HOLES
and no one to fill 'em.
All I wanted was a
bagel.
Technically, I suppose, I wanted four bagels. But you gotta figure that where there's one, there's four. And also that where there should be dozens, there will at least be four. Which, of course, shows you how little I've learned from the ongoing epidemic of customer service fiascos.
Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill. 11:20 on a typically hustling, bustling Saturday morning. All sorts of cell phone, strollers, and lattes on parade, flailing and flying in the manic hands of the sandaled, khakied throng, everyone flitting about at full-throat and full-throttle, beginning to think about feeding and filling their broods. The streets are alive. The shops are only slightly embalmed. It's prime time for bagel-buying.
I slide into Panera Bread. The wi-fi is working, but the employees are not; two guys sit tap-tap-tapping away at their laptops, but everyone in an apron is standing still-still-still behind the counter, no doubt calculating the time until one of them is forced to refill the sample basket. I sample a sample. Pumpkin-spice bagel. A little early in the season, I think, but a nice idea. Or it would be, anyway, if it weren't rock hard and sandstone dry. I scan the bins. One or two decaying Cinnamon Crunches. A Sesame that seems to be missing at least half its seeds. A few other random, sickly bagels, looking like they might have been plucked from the rooftop of a New Orleans Panera and air-lifted to Pittsburgh, hoping, perhaps, to find a good home for refugee baked goods. It will not be with me.
I turn, retreat, leave. Dive back among the teeming masses on Murray. I'm almost clipped by a stroller the size of a Hummer. The mother-driver would have swerved, I'm sure, if she'd finished dialing or drinking in time to see me. Quick left, couple of steps, left again. Lunge for the door.
I slip into Brueggers Bagel Bakery. Good bagels, lovely alliteration. I stroll to the counter, where two workers are waiting and smiling wanly. They do not ask if they can help me. Before I can be bothered by this, I see why. Behind them are twelve huge bagel bins holding precisely three bagels. Three. At a place called Brueggers Bagel Bakery. At 11:25 on a Saturday morning in Squirrel Hill. Not to dwell on nomenclature. Or on ontology. But this is like going to Pizza Hut at 5:30 on a Saturday evening and seeing that they've run out of pizza. Like going to Coffee Tree Roasters on a Sunday morning and finding that they have no coffee, no trees, and refuse to roast anything. Like going to Paul's CDs and discovering that he's got only LPs and 8-tracks. It's your name. It's your business. It's what you do.
Or at least what you're supposed to do. Which, ever more these days, is just too damned much to expect.
I look at the two employees, who are still smiling wanly and no doubt hoping I'll order all three of their bagels. (If I did, perhaps, there'd be no work left to do.) They do not speak, so I do: Stock's a little low today, huh? Getting the humor but missing the sarcasm, they respond in unison: Yep!
Here, finally, I have learned my lesson. I do not engage them. I do not continue. I do not even think about staying to ask them why. I just turn on my heel and leave, their empty, smiling faces and empty, frowning bins hanging expectantly in the air behind me, unaccompanied by fresh-baked scents of anything.
As I head toward home, my mind begins to wander. If I had stayed, had asked, had engaged, what would they have said? That the kitchen was a little backed up? That there was a small problem with some oven knobs? That they'd run out of tongs? Would they have been angered by my asking, my wondering, my silly and apparently irrational expectation that a bagel bakery actually bake and have bagels to sell? Would they have agonized, apologized, just remained anesthetized? Or would they have said nothing at all, offering not so much as an explanation, much less an excuse?
In the end, it doesn't matter. And I'm beginning to think that it never did. Because the more we see and the less we get, the less we want and the more we still lose, the more I realize that in the great big bagel of customer service, all we ever seem to get is the hole.
Technically, I suppose, I wanted four bagels. But you gotta figure that where there's one, there's four. And also that where there should be dozens, there will at least be four. Which, of course, shows you how little I've learned from the ongoing epidemic of customer service fiascos.
Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill. 11:20 on a typically hustling, bustling Saturday morning. All sorts of cell phone, strollers, and lattes on parade, flailing and flying in the manic hands of the sandaled, khakied throng, everyone flitting about at full-throat and full-throttle, beginning to think about feeding and filling their broods. The streets are alive. The shops are only slightly embalmed. It's prime time for bagel-buying.
I slide into Panera Bread. The wi-fi is working, but the employees are not; two guys sit tap-tap-tapping away at their laptops, but everyone in an apron is standing still-still-still behind the counter, no doubt calculating the time until one of them is forced to refill the sample basket. I sample a sample. Pumpkin-spice bagel. A little early in the season, I think, but a nice idea. Or it would be, anyway, if it weren't rock hard and sandstone dry. I scan the bins. One or two decaying Cinnamon Crunches. A Sesame that seems to be missing at least half its seeds. A few other random, sickly bagels, looking like they might have been plucked from the rooftop of a New Orleans Panera and air-lifted to Pittsburgh, hoping, perhaps, to find a good home for refugee baked goods. It will not be with me.
I turn, retreat, leave. Dive back among the teeming masses on Murray. I'm almost clipped by a stroller the size of a Hummer. The mother-driver would have swerved, I'm sure, if she'd finished dialing or drinking in time to see me. Quick left, couple of steps, left again. Lunge for the door.
I slip into Brueggers Bagel Bakery. Good bagels, lovely alliteration. I stroll to the counter, where two workers are waiting and smiling wanly. They do not ask if they can help me. Before I can be bothered by this, I see why. Behind them are twelve huge bagel bins holding precisely three bagels. Three. At a place called Brueggers Bagel Bakery. At 11:25 on a Saturday morning in Squirrel Hill. Not to dwell on nomenclature. Or on ontology. But this is like going to Pizza Hut at 5:30 on a Saturday evening and seeing that they've run out of pizza. Like going to Coffee Tree Roasters on a Sunday morning and finding that they have no coffee, no trees, and refuse to roast anything. Like going to Paul's CDs and discovering that he's got only LPs and 8-tracks. It's your name. It's your business. It's what you do.
Or at least what you're supposed to do. Which, ever more these days, is just too damned much to expect.
I look at the two employees, who are still smiling wanly and no doubt hoping I'll order all three of their bagels. (If I did, perhaps, there'd be no work left to do.) They do not speak, so I do: Stock's a little low today, huh? Getting the humor but missing the sarcasm, they respond in unison: Yep!
Here, finally, I have learned my lesson. I do not engage them. I do not continue. I do not even think about staying to ask them why. I just turn on my heel and leave, their empty, smiling faces and empty, frowning bins hanging expectantly in the air behind me, unaccompanied by fresh-baked scents of anything.
As I head toward home, my mind begins to wander. If I had stayed, had asked, had engaged, what would they have said? That the kitchen was a little backed up? That there was a small problem with some oven knobs? That they'd run out of tongs? Would they have been angered by my asking, my wondering, my silly and apparently irrational expectation that a bagel bakery actually bake and have bagels to sell? Would they have agonized, apologized, just remained anesthetized? Or would they have said nothing at all, offering not so much as an explanation, much less an excuse?
In the end, it doesn't matter. And I'm beginning to think that it never did. Because the more we see and the less we get, the less we want and the more we still lose, the more I realize that in the great big bagel of customer service, all we ever seem to get is the hole.
Posted: Sat - September 17, 2005 at 12:51 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:49 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:49 PM