It's cell phone time at the check-out lines again.
Yesterday, I was working with a soft-spoken customer, a very nice woman who had a few questions about her order, wondering if she was buying the right ingredients for what she was planning to cook (and she was). We had some difficulty with our conversation, however, because another woman in my line was having a very loud conversation on her cell phone. It was hard to hear my soft-spoken customer because of how loudly the other woman was carrying on.
How loud was she? Well, it was very hard to hear anything over her conversation... and she was the fourth customer in the line at that point. She was at least three yards away.
And she continued to talk that loudly all the time while I worked with customers two and three, completely oblivious to how her noisemaking was affecting the people around her.
So, of course, when she finally hung up (right about the time I finished ringing up and bagging her order), her first words to me were "Sorry about that."
No, Ma'am, you are not truly sorry about that. You could have cut off that conversation at any point and saved us all a lot of earache. I know because I had to listen to your half of the conversation. It was not a conversation of any earthshattering consequence. It was a conversation filled with drivel. The only thing earthshattering about the conversation was your voice being turned up to eleven. You could easily have waited to have your conversation. While driving, perhaps.
I just kicked up my Danny Meyer hospitality a couple of extra notches and smiled and told her how much money she owed.
And, boy, did the next customer in line have a few things to say about her once she left!
