Here are two more examples of “service” that I encountered.
I ordered a particular mushroom pastry from a prominent coffee place near my office today. The pastry is required to be heated - probably in an oven. When it was served to me, I could tell right away, that the six pastries were burnt. In fact, the bottom of some of them were completely blackened. Nevertheless, I took a bite. Indeed it tasted burnt and asked for a new order. Now, I wondered to myself - surely the chef would have seen that the dish was burnt when he/she took it out of the oven? Good service, for me, demanded that I be told of the mistake and for the server to (proudly) declare that it is not their policy to serve their customers anything they would not eat themselves. This is to explain why I had to wait for a new order to be prepared. But no…that didn’t happen. Instead, I was SERVED the burnt pastries in the hope that I wouldn’t notice or mind it!
Now take this other example. Every morning, there is an old man giving out free copies of the TODAY paper at the entrance to the Punggol MRT station. He shouts “Ma Piu Po” (which is what news vendors of the evening Chinese dailies on weekends used to shout; “ma piu po” is loosely translated as “lottery newspaper” since it carried the 4-D results that evening) to attract people to come take a copy. But to this old man, every kind of newspaper was “ma piu po”. Not only that, he greeted everyone “Good morning, sir”….even to the ladies. He may not get the words right but his attitude is admirable. He does his job with gusto, even if it’s just giving out free newspaper. I feel this old man has all the right ingredients of what embodies “service”. Service people should learn from you. I salute you, old man.
Joe