The world is what you make it
I’ve always been struck between the attitude in France or Spain or Italy to serving in cafes, bars, and restaurants compared with that in the UK.
In those countries servers do so with panache and style and a pride in their role and in ‘their’ bar or ‘their’ part of the restaurant. They move about with purpose and dignity. They serve you your drink your meal with theatrical flourishes. They enjoy and take pride in what they do - and it shows. And customers respond to them with respect.
Here in the UK things are quite different - and people who serve in such places don’t seem to enjoy heir work or their role. There are lots of wonderful exceptions, of course, although many of these are from mainland Europe!
Many years ago when I first fled from a career in the accountancy profession in Ireland to the UK one of my first jobs was to spend a year or so as a London Transport bus conductor. (‘Conductors’ collected fares on the buses and got people onto and off the buses in rush hour as quickly as possible.) The money wasn’t very good, the shiftwork hours were awful, and I thoroughly enjoyed the job.
It was my first experience of working directly with the general public and, since I would meet and speak with up to a few hundred people on busy shifts, it was a wonderful opportunity to study people. And it taught me an important lesson: ‘you get back what you put out’.
If I slouched about, was moody, and grunted at rather than spoke with people they treated me disdainfully. If I wore my London Transport uniform a bit more smartly, spoke confidently and cheerfully, and managed ‘my bus’ efficiently people treated me cheerfully and respectfully.
Yes, there were moody and grumpy and plain nasty customers. But I decided that I wouldn’t allow them to manage my mood. So, without having any NLP techniques or even knowing about the Zeigarnik Principle, I quickly learned that focussing on and enjoying communicating with the pleasant customers undermined the impact of the unpleasant ones.
As Paul Brady says in the song ‘the world is what you make it’.
June 3rd, 2008 at 8:44 am
‘you get back what you put out’ - yes, and often you just have to put out a simple smile - how much easier does it get?
June 11th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
I spent a bit of time in hospital a few years ago and conducted a similar scientific study of the impact of people on each other.
The ward I was in was comprised of about 6 of us in various stages of recovery. Quite hard to keep yourself positive lying around in bed for weeks waiting to get better.
I started to notice the impact of the nurses on us inmates. One Nurse in particular would breeze in (sometimes at 6 in the morning by the way) with a bright ‘morning lads’, on went the lights and up went the energy.
‘have you had your wash yet gentlemen?’
‘we need to get this place looking just right’.
Pretty soon we were all doing our best to get ourselves and our little bit of the hospital clean and tidy, even if some people could only just about sit up!
This feeling of all being well in the world would last for hours after this wonderful lady had moved on to another ward, spreading that most infectious thing, happiness !
June 25th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Seems to me that the work we do can be like giving a gift…..what response do we usually want from giving a gift? Surprise? Delight? Something practical that makes life easier for someone (but please not another toaster!!), maybe something MORE than they expected? I’ve been thinking about my work this way and the experience has been amazing! When I take the position that everything I do at work (however great or small) is valuable to someone, and if I do it in the best way I can, then I am spending 8 hours a day giving people gifts! Throw in humour and a smile and soon everyone is doing it! It seems to me that it creates a great atmosphere, improves cooperation, it’s catching and it overflows into life outside work too!