How To Get Away With Being Bad At Your Job (Service Edition)

Customer service! When it’s good it’s good, when it’s fine it’s good, and when it’s bad it can ruin your whole experience — BUT ONLY SOMETIMES.

EXAMPLE ONE — OKAY
I got breakfast on Saturday at a place that had pretty shitty service, but it was FINE because the dude was super busy and he was obviously doing the best he could. He also had a great smile and made some little jokes when he did finally circle around. ALLOWED. Would go again, sure.

EXAMPLE TWO — NOT OKAY
Yesterday I got a bloody mary and some fries at bar in a hotel in Brooklyn with five thousand employees, five patrons (at that early hour), and shitty service. BUT, the shitty service did not come with a smile, instead it came with terrible energy because everyone was ACTIVELY, LAUGHABLY RUDE AND MISERABLE. It was like someone had given them all direction to act as terrible as possible. I still had fun because friends and also triumph of the human spirit. But that place sucks so hard that I won’t go back even if someone else is paying (big), and EVEN MORE TELLING, I was ALMOST tempted to write a Yelp review.

SO, IN CONCLUSION: You can be terrible at your job and get away with almost anything if you’re nice.

P.S. I didn’t pay for either of these outings because of a combination of generous friends (

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