Every heard the term “Coffee shop attitude?”

If not, I’m sure you know all about bad service, whether it’s a stoner serving coffee, or say, a plumber with a house note and problems with his wife that you need to hear all about.

These days, if I want great service I have to pay the highest price imaginable for it.

If I’m traveling, I have to choose – for example – Ritz Carlton, a company that trains its employees in the fine art of great customer service.

Of course, I’m looking at $500.00/night on up for said service, but it’s well worth it given the alternative.

If I want a great overall dining experience with air-conditioning and hand towels, I have to pick the most expensive place in a given city or I put up with cultural flu.

How exactly does this ‘attitude’ play out?

Simple:

WAITER

“You [the customer] make me feel like giving a shit. If you’re successful I’ll pass you a plate without dropping it in your lap.”

In the case of a plumber [and I use ‘plumbing’ randomly], you have to offer restroom facilities, cold drinks and sometimes gas money to Home Depot when they don’t have the part they need on their trucks.

When did this all this crap start? The entitlement?

I remember when plumbers, waiter, electricians, gardeners – suppliers of every kind – were appreciative and polite to their customers.

It’s how they got what was once known as repeat business.

As kids we were taught that the nicer you were to your customers, the more money you made.

It seemed pretty simple at the time.

But today, people resent serving anyone who doesn’t kiss their butts – as if we [the people paying for their services] owe them special treatment for assisting us in exchange for our money.

Obviously, people are feeling more and more invisible in a world where respect is a birthright, not something earned.

Maybe it’s the fact that I’m older, more successful, and, generally speaking, more experienced that I expect more.

But in the end it doesn’t matter what the rationale is.

What does matter is where they’ll be in ten years when cleaning dishes is no longer cool.

Note: This discussion is slightly off topic, but I couldn’t help myself after some moron at an organic hamburger joint was too stoned to understand the meaning of “I’d like a hamburger with lettuce wrap and sweet potato fries” all in the same sentence.

By the way, I want to smack that douche in the photograph above, and I know you do, too.