There has been a brief correspondence in the Letters column recently about the maddening way shop assistants have of saying "Are you OK?" when what you want is "Can/may I help you?".
This rang a heart-warming bell, for I expatiated on this very subject in this newspaper some time ago, going on about how in return I always felt obliged to fill the girl in (it is usually a female) about my lower back pain and about how I couldn't seem to shake off this darn cold. And watched her file me away mentally as a loony, and knew that my satiric point had been entirely missed.
In the face of repeated failure, my attitude has hardened. The very least I will accept now is: "How may I, in all humble servitude, be of assistance?" Short of that, I turn imperiously on my heel and go to be insulted in another shop instead.
Nasty habits
But in the meantime I have bad news for those letter-writers. These half-witted kids are trained to be like that. The institute where their peculiarly nasty habits are inculcated has been overlooked by our otherwise excellent "College Choice" feature, but I am here to tell you that it exists.
Pass with me, if you will, through a flaking brown door not far from South Great George's Street in this very capital, and mount three flights of stairs (there is, of course, no lift). On a frosted glass door read the legend "Dublin Institute of Applied Retail Stupidity".
In the first room we enter, a class is being held: the course is a basic one, Change-Giving 101. It is a role-playing lesson: half the class take the part of "customer" and the other half of "server". Each server is carefully balancing coins on top of banknotes, thereby creating an unstable change mountain. An invigilator with a clipboard stands near, keen of eye. If the customer succeeds in taking the precarious change pile in both hands without dropping it, a minus-10 mark is entered against the server.
More advanced versions of this course are in progress among other groups: in one, for example, the customer is allowed to use only one hand to accept the change pile, the second being occupied by a shopping bag, walking stick or briefcase. If, in spite of this added handicap, the customer still fails to drop the change, the server is docked 20 points by the invigilator.
Dropping the lot
In another the servers are artfully placing a receipt between the coins and banknotes on their pile, thereby increasing by 33.333 per cent the danger of the customer dropping the whole lot as he or she tries to slide the receipt out. The uncarpeted room is loud with the cacophony of dropped coinage and youthful derisive cheering.
Down the hall, at a "Sandwich Counter" educational facility, customers are ordering hypothetical sandwiches of varying degrees of complexity. We eavesdrop on one of the simpler transactions.
Customer: "A white roll with butter, sliced turkey and mayonnaise, please."
Server: "Was that a white roll or a brown roll?"
Customer: "White".
"Do you want butter on it?"
"Yes."
"Sorry, we have no ham left."
"I didn't ask for ham. I asked for turkey."
"There you are so, white roll with butter and turkey."
"What about the mayonnaise?" "Did you ask for mayonnaise?" And so on.
The invigilator steps forward with an approving smile. "Excellent, server. You didn't remember a single element of the order. Full marks. Pass on to the two-sandwich stage. Customer, if you're going to simulate rage and frustration, you're going to have to work on it. That's not nearly apoplectic enough. Next."
Rage and frustration
But by this time, I am staggering from the room and, blinded by my own rage and frustration, am unable to find the stairs. A sad-looking girl student comes out of an office marked "Certification". "Can I, or more correctly, may I help you?" she inquires. I start back, confounded. "No, I'm OK," I reply, and immediately bite my tongue. Recovering, I note her distress and say to her: "But soft! Why so glum?"
She shows me a certificate stamped across in red with the word "Failed". "What am I going to do now?" she wails pitiably. "My life's ambition was to be a shop assistant and be mannerly to people." "Mourn not, pretty child," I comfort her. "You have a great future ahead of you as a sentient human being."