Dude - Get me the Coffee!!!

I was recently on a short vacation to Thailand and was almost shocked at the courtesy and customer service orientation of the folks who worked at hotels, restaurants and shops there.

We were staying at a Courtyard Marriott and went one morning for breakfast. we promptly had a hostess invite us very politely, and request us to find a place. The problem was we couldn't find a place and came back to the hostess. The hostess apologized profusely and went around looking for a place and came back and told us that there was no place - we already knew this as we had done the rounds. So I asked her, if we can reserve a table and come back. She said that they don't accept reservations for breakfast. Ok - we asked her what we should do. She had no clue. So I told her that we would wait for a few more minutes and see if someone gets off a table and we would just grab it. We did exactly that.

Again, we had a very polite waiter come and greet us - we told him to get the table cleaned. Again, the guy was polite, apologetic, but took a really long time to clean the table and set new place-mats and cutlery for us. Since it was a buffet, we quickly grabbed our food. The waiter approached us again and asked if we wanted something to drink - Coffee, tea etc. We asked him for 2 coffees. he said "Rightaway Sir' and went. After about 10 minutes, I waved my hand towards the waiter - he promptly came and I asked him about our coffees. He profusely apologized and said he will be right back. 5 more minutes passed and I could see the waiter literally going from table to table, apologizing to everyone for something or the other. It seemed to be a case of the waiter going to anyone who called him, but not really doing any real work. We finally got our coffee - cold. We did not even bother to drink it or call the waiter back as we knew how the events would play out.

This was a classic case of "Inefficient Politeness/Courtesy" - Given a choice, I would have preferred a waiter who was efficient, but not very polite rather than a very polite waiter, but a really inefficient one. This type of event played out repeatedly at a few restaurants we visited, with the hotel check-in staff etc.

This was a classic case of "Artificial Recognition" of us as customers - the waiters/staff were very polite, courteous & well meaning, but just didn't deliver the goods. I wondered how many managers treat their employees this way - telling them all the time "Thanks", "Great Job" etc., but when it came to things that mattered - appraisal ratings, promotions, training opportunities, project opportunities etc., they just don't work/push hard enough to deliver. This seriously dents their credibility and creates problems for them.