Having worked a great amount of time in cafés and retail, I feel like it’s about time to share some insight. Make no mistake, I always expect the best from my clerks and waiters, but most of the time, it is the customers that need education. Here are some useful tips.

#1
Smile

Just be friendly. The person greeting you when you enter a shop is not a part of some evil plan to manipulate you into purchasing a quantity that will force you into prostitution. The fact is that most people who work in the service industry are friendly by nature – and if they are not, rest assured they will not last long.

#2
Be efficient

Don’t get in line before you have made up your mind. The stress that goes with having to wait for someone go yeah but no but yeah but no with a million annoyed customers behind him or her, equals being chased by hungry velociraptors.

#3
Don’t argue with me

If an item comes from a brand we don’t sell, nor have ever heard of, you can be reasonably sure we are not messing with you when we say you must have bought it somewhere else. Service workers don’t have a very high societal status, but most of them are neither evil nor stupid.

#4
Don’t be an asshole

So you have a complaint? And you gotta work yourself up and prepare a little speech beforehand, making sure to intimidate your clerk into doing whatever you want him to? Bad move. We have rules to follow, and they might not always run in your favor, but we’re just so much more likely to bend those rules if you’re not being a dick about it.

#5
What if I told you…

We don’t decide the prices! Breaking news, right? This is the moment where you stop complaining about them to us and send an email to management instead.

#6
Discounts

Don’t ask for them. Just don’t. Sure, I’d like to go buy a Porche at half price too, but living in the real world, I know it doesn’t work like that. This is a business, not a charity, and you don’t even look homeless.

#7
Clean up your mess

Do not smear your overly tanned face all over our expensive silk blouses. This isn’t the shroud of Turin, and you’re not Jesus.

#8
Don’t cut the line

No, you can’t just buy a coffee. And you can’t just pay very quickly cause you’re in a hurry – your business isn’t busier than others’. Who even raised you?

#9
Don’t leave your dog outside the shop

Seriously, we want to snuggle. It’s the highlight of our day!

I rest my case.