experiences. Perhaps they’re addled. Perhaps they’re distracted. Perhaps they had their minds on the napkin and wanted to mention it before they forgot because the last ten waiters they dealt with forgot the napkins. If this sort of thing so upsets you, how could you possibly handle a more important job with greater responsibility? It isn’t like you don’t know the drill. You yourself have declared that this sort of banter is completely necessary; otherwise, you’ll waste a lot of time. (An ironic assertion, but one for which I take you at your word.) You already know that you won’t make the situation any better by griping about it, or by assuming a condescending air, or by trying to “educate” your customers about how they should behave. Why not then turn inward and examine what might need fixing. Instead of keeping score — Oh, zing! There’s another one! — just be gracious. “Napkin? Certainly sir, be right back! Thank you.”
What the hell do you think I do? As I said in my earlier post, the only time I’ve ever gotten snippy with a customer was that incident with that exceedingly high-handed lady, which, if you absolutely must know, occurred the day after my grandmother died. Additional context revealed after the fact? I think not, since that falls under “God knows what life experiences”, which are enough to justify aberrant behavior (a point which, by the way, I agree with, otherwise I wouldn’t be using it here; no sarcasm intended). Your prescribed response is exactly the way I have handled this situation every other time it has occurred. Were I keeping score, it would be something on the order of Me: 1, Customers: 500. Go me!
I do believe you’re missing the fact that there’s a difference between a minor annoyance I might gripe about in the Pit, and an intolerable problem I might allow to break through my professionalism and sense of duty to affect my ability to serve my customers. The situation I’m describing here falls firmly and entirely into the former category. Note that I didn’t even start my own thread to complain about this; I simply contributed it to one to whose topic it seemed relevant. It does not rank on my list of Top 100 Concerns. It would be hard pressed, I think, to make it into the Top 1000. I regard it more as an amusing commentary on the mindset of the average person than anything else. Under no circumstances does it affect my ability to provide top-notch service to my customers, which I pride myself on giving.
As to your cracks about responsibility and perspective, I initially took offense, but as you don’t know me personally, I believe the problem to be a lack of context. Why you would make such assumptions about a person whom you’ve never met and on whom you have extremely limited background information is another matter, but I accept fault for not having made myself perfectly clear in the first place. Given such tendencies as I observe every day, heaven knows I ought to know better. Regarding responsibility, one year ago at the age of nineteen, I was promoted to General Manager of a popular local restaurant/bar when the owner took note that, as a server, I was already handling many managerial tasks far better than the current GM. In addition to the everyday duties such of customer relations and complaint handling, I was put in charge of placing food and liquor orders (someone else had to physically accept the order, obviously), calling maintenance companies as necessary and managing the finances for paying them, handling party scheduling, and anything else you might associate with the operation of a restaurant. Though I was observed very closely by the ownership during this period, never once did they correct me or intervene after my one week of training. Why, you may ask, did I leave this job? Was I fired for incompetence, since a 19-year-old (especially one with my mindset, apparently) could not possibly cope with the responsibility of running a restaurant? No, I tendered my resignation because five 14-hour days and one eight-hour day a week, on top of maintaining a 3.6 GPA in a full schedule of college CompSci classes, was getting to be a bit much…as much as I wish it were otherwise, I do require sleep. So, I put in three weeks’ notice, handed the reins over to the guy I’d been training in my stead anyhow (informally, of course), and went back to plain ol’ waiting tables at another restaurant where I’d heard the money was good. Word on the street, and from my current management, is that I’m pretty good at it.
If you did know me IRL, you’d know that a person would have to have a lot of balls to advise me to be introspective. I have an entire coherent (and self-created) philosophy that revolves around self-examination, formulation of a framework interrelated ideas and beliefs, and the application thereof to the actions and feelings of those I encounter in order to better empathize with their positions. That mindset has, in the past, provided all the “perspective” I’ve ever required. Obviously, there are certain situations I have yet to encounter for which I do not have a logical/emotional reaction template, but I’m not very likely to encounter such situations at work. Past experience has held this to be the case.
Obviously, I have no way to prove to you that any of the above is true. I am forced to ask that you take me at my word, with only the assertion that I don’t care enough about anyone on an internet message board’s opinion of me to fabricate a complete background to back me up. Far from, in fact. I provide the above information not to show myself to you in a positive light, but to clarify my earlier statements, as I strongly abhor miscommunication.
So, are we clear? Or do you still think I blow up at my customers for asking me for napkins? Either way, I don’t think I can elaborate on my position any further. I have respect for you, Lib, but your condemnation of my professionalism on (at best) limited evidence does confuse me a bit. I’ve done what I can to make myself clear. Interpret it as you will.
Being courteous enough to be attentive to a person who is talking to you is certainly not anyone’s job, but it is a matter of simple decency. Of course, not all people feel compelled to be decent without some incentive to do so. To each his own.
Exactly. English has this great class of words called “transitions.” Imagine the following exchange:
Roland: What can I get you to drink?
Customer: Actually, could you just get me some napkins?
Same request, made in answer to the same question–but here, the customer acknowledges the humanity of the waiter and acknowledges that she’s not answering the question asked. I betcha a porterhouse steak (cooked potato, please–I’m vegetarian) that Roland wouldn’t get annoyed by this.
Nor should you have to. We were having a nice and amusing thread about “Don’t you hate when people do this?” (Correct answer: “Pelican”), when Lib decided to attack you and accuse you, presumably once again to advance his own personal or political views. Inappropriately, as is often the case. Best to ignore him.
Goddamn it, they (my company’s support) did it again.
I had a procedure question. I called them. The woman I spoke to didn’t know the answer, so she put me on hold while she asked her supervisor.
I was on hold for five minutes. Then I hear ringing. A man picked up.
I had been transferred to fucking tech support! Bitch, did I say I had a tech support question? NO. So why the fuck did you send my call to them? Because you are lazy and also perhaps a moron. The nice guy at tech support transferred me back to the right department and they got my question answered within a minute.
See, dumbass support lady, how easy it is when you actually pay attention to what another person is asking?
As somebody who may or may not have done this to you or other waiters in the past, the problem comes that Waitstaff, especially at the national chain restaurants, are now seen (by me, at least) less as “servers” and more as “salespeople”, and my hind-brain responds to you as such.
“Would you like to start out with an appetizer?” is a suggestive-sell, my mouth says “No” before my brain has decided whether or not I really do want a blooming onion. Especially since this question is usually asked while the menus are being handed to you.
“Would you like some steak sauce?” and “Would you like a refill on your drink” are not suggestive sells (as long as the drink has free refills), so I may say yes to that even if my brain rejected the suggested-sell-like question “Would you like anything else?”.
And I can imagine some situations (like, say, my kid decided that the Ketchup Bottle Is a Fun Toy) where the first word out of my mouth, no matter what question you asked, would be “Napkins!”
Naaaaw, that’s different, “how are you” “hey” “what’s going on” etc have all become accepted nonsensical greeting type phrases that it’s acceptable to reply to with just about any other greeting type phrase.
Like Roland says (kindof) it’s not so much that people answer a question with the “wrong” answer, it’s that they aren’t providing the information specifically asked for, if that makes sense.
