For three years I have been an ice cream scooper at a local ice cream store. I will forever be thankful for this job and the skills it has taught me. Over the years I have learned some very valuable lessons when dealing with people. Over the years I have developed a list of things to remember when dealing with people – I call them "The Five Commandments."
1. The customer is always right, even when the customer is wrong.
Everyday there is at least one customer who comes in and orders vanilla ice cream with rainbow sprinkles on a cake cone. Once I have made the ice cream and bring it back to them, the customer looks at me like I have five heads and says, “I asked for chocolate ice cream with chocolate sprinkles in a sugar cone.” And of course I have to throw out the ice cream I just made and make a new one for this person. I do so with a smile on my face because the customer is always right, even when the customer is wrong.
2. When
customers share their personal life with you, just nod and smile.
Over the past three years I have gotten to know many customers pretty well. I know who is married to whom, how many members of their family, and their ice cream orders (if they don’t change). On my first night back working since I returned from school, this woman walks in. She had been a pretty regular customer before I left for school and I knew her family’s order very well. As she got up to order I made eye contact with her and asked if she wanted the large shake she generally orders for husband. Without missing a beat she says, “No. I divorced that cheating piece of scum a few months back.” With that I nodded, smiled and asked what else she would like.
3. Sometimes You Have To Give Them A Little Sass.
On the counter by our cash registers we have two tip jars that both have the words “College Fund” written on them. On the jars it has become tradition for us to write the schools we are attending. Generally people ask who attends where and congratulate us when we tell them where we go. The jars have schools like URI, Brown, UVM, UCONN, and of course Syracuse. One day a woman and her daughter are standing at the counter and I am ringing them up. As I hand the woman her change back she looks at me and says, “So is this college fund real or do you guys just put up fake school to impress your customers?” At first I thought this woman was joking and I just looked at her kind of quizzically. This woman was being dead serious. I have never lost my cool at a customer before but for some reason this time I couldn't contain my sass. I looked the woman straight in the face and said, “Would you like to see my tuition bill from Syracuse?” I watched as the woman’s face fell, she stuck a dollar in the tip jar took her ice cream and left.
4. Behind the Counter, Common Courtesy Doesn't Apply to You.
There is a man who comes into the store weekly that is around 6 feet tall, athletic and fabulously wealthy (you can tell based on his Ferrari car keys that he always makes sure to place on the counter). Every single time he comes into the store he is on his phone. Every. Single. Time. And regardless of whether there is a line or he is the only person in the store he orders while still on the phone in a whisper that makes it impossible to understand his order and I almost always end up giving him the wrong thing because he refuses to pay attention when I repeat his order. Moral of the story: if you are behind the counter you don’t get common courtesy from people – and you just have to deal.
5. There Are Stupid People In The World.
The other day a woman came into the store with her toddler, he was maybe 4. The mother was very impatient with her son and very rude to my coworker and I. As this woman was looking at the ice cream with her son to decide which flavor he would like another family with two young children (guessing around 3 and a 10 month old) checking out. The woman and her son came up to the register to order, and while they were ordering the other family was finishing paying with my coworker. “Can my son have a small Chocolate Brownie Fudge in a rainbow sprinkle sugar cone?” said the woman. I replied with sure and went to grab the cone. Before I could reach where we held the cones the lady yell at me to come back. “What can I do for you?” I asked. “Is that a small?” She barked, referring to a cone that I had just made for the family that was checking out. “Yes.” I replied. “Well then I don’t want my son to have that size, can you make it half of that size. I will pay whatever the cost is.” The woman responded with an obvious judgment in her voice towards the other family and giving their children small ice cream cones. I made her son the ice cream and as the woman was paying she says, “My son is only a toddler and I don't want him getting diabetes from ice cream.” I was in shock, I just looked at her and gave her change and watched her walk out of the store. A few minutes later as the family with the two young children were leaving they looked at me and said, “I guess our kids are dying from diabetes – oh well, the ice cream was great.” Moral of this story: a single ice cream cone will not give your kid diabetes and if you think it will don’t come to an ice cream store.
