Attitudes are contagious. Hang out with a depressed person for a few hours, and you'll start feeling down. Hang out with happy people, and odds are you'll be smiling in no time. What happens if you're continually thrown together with an unhappy, surly person? Like, at work? Where you can't avoid it? Will you become affected? I'm sure you'd like to believe you wouldn't. Consider my story, then.
I just came back from grabbing a salad for lunch from across the street. I ran into Paradise Bakery, which I've regularly frequented for several years now. It's a downtown location, so the employees work a M-F, 9-5-like schedule, meaning it's always the same crew. Recently, they've made a few new hires. One of those new hires is a very unhappy little girl who clearly does not like customers. She will joke and laugh with her coworkers, turn to get your order, and that smile just goes completely away and she barely looks at you. I thought it was me until I saw she did this with everyone (which oddly comforted me). I've slowly started seeing a shift in the way customers are treated. Where once, this was the place where they'd ask how your day was going, banter about things, give you extra scoops or other things to show some love, now it's become a place where as the customer you feel you're crashing the party. I witnessed this exchange today:
The lunch rush is long over when I arrive and interrupt a lively conversation to order my salad. Stony silence and begrudging work on my salad begins as a man enters and steps up to the counter. There are 3 girls standing behind the counter. One is making my salad, one turns around, and the third sighs and says, "Can I help you?"
Man: Do you have something where I can get several of the different salads?
Girl: It's called a Sampler.
Man: What do I get with that?
Girl: It says right there on the menu (pointing) - any 3 salads you want.
Man: Perfect - give me a tuna salad, a chicken walnut salad, and ummmm...another chicken walnut salad.
Girl: Rolls eyes, says nothing to the man, turns and says something to the girl who turned around: "He wants 2 chicken walnuts and a tuna - he can't do that, right?"
Turned Around Girl: Nope
Girl: (turning back to man) You can't do that.
Man: Okay...what can I do?
Girl: Something else.
Man: I don't understand. Why can't I do that?
My Girl pipes up: Because you can't have THREE meats. You have to get fruit or something.
Man: Okay, give me fruit then.
Girl: No, you don't get it - you can't get all that meat for free.
(because we all know that tuna salad is waaayyyy expensive, right?)
My Girl: Yeah, you have to get ONE meat salad, ONE regular salad, and ONE fruit salad.
Man: Where are all these rules and such? I don't see that anywhere - I just want those three things, can you just put it together?
My Girl: It was POSTED for over a MONTH EVERYWHERE in here what the rules are about the Sampler!
Man: You know what? This is too complicated. Thanks anyway.
And he walked out. The girls looked at each other and just rolled their eyes, one muttered "stupid" under her breath, and my girl went back to making my salad. I paid my money and left. The man went across the way to Potbelly and I saw him laughing with the workers as I left. In about an hour, Paradise Bakery will be closing up shop and throwing away all that extra, uber-expensive chicken walnut salad and tuna salad. And those two girls will still be talking about the stupid, rude man who wanted three salads.
About two months ago, I showed up around the same time as today and ordered a sampler with tuna salad, chicken walnut salad, and regular salad with some chicken breast on top. The girl rang me up cheerfully and said, "Honey, usually we have to charge extra when you combine all the meat salads, just so you know for next time, but we're closing in a bit anyway, so today it's on the house."
Yes, I most definitely think one bad apple CAN spoil the bunch. I think I'll be ordering a lot more Potbelly in the future. Watch out for attitudes out there, folks - they're contagious.