Nora Rege : “The customer is always right…I think that’s a bunch of bullshit.”

“The customer is always right…I think that’s a bunch of bullshit.”
An Ethnography by Nora Rege

There is a shared belief among some in the service industry that every person should hold a position in hospitality services for at least a few weeks in their young adult lives before they can have a successful night out. While each reader may or may not believe this, it is not unreasonable to believe that those bar patrons who have experienced giving the service they are receiving will be more understanding and patient with the staff serving them.

Just as there are many types of bartenders, and bartenders fill many roles, there are as many ways to approach those customers who are not quite as patient as others. In two weeks of interviews and observation, I found that there is a maturity dichotomy not only in the way that these customers are approached, but also in the way bartenders choose to express their sentiments about these customers.

My interview subjects included bartenders and managers at the Mt. Adams Pavilion. Interviews took place at both Pavilion and aliveOne, located in Mt. Adams, Cincinnati.

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After speaking with my bartenders, it would seem that no one can understand the motives behind some of the characters that walk in and out of the bar every night. There is no limit on when, for how much time, and to what degree these people will unleash their lack of bar etiquette. According to Raymond Bissonet, a New York-based Professor of Psychiatry, “The phenomenon of role separation tends to prolong artificially the sociological stranger role for the bartender. This is because most bartenders and patrons interact as only segments of their total selves” (98). Bartender Ashley McDowell explains her approach to the “stranger” occurrence. “I feel like the more ‘human’ you kind of talk to [customers] – I feel like some people kind of put us on a pedestal and think we’re not human, that we’re just like worker bees. If you kind of try to humanize the situation, you know, people sometimes just do forget, so I’ll try to remind them that they’re being rude, just in a nice way.” Sarah Fisher explains that there is an aspect of immaturity that plays a large role as well. “You get the people who come in to a bar and get a drink and they appreciate what they’re drinking, they appreciate the alcohol and the craft you put into a drink…then you get somebody who’s just 21 and they come into the bar and as for a beer and throw down a dollar ‘cause they know it’s dollar beer night. They don’t tell you what kind of beer they want. They don’t tell you anything, they say ‘I want a beer.’”

In the course of my research, I was able to interview bartenders of different qualifications, experience, and background. I interviewed some men, some women, some new bartenders, some veteran, some with other bar experience, and some who were mainly bartenders. I noted that the biggest differences between all these people were their manner of communicating when I asked about “unsavory” customers. The responses were as varied as they were enthusiastic.

The younger, less experienced bartenders tended to approach bad customers angrily, but ultimately realized that they were best served to find a manager to take over the unruly situation. The more experienced bartenders saw approaches by “clueless” customers as an opportunity to educate young bar goers about the etiquette of being in public. The men tended to have a “don’t-let-it-get-to-you” attitude toward customers, which also fit with their less-enthusiastic negative answers. The women, I noticed, seemed to be inclined to answer questions about their approaches to these customers with much more fervor than the men. The women, regardless of experience and age all seemed to view bad customers as an opportunity to leave their mark. Said 15-year service industry veteran Ceris Christopher, “If you come to my bar and you act like an idiot, you’d better believe that I’ll let you know you’re being an idiot. And will you ever walk into my bar and act like an idiot again? No, no you will not.”

When asked to recount the stories of their best and worst customers, the women were very quickly able to recall a story regarding a very negative customer, but took about thirty seconds to a minute to recall a good customer, and over half responded to the “best customer” question with generalizations. Only two of the six women interviewed spoke about bad customers in general terms. All three men, however, regarded all customers, both good and bad, in general terms. Similarly, the women held very few qualms about writing about bad customers in public forums - specifically Facebook and Twitter. They viewed it as a means by which to vent or to glean support from friends and coworkers. None expressed to use of specific names or anything that would humiliate or embarrass the customer later, but mostly just looked at social media as a place to joke amongst eachother and also demonstrate the behavior that makes them react in that manner.

Alternatively, the men were very apprehensive. One, in fact, recounted a story of posting a Facebook status poking fun at a DJ, (not even a customer!) who is also his friend, for playing “cheesy Backstreet Boys” music at the end of the night. He said he felt so unprofessional after that instance that he would never use social media to poke fun at anything from work again (Mike Schroeder).

What I found most interesting, though, was the manner of speaking applied to customers in general, when I was asking about neither “good” nor “bad” people. Words with very positive connotations were used, like “guest,” and “visitor,” as opposed to the neutral “customer” or words with a negative slant. While my observation showed that bartenders could quickly get frustrated with customers who are frustrated with them, they ultimately appreciated the persona of the customer and enjoyed having someone to display their talent to. Those customers that appreciate the bartender as an expert in mixing drinks, and also as a person worthy of attention and respect, are the ones who keep these enthusiastic men and women in their professions.

So is the customer always right? Using the slogan “The customer is always right,” abusive customers can demand just about anything – they’re right by definition. This makes the bartenders’ job that much harder, when trying to rein them and their attitudes in. Also, it means that abusive people get better treatment and conditions than nice people. However, it makes much more sense to be nice to the nice customers to keep them coming back. The fact is that some customers are just plain wrong, and that the bar is better of without them. Regardless of the sex of the bartender, their experience, or their approach, some customers will just be unruly. It would seem to me that those customers are looking for a fight, not a refreshing beverage.