I set off to get fresh stocks of moth killer from our local hardware store, where I was offered a chance to enter a Summer Holiday Weekend Customer Draw for picnic ware. It being an IRISH holiday weekend, I put down my shopping bag, keys & umbrella, and rooted through my raincoat for a pen to fill up the form. Returning it, I gathered all my stuff up once more in order to leave –
“Goodbye”, I said. Then, “Oops! Keys! Nearly forgot!”
“If you’re like many of our customers, that’s no problem for you”, the hardware guy observed (we're old pals).
“What do you mean?”, I asked.
"They’d get home”, he said, “and find they didn’t have them. And then they’d call up on their phones, panicking about whether their keys were here. And we'd say, yes they are, we have them safe; and then they'd ask that one of us would drop them to their house...and be quick about it because they were in a hurry”
I said, “No WAY?!” because bad customer behaviour is one of my absolute favourites… I need to hear these stories which, if I didn’t know from personal experience exactly how awful people can be, I think I’d have trouble believing…. And some of the fascination is that many people have a lot of trouble believing, especially in relation to themselves…No self awareness is rife, as far as I can see, especially in dealings with the service industry…
These stories often prompt me to tell MY story about when I was very young – fourteen – and working a summer job in one of very few delicatessens that Dublin had at that point... there were only three I know of, at a time before supermarkets really got into gear. Delis were gastronomic treasure troves to which people flocked from all over especially at weekends. Where I worked was a roll mop, smoked salmon and mackerel mecca - and wildness was a simple given then. There was also quiche lorraine, savoury pie and ‘seventies party staples such as Russian salad, coleslaw, apple-and-celery salad, Black Forest gateau, marzipan petit fours and Belgian chocolate liqeurs. We constructed long lanes of apfel strudel on enormous greaseproof paper-lined baking trays, and glossed them with egg for baking - fat fruit pies too - and aromas drew people in from far and wide. We had selections of cold meats, cheeses and sausages, and the very first pizzas - with olives - and American baked cheesecakes heard of in Dublin (although to be honest that pizza had little in common with what we now think of as pizza). There was own brand too - tea, brown soda bread and ice cream - before own brand became an issue either, and these developed as enduring specialties even after the shop ceased to be. Juices, vinegars, oils and preserves… the stock list was endless and the shop was always busy with Saturdays frenzied, but the runs into bank holiday weekends were positively deranged.
There was no concession to age - a day’s work for a day’s pay was the rule, and I was proud of holding my own among adults. Surprisingly (considering how much effort I put into avoiding it these days), I actually liked the kitchen, but dear lord, I abhorred the shop – It wasn't the co-workers who, with the exception of one witch, were mostly fine;. I had no problem either in learning the choreography of many people being busy in different directions within the confined space of behind the counter... No, all the practicalities were fine. But it was the never ending stream of customers which terrified me: relentless, demanding, exhausting and periodically mad.
One particular holiday weekend, the queues were out the door and up the street. The store owner - who generally operated out back and in the office - had also donned his shop coat and come on the floor to serve and everyone was working, hell-for-leather. A customer arrived - a regular - whose parties were newspaper gossip fodder of that era. Barging her way right to the top of the section of the queue I was serving (which from my point of view comprised many more exactly like her), she began smartly rapping her keys on the glass counter and calling out, "Service, please".
I said, “Excuse me, Mrs. So-and-So - I’m already serving this person and, as you can see, more are waiting there, so if you could just join the queue there, I'd be glad to…”
“Such impertinence!”, she pronounced. “How dare you, you impudent thing?”, and began calling loudly down the long counter for the owner.
An unnatural quiet enveloped the shop, as pretty much everyone became curious as to the next development. My boss began to make his way down the counter through the rest of the attendants, and the way I was seeing it, it was simply a matter of whether I should get my coat there and then and leave, or wait for the row - because I was certain that I was about to be fired.. Even at fourteen, I knew how things worked.
Presently the owner arrived -“What’s the problem?”, he asked.
“I’ve given you my business for many years", began the irate socialite, "and the thanks I get is that gel there, that FAIR gel, is that she's been unpardonably rude to me, John”,
“What happened?”, Mr. McCambridge asked me.
I told him..
“Good girl”, he said. “Perfectly right. Are you ok? – would you like to take your tea break now?
“Now Mrs. So-and-So, now if you wish, please take your place in the queue and we’ll get to you in due course- we’re delaying many customers here. Otherwise good bye and thank you.....Next ….”
As though every ounce of energy was sucked out of where I was standing, leaving behind nothing whatsoever, I don't remember anything else. All I retain from the experience is a knowledge that occasionally, just occasionally, you meet decency.. Which is nice to know. Pity too that Mr. McCambridge isn't still around to ask more, but tragically he's not.
And a post script is that I’ve also met the woman a few times later in life in other guises and learned that when she doesn't consider you something stuck on the heel of her shoe, you’d nearly think she was nice... I often wondered would I bother to let her know how she looked from where I was standing in that deli, but up to now, I haven't.
