Coffee Service

At one time, when I was in the big bad corporate world, I ran a technical support team. I say with no sense of false modesty (natch) that I ran a great team. You see I had a philosophy that all products were the same no matter who you bought from, trucks, televisions, guns, whatever. All that separates companies is the quality of after sales care. Salesmen are lazy incompetent order takers that apparently avoid closing in order to focus on the big picture, usually from the confines of the golf course. Fortunately I had a boss who realized the importance of what I did and rewarded me handsomely for my efforts. I was given more money than I could spend and was allowed first dibs on the office women. All in all it was a sweet life. Now I only mention this as now I am a customer I am constantly appalled at the worthless imitation of service that most companies pretend to offer.

Case in point, last week my espresso machine gurgled, farted and then died. As you can imagine a Coffee House with no espresso is like a car with no starter, it looks the part but it ain’t gonna take you anywhere fast. So I call around the coffee companies in Bigtown. The first one I called told me “I don’t think we service espresso machines”. Well numbnuts, you either do or you don’t, thinking, in your case, doesn’t enter the equation. This went one all morning until I found someone that could speak in more than monosyllables. They agreed to take in the machine and repair it. Two days later I call then and they tell me that they don’t repair my particular model. However to make up for the inconvenience they will discount a new one from $6400 to $5000. Bastards. Needless to say I told them where they could stick their coffee machine and drove once more to Bigtown to collect mine.

During the weekend the Boss had the brilliant idea (and I wish that I could take credit for this) of calling in at another Coffee House and asking how they got their espresso machine serviced, they were happy to give her the number of a sole trader who makes his living from fixing these things. I called him up and he knew the model, the probable fault and said that he could fix it. Sadly for me he is so busy that he can’t get to us for three days, merde!

Of course the concept of poor or non-existent service trickles down through the industry. The Digital Queen of Smallville came in for her usual large skinny caramel and I was forced to turn her away empty handed. I think that the look of sadness on her face will haunt me forever. I hate to leave a good woman unsatisfied.

The Coffee Bitch

PS Just for fun, or probably out of desperation I reconnected the espresso machine and she fired up! If the DQ shows today she will be leaving with a big one in her hand, on me. Ahh Double entendres where would my life be without you.