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There are a number of subjects that never fail to get my
attention. On more than one occasion I have written
about the service industry in the country and made
whatever complaints it was that I had at the time.
The truth of the matter is, I have no intention of
changing the complaint part, and I do have every
intention of, yet again, ranting and raving on the
consistent failures of the available service
industry of the country.
The strip that runs from around Dreamliner Hotel to Meskel
Flower Hotel on Gabon Street offers an array of
cafes and restaurants. As my luck would have it, it
is an area I frequent often, and, with my addiction
to coffee and food, I have made it a point to try
just about every establishment in the area. Now, had
the products they were offering been inferior, I
would just have chalked it up to a general lack of
quality and the carelessness of Ethiopian business
owners and left it at that. Unfortunately that is
not the case at all.
My disappointment does not lie with the products that are
being offered and the amount of technical flaws that
can be found in the various businesses, but rather
with the sort of staff they wish to hire to serve
their customers. The staff that a company hires is
the face of that establishment. It is the image that
the institution wishes to portray to its customers
and can function as an appeal to new business.
The sad thing is, I have yet to run into a server, whether
male or female, that has fulfilled at least 50pc of
the basic requirements of a professional server. The
most fundamental failure that I have found is one
having to do with cleanliness. Most servers are
unhygienic. It is the norm to find dirty aprons,
stained shirts, jeans that look like they have been
put through a tornado just of the purpose of turning
off customers, and of course unkempt hair. Uniforms
are never worn in the appropriate manner to the
point where you may not even be able to recognise
the wait staff in some of the places you sit down.
And the management does nothing to change this.
Maybe I am taking things too far, considering the context
in which we find ourselves, but the fact of the
matter is the most important aspect of a wait staff
is to have them be as neat and as presentable as
possible. As the saying goes, “cleanliness is next
to godliness.” The servers are, after all, handling
products, whether drinks or food, that the customer
is going to ingest. I for one am not comfortable
with consuming something that has been put on the
table with hands that look like they need a scrub
down. For that matter, I am not comfortable being in
the same space with people that appear as though
they may need to be disinfected.
Having worked in the service sector as a young adult, there
is a certain appreciation that you pick up for the
standards and norms of the industry. There are solid
reasons for all the regulations that are put into
place. For instance, take the importance of closed
toe shoes that have a solid grip. This saves not
only the server but the business from a lot of
headache. The more sensible their shoes, the less
likely they are to slip on wet areas and have
accidents. The fact that their shoes are covered
saves them from broken glass, from hot items that
spill in the kitchen and the overall inconsideration
of large crowds that have the tendency not to look
where they step.
And then there is the little issue of hair. Finding specs
of hair in one's food and drink is not something
that can be considered out of the norm in this
country. More often than not, the service staff, as
well as the kitchen staff; do not keep their hair
tied back above their collar. The use of hairnets
and hair covers are something that are alien to our
service sector and the only thing that I cannot put
my finger on is the reason behind it. With hair
flowing in just about every direction, the issues of
hygiene are thrown squarely out of the window.
More so than anything else, there is the issue of simply
not caring. It is as though the staff do not take
pride in their work. They do not seem eager to work
for their tips and they just do not give a rat's
dirty behind about the reputation of the business
and the sort of image that it is trying to project.
They appear to drag their feet, they show complete
disinterest, and they would rather spend time with
their colleagues than pay attention to the floor; it
is in one word a disaster.
Perhaps that is why there are so few service establishments
that have managed to survive and be commended for
their great service. Perhaps if business owners
would pay just a little bit more attention to the
details, we would not be dealing with dirty staff
and questionable hygiene in the establishments that
we frequent. |
