We witnessed an example of terrible customer service at the
Dunkin Donuts near Route 2 in Cambridge on Sunday morning.
All six of us walked in to get breakfast before driving up north to go snowboarding. Hua ordered a breakfast sandwich first, and while the rest of us ordered, he put salt and pepper on his sandwich while standing near us at the counter.
A worker named Rado came up, look at him sternly, and shouted, "You don't do this here!!! We have tables!" and pointed at the seating area behind us.
I looked at him and responded, "You mean: 'Could you please move to the tables?'" implying that he should have asked more nicely.
He looked at me and shouted: "I don't speak English!" to which I responded "So we won't come back here again." He said "fine" and went in the back of the store to brood.
Another friend of ours, Jared, asked to speak to Rado and explained politely that he was offended that Rado was so rude to us, and that we would be back to talk to the manager of the store.
At that, Rado responded "OK. It is my fault. I apologize," in a very unapologetic sort of way.
Interesting - Rado disproved himself as a non-English speaker. The word "apologize" is not your standard first-year English word, while "please" is one of the first words everybody uses.
As a business owner, I think I would ensure that each and every worker knew how to speak to employees in a polite way. There are rude people in every culture, and they act rudely no matter what language they are speaking.
There is no room for such rude language, either body language, tonality, or verbage, in the service industry. Yes, it really is that black and white.
