The Grand Canyon is one of the largest tourist attractions in the US, and it draws visitors from all over the world. It is also staffed by people from around the world, which makes my recent experience at a Grand Canyon deli a bit surprising.
The deli would not be a top candidate for an award for following the efficiency principles that once made the Ford corporation the admiration of the world. In fact, I was quite shocked at the number of people standing around doing nothing while others were manning 2 or 3 stations simultaneously. Many hungry visitors, myself included, were surprised at the extreme slowness of the cashiers, until we realized that they were also making the fancy coffee drinks while other people stood around and chatted.
The man in front of me on line wanted a cup of decaf. That’s all he wanted, but he’s not from this country and English is not his first language, so he asked for a cup of coffee with no caffeine. Nothing was wrong with the request. He pronounced everything correctly. He was audible, polite, and clear. Of course, American counter workers are not programmed to listen to these requests, and possibly have no idea what the difference between coffee and “decaf” might be, aside from the color coffee pot.
So, the kid behind the counter got confused, then started cross questioning the man. “What? Coffee? A Latte? Do you want a latte? What kind of latte? Espresso? Skim milk?”
The man, manfully, repeated his simple request for a cup of coffee with no caffeine. The kid, nonplussed, continued to rattle off cryptic coffee language in a desperate attempt to figure out what was going on. Even I, a fairly fluent native speaker, didn’t understand what he was jabbering.
As I watched this exchange, my stomach growling, I got frustrated, then a bit perturbed. Why on earth was this kid behaving like this? Had no one let on the simple secret to finding out what your customer wants: listening instead of talking? Obviously the man had an accent of some sort, so perhaps listening to him and trying to figure out what he wanted rather than stunning him with a miscellany of coffee-related terms picked up from Starbucks might have been an appropriate response. I looked for a manager, but the only possibility appeared to be deep in conversation with another kid about the appropriate ratio of frozen sausage bits to “pizza.”
Finally, feeling faint and slightly hypoglycemic, I stepped in…. “He wants a cup of decaf.” I said. The man turned to look at me, and said, “Coffee.” And I nodded and said, “Coffee…no caffeine?” He smiled—woo hoo, someone was listening to him. “Yes. Coffee. No Caffeine. Decaf.” I looked at the kid and said again, “Decaf. He wants a decaf. No caffeine.” The kid said, “Oh! Decaf! That’s at the next counter, Sir” and pointed helpfully before ignoring the Italian-speaking family behind me who had said “no” to pizza because they wanted the fried chicken.
At the next counter, the man asked for decaf and everyone was happy…except the people still patiently waiting to get their chicken.
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