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Excellent analysis. It was worth the read.

Thanks.

That said, even if I lived near enough to them to patronize their business, I would not. After all, even if the TV show was highly edited, there was certainly enough there to indict them. Yelling and swearing at customers and telling them not to return? Demanding they pay for food they’d been waiting over an hour for that they never received? Simply not acceptable.

In the spirit of fairness, the Bouzaglo’s claim that the diner who they cursed at and threw out even as they insisted he pay for the meal he hadn’t received after an hour + wait, was actually a “Blogger” or one of the people who posted negative reviews about them on Yelp and who had been harassing them on-line, invited by the producers and that he had started the confrontation which is not shown on the show. But then again, what did they expect? Shows like this count on controversy and craziness in order to get ratings and they; the Bouzaglo’s took the bait hook line and sinker. Even if it was a setup and they were provoked, one has to wonder if they act like that when they are being filmed, how do they act when the cameras are not around?

They did that to themselves.

Agreed. For many years, right out of high school, I worked in convenience store management and later in other retail establishments (grocery stores) before moving into payroll, benefits, HR information systems and human resource management, but I learned a lot at a very young age about working with people a lot more than I would have learned in a college business course.

For one thing, in working with the public you have to develop a thick skin and know the difference between a legitimate complaint, a rather unreasonable complaint that can still be resolved and a crazy bat guano customer. You need to learn the difference between when you go the extra step to satisfy a customer even if you think their complaint is unreasonable (the customer may not always be “right” but a satisfied customer is likely to be a return customer) and when to tell a highly abusive and unreasonable customer to get out and never come back.

I will never forget the day a nicely dressed professional looking woman came into my convenience store early one morning for some coffee. She complained that the creamer was curdled and showed it to me. I apologized profusely, told her to get another cup and that I would get fresh creamer for her and that her coffee would be free. And what was her reaction? She cursed at me and then threw the hot cup of coffee at my head. Thankfully I had quick reflexes back then and while the hot coffee missed my head it landed on my legs – but it was still painful. She stormed off and drove away. And I stood there in shock thinking “What the heck did I do wrong? What could I have done differently?” That is the extreme and the exception rather than the rule, but over the years I’ve had similar experiences with the public while working in retail – some people are just plain crazy or think that just because you work in a service position, they can treat you like crap. That’s just as inexcusable IMO as a business owner abusing their employees or customers – both are examples of people behaving badly and there is no excuse for it in a civilized society.

I also learned at a very young age how to deal with and manage employees. As a manager or employer, you have to have clearly defined and consistently enforced rules but they also have to be reasonable rules and fair. And you have to understand that sometimes employees will try to buck the system or will be critical of your decisions, either rightly or wrongly. Again you have to have a thick skin and not always take it personally or react out of anger. I’ve found that by listening to your employees that sometimes you can learn a lot from them – they are not always just complaining – sometimes they have good suggestions that are worth listening to.

A few years back I was managing a department at tech company that specialized in third party on-line benefits enrollment. I had an employee in my audit department who was an excellent worker, highly productive and was a real pleasure to work with. But as was normal for this company we went through yet another internal re-org and our department was re-named and on the advice of HR, many of our job titles were also re-named. This worker’s job title was changed from something like “Benefit Enrollment Technician” to “Benefit Audit Specialist”. It was only a job title change and I even asked her for her input before making the change (she had none), but after the change was made, one night as I was working very late I got a lengthy and rather angry email from her complaining about the job title change (to her it sounded like a demotion) along with a long laundry list of other complaints. I was completely floored and my first reaction was to reply to her in an angry email telling her that if she didn’t like her job, that she should find another. Then I calmed down and decided to not reply or react, to sleep on it and re-read it in the morning with a clear head.

I did that and then I invited her to meet with me later that day. As it turned out, once she and I had calmed down, she had a legitimate concern as people in the company who had the title of “Tech” were at a higher level than people who had the job title of “Specialist”, a “Specialist” was an entry level position in our org and she had been there for over 4 years and she was concerned that her co-workers might see the job title change as a demotion and that while she did not manage anyone directly she did help train and oversee the work of other more junior techs. One of her other “complaints” was that many other people in the company at a position similar to hers, were allowed to have laptops and work from home on occasion (and much like I did). She pointed out how many hours she put in and that when she had a child care issues or couldn’t come into the office because of weather, unlike many others in similar positions, she had to take PTO rather than having the option to work from home or make up the time that same week.

I listened to her complaints and realized that she raised some very good and legitimate points. I also pointed out to her that I had an “open door” policy and that she could have come to me at any time and raised these concerns and that when I had asked her for her input about the job title change and she seemed to be fine with it. She apologized and realized she handled it poorly. We talked a great length about communications and about if she ever had a concern that she could and should talk to me about it right away rather than holding it in and harboring resentment over it. We decided on a new job title “Senior Benefit Audit Technician” and I got her the ability to work remotely when needed. We also agreed to have weekly meetings and if she took on more responsibility for overseeing the junior techs, she would get a raise and promotion which she did. I also got her approved for some company paid management courses so that she could further her career.

While I was initially angry and took her complaints rather personally, a clear and level head and some management skills let me diffuse the situation and retain a very valuable and productive employee who was able to take over my role when I left the company for another position.

In my vast experience, over 30+ years and in working in many different lines of business, if you treat your employees and customers like crap, you will get crap employees and crap customers.