Why it should be okay to tell customers “no”

And why more businesses should stop being afraid to say it

Imagine this; you’re at a busy restaurant waiting for a table amongst a few other patient parties (I know this may feel like some long-forgotten memory after the year we all had, but I implore you to try). Just as you see a table open up, in walks an entitled Senior Karen who is apparently incapable of recognizing anyone else’s existence and promptly seats herself at the freshly cleaned table. The two young hosts at the front desk give each other an exasperated glance before one walks over to the line-cutter. You see the host, with a smile that screams “corporate-mandated” plastered on her face, gesture to you and the other parties waiting patiently as she tries to find the kindest, most mature way to phrase “no cuts, no butts, no coconuts”.

Everyone observing waits with anticipation for the inevitable. You overhear the classic “I’ve been coming here for years” escape Senior Karen’s lips, but the young host holds firm. With a look of defeat Senior Karen gets up in a flurry and bustles out of the restaurant. You can almost feel the tension in the lobby evaporate as the rightful party is escorted to the once-again vacant table. But not before Senior Karen barges back into the restaurant, taking no time to get right into the host’s face as she demands to know her name and let her know how absurd it is that people are expected to wait for a table at a busy restaurant.

You watch half shocked, half amused as this elderly lady invades the personal space of the young woman who could barely be considered a legal adult, spittle flying from her lips as she jabs he finger at the young woman (I know I’m asking a lot here, but just try to imagine not only a crowded restaurant, but also a time where the concept social distancing didn’t exist) threatening to have her fired after Senior Karen writes a tell-all email to the manager. All the while, the host holds firm. Despite a deranged Karen screaming mere inches from her face, the host maintains that corporate-mandated smile, offering her apologies over the injustice of having to wait your turn. Seeing that this host isn’t going to cave, Senior Karen leaves once more, and it seems to be final this time. After the departure, you see a manager ask the host if they’re okay, and the busy restaurant returns to functioning as it should, serving mature and competent patrons.

We’ve all experienced or heard of an encounter similar to the one described above. With the help of social media, it has even become easier to watch such public freakouts from all over the world. But this particular one is special to me because I was that host. I often look back on this story with mixed regard, as it highlights some of the best, and some of the worst, lessons learned while working in the service industry.

I worked most of my young-adult life in restaurants and retail, and I am both grateful and resentful for the near decade I endured in the hospitality industry. On the one hand, I learned the benefits of choosing kindness and positivity in the (quite literal) face of adversity. I also picked up other skills that have easily transferred to broader aspects of my life, like how to maximize my workflow and gaining skills in maintaining cleanliness that a teenage me would have disregarded. The skills you pick up in the restaurant industry turn out to transfer over to a wide range of other career opportunities and helpful life habits. The other side, however, is entrenched in a weird power dynamic between a young me, just figuring out how to interact with others in the “real world”, and the entitled customer who knows my employer’s business model will almost certainly find them in the right.

For a young individual like myself, I relied on my overly-enthusiastic, social-anxiety driven personality to please the customers I encountered and prove that I was an employee worth keeping around to my bosses. This lead me down a multi-year journey of learning to accept abuse from others simply because I thought I needed to do so in order to pay my bills. And sadly I know this experience isn’t unique to myself.

The current “customer is King” business model that currently dominates capitalist America is detrimental to everyone involved, other than perhaps the shareholders. The employees having to deal with Karens on a daily basis suffer in the form of verbal abuse, all while having to restrain their spine and give these entitled pricks nothing but encouragement to continue their rude, harmful behavior. At this same restaurant where I encountered Senior Karen, I witnessed another woman complain about there being too much ice in her iced tea (I wish I was joking). When my manager apologized and tried to right the situation, the customer felt it was necessary to call her a “bitch”, to which she was given a free dessert.

Imagine if you were rewarded with free dessert for taking your bad day out on someone else, and the people giving you that dessert were the exact same people you misdirected your emotions at. It reinforces the notion that it is completely okay to treat others rudely, because all that becomes of it is you getting free stuff. This type of negative behavior is constantly rewarded in the service industry, and it doesn’t only negatively effect those having to weather the storm. Continuing to be rewarded for bad behavior is harmful to someone’s individual growth as well, as they are less likely to notice how their behavior is detrimental and therefore less likely to try and make a positive change. And while these bad actors are being positively reinforced for their crappy behavior, their victims are being encouraged (and sometimes rewarded) for putting up with it.

This cycle of toxic behavior is perpetuated, presumably because companies are terrified of using one simple word; “no”. There were a few set ideals at this restaurant where I experienced Iced Tea Lady and Senior Karen, and one of those ideals was “never saying no”. Even if the answer to a question, or demand, was no we couldn’t actually use the word “no”. We were expected to coddle our customers because that two letter word proved to be so treacherous that it was simply better for business to pretend that it didn’t exist.

While that specific mantra, if you could even call it that, was only ever directly stated at that specific restaurant, it is an ideal that I’ve observed to be held across virtually all retail and restaurant establishments in the current capitalist climate. But I would argue that sheltering customers from the harsh reality that they can’t always get what they want isn’t good for anyone, and as we continue forward into this new, chaotic decade, we should all be more willing to say and accept the word “no”. Especially if it’s in regards to something as silly and miniscule as an empty table or an iced tea.