I like mustard. My son likes mustard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When my parents drove to town to take my oldest son to celebrate his belated birthday, they told him to pick his favorite place to eat. We arrived at his favorite sandwich shop and we ordered. At the end of ordering, I asked for seven mustard packets. When we venture out for a treat, my son and I always ask for seven mustard packets: four for him, three for me.<\/p>\n
The cashier barked for all to hear, \u201cSeven mustard packets? Well, that\u2019s excessive!\u201d<\/p>\n
I was a bit taken aback by his announcement, but cheerfully responded, \u201cOh, we like mustard.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cashier glared at me and repeated himself loudly, \u201cYou don\u2019t need seven mustard packets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Okay, dude. It\u2019s late afternoon, we haven\u2019t had lunch, we\u2019re hungry, and you\u2019re trying to mustard-shame me? We just paid over $50 for overpriced sandwiches and now you\u2019re telling me what I don\u2019t need? No.<\/em><\/p>\n If we weren\u2019t celebrating my son\u2019s birthday, I would have made us all walk out. I re-played my words in my head and questioned myself, was I disrespectful in how I ordered the food? Did I somehow trigger this guy\u2019s anger?<\/em> I took a deep breath and questioned, \u201cExcuse me?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou heard me,\u201d he scowled.<\/p>\n I\u2019d like to say that I was calm and mature enough to recognize that this was not a big deal.\u00a0 Nope.<\/em>\u00a0 I felt like he was trying to pull some weird power move over me. I wanted to jump across the counter and slap some sense into this guy.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re talking about seven mustard packets, Man. We just ordered five foot-long sandwiches. This is ridiculous,\u201d I barked back.<\/p>\n I turned to join my family at the table, steaming. They were all staring at me. My dad told me to let it go, adding, \u201cYou don\u2019t know what he\u2019s dealing with.\u201d My son asked, \u201cWhy is that guy so mad? I can have my sandwich without mustard if they ran out.\u201d<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Food service is tough. We should all work in food service at some point in our lives because it makes us work through difficult customer situations daily and that gives us practice and perspective. At the diner where I worked in high school, customers complained about the food, left pennies as a tip, and giant messes on the floor. Customers can be demanding, rude, and entitled.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>It is hard to keep a smile on your face when you\u2019re on your feet for eight hours, serving ungracious customers. I get it. But, when we\u2019re in the service industry, every customer interaction matters to the overall business. The cost of customer acquisition is high; losing a loyal customer over a mustard packet is expensive.<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em>But before I go off on a tirade about Mr. Mustard-Hater, let\u2019s squeeze some mustard out on me. Why was I getting so angry for someone calling me out on such a trivial thing?\u00a0 Looking back, that was my fourth year of being a stay-at-home mom for my boys. In my opinion, the mom gig is emotionally, mentally, and physically tougher than food service. My boys were in a bad mood, hungry, and I was trying to arrange a fun outing because our earlier activity didn\u2019t work out.<\/em><\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n A few minutes passed and a different cashier switched with Mr. Mustard-Hater.\u00a0 I waited patiently until he had finished ringing up his customer and I asked, \u201cWhat\u2019s going on with the other cashier? This has to be something bigger than a few extra mustard packets.\u201d<\/p>\n The new cashier looked behind him for Mr. Mustard-Hater, who had moved to the back, \u201cYeah, I\u2019m really sorry about that. We had a bad day. We ran out of bread during the lunch rush and had a line out the door. Everyone was yelling at us and there was nothing we could do. It wasn\u2019t our fault that the bread delivery didn\u2019t make it.\u201d<\/p>\n I was the mustard packet that broke the camel\u2019s back. Although it wasn\u2019t fair that Mr. Mustard-Hater shifted his anger toward me, it reminded me of my dad\u2019s words: We never know what people are dealing with. When anger arises, there\u2019s usually something happening behind the scenes – both in ourselves and in other people.<\/p>\n We all have a mustard packet story or two, where something trivial sparks a big reaction and tells a bigger story. Whether we\u2019re guilty of being \u201cMr. Mustard-Hater\u201d or \u201cMs. Must-Have-Mustard,\u201d we\u2019ve all been one or the other at some point in our own stories. So I guess, it\u2019s really never been about the mustard at all.<\/p>\n
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