I have had just about enough of being treated like a second-class citizen, simply because I happen to be that put-upon member of societya customer. The more I go into shops and hotels, banks and post Offices, railway stations, airports and the like, the more I m convinced that things are being run solely to suit the firm, the system, or the union. There seems to be a harmful new motto for so-called service organizationsStaff Before Service.
How often, for example, have you queued for what seems like hours at the Post Office or the supermarket because there weren t enough staff on duty to man all the service grilles of checkout counters? Surely in these days of high unemployment it must be possible to recruit cashiers and counter staff. Yet supermarkets, hinting darkly at higher prices, claim that enshrouding all their cash registers at any one time would increase overheads. And the Post Office says we cannot expect all their service grilles to be occupied at times when demand is low.
It s the same with hotels. Because waiters and kitchen staff must finish when it suits them, dining rooms close earlier or menu choice is curtailed. As for us guests, we just have to put up with it. There s also the nonsense of so many so friendly hotel night porters having been dismissed in the interests of efficiency and replaced by coin guzzling machines. Not to mention the coldness of the tea-making kit in your room: a kettle with an assortment of teabags, plastic milk cartons and lump sugar. Who wants to wake up to a raw teabag? I don t, especially when I am paying for service .
