There was this one time Spike Lee...was outside of the store filming a carpenter's protest. Or at least it looked like him from our side of the window. Ummm...okay, okay, so there was this one time one of the crazy clients from Millionaire Matchmaker came in... and loudly discussed the calorie content of our tomato soup and left after eating some samples...and, umm, yeah I guess reality tv does not a star make. Okay okay, I have a real one! This other time Jon Benjamin (who has some show on Comedy Central but is only relevant to me for lending his voice on Archer and various Adult Swim cartoons) hung out in the store...eating sandwiches. Right, so.... Oh, I have it! Once, Jimmy Fallon came into the store...and I mostly avoided eye contact because real celebrities make me nervous, and all he did was buy a bunch of frozen mac & cheese.
Alright so I haven't actually mongered to any stars. And truth be told, the greater the celebrity, the more I wouldn't know what to do with myself and just act a fool. But all these celebrity pseudo-encounters in New York, as well as the generally demanding nature of customer encounters in this city's service industry, got me thinking. Someday, if I own a business, whether it be in an important city or small town, my mission statement will be "to provide a service or product that is so innately awesome that I don't have to kiss a bunch of ass to get people to like me."
Both law and cheesemongering are service professions. Both industries have taught me that I would sooner re-live that day I had kidney stones than spend my life kissing everyone's ass and ingratiating myself in a gratuitously saccharine display of self-prostitution. Right, so that sounds a little harsh.
Okay let's put it this way: The stores and business in which I feel most comfortable are those that employ a normal amount of courtesy to the average customer, are totally free to bust your balls if you're truly being a rude cretin, joke with you when you do something silly, and treat everyone like a normal human being. Whether you're kind of a big deal celebrity or just an average joe, each customer is deserving of the same respect when it is returned in kind. If a store/business serves me up something phenomenal, delicious, comforting, or unique, then I don't care if I'm greeted with feigned friendliness, high-pitched queries, and painted smiles. I'd actually prefer not to be. Just imagine the customer is a friend you've known for years. At least that's what I do when I try to help people pick out cheeses from the case. I smile because that's what you do when you're having a good time with friends.
It's pretty easy to tell when a corporate customer service model has jammed a friendliness micro-chip into its employees' brains. And there's nothing more distasteful. If people like your stuff and feel at ease doing business with you because you're innately a nice person, then they will buy your product whether you're having an incredibly smiley day or not. That's what friends do. They welcome your varying and normal levels of joy because the most important thing they get from the relationship is you. So obviously, I just need to approach the next celebrity that comes in and ask to be their friend. Yes, by god, that's the trick! I'll let you know how that goes.
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