Maybe you're the problem

“I'll have another one,” she said, tapping the edge of her empty glass.

I had just walked in the door and past her sitting at the bar. I was still putting my cash drawer down. It was literally 10 seconds into my workday. But stepping behind the bar is stepping behind the bar.

“Another?” I asked.

“The same thing,” she said.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I don't know what that was.”

She rolled her eyes, but she told me, which in the greater scheme of things is all that was necessary. If you're going to be successful as a bartender, you have to learn to let things slide off your back.

“Vodka, shaken with fresh basil,” she said.

“Just basil?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, rolling her eyes again. “Why does everyone question that?”

Recognizing the problem is not the same as preventing the problem. And some problems cannot be prevented.

“Probably just to be sure,” I said.

But boy was that the wrong thing to say.

She took it as a challenge and then went on a several-minute rant about how she can never get what she wants anywhere. And how service is declining, and how many service people are just plain stupid. She didn't say any of this to me directly. She said it to her nodding friend sitting right in front of me.

“Coming in hot” is what we call it. In the customer service business, one of the hardest people to deal with is the one with a chip on their shoulder, because they're never going to look at it that way.

“Can we at least get some water?”

At least?

Yes, I heard it. I know what that means. It's meant to suggest that something hasn't happened as they believe it should have. It doesn't matter if the menu says “water on request” or if there's a gigantic sign that says it, they have been slighted, and they want you to know it.