The Portugues Customer Services Manual

gormless

Apart from approximately twenty percent of employees in the retail and services industries, everyone follows the "Portuguese Customer Services Manual"

The twenty percent who do not follow it are either Brazilians or the odd Portugese (including some of staff of my local shops) who are either pathologically pleasant or have realized that being agreeable with one's customers and clients actually makes one's job easier and probably makes one either more tips or more sales.

The eighty percent who read the Customer Services Manual seem to take it as a religious text and follow it word for word. I give you here some excerpts:

Article 1 sub sect 1a. Primary Rule: Do Not Smile for ANY reason (obvious exceptions: mother, sister, granny, next door neighbour, etc. when they call in to the work place for a chat)

Article 14 sub sect 2c. Do not make eye contact with your current customer, instead watch disdainfully anyone who is not dressed to your exacting standards, i.e. not dressed EXACTLY as you are (under your uniform if that applies).

Article 19 sub sect 1f. If your customer happens NOT to be of the Portuguese race OR a native speaker make it QUITE clear that they are not going to be understood, WHATEVER THEY MIGHT SAY. (There are some people in our midst who may have learnt to speak the language extremely well and extremely quickly, namely some Ukrainians who have an extraordinary knack for this language. BE ON YOUR GUARD. JUMP on the first word that they pronounce incorrectly and claim that you don't know what on earth they are talking about).

Article 46 sub sect 2g Never EVER be influenced by your co-workers who are incredibly pleasant to their customers. Do NOT let it wear off on you. REMEMBER the MANUAL... PLEASANTNESS DOESN'T PAY.

Article 46 sub sect 2h There are some who pretend to be pleasant just to make the customer feel at their ease. They may think this profits them, but IN THE LONG RUN SMILING ALL DAY AT BLOODY CUSTOMERS GIVES THEM WRINKLES and we don't want WRINKLES do we?

Article 994 DESPERATE MEASURES. If all else fails, follow the example of this young co-worker in a Supermarket near you, who when she can't muster up the energy to be plain rude and unpleasant just does this face at her customers until they give up, leave their groceries at the checkout and go home...