What Goes Around Comes Around

I gave out a bigger than usual tip today to the shuttle bus driver who picked me up tonight. I usually try to give a decent tip. What goes around, comes around. And I don’t want any service people spreading the word that I am a jerk and then having to suffer the retribution that could result. And I can appreciate that many people depend on tips to stretch until the next pay day.

This shuttle bus driver made a little small talk, but was genuinely interested in what I had to say. You can tell when someone is sincere. In turn I became interested in what she had to say and I got to find out a lot about her views on past and present employment and her experiences with providing customer service. I learned some interesting things.

She used to be a supervisor at one of the news stands in the airport at LAX. It was long hours but the benefits were not bad, she said. A new ownership group took over and eliminated all vacation and health insurance benefits for all employees. Then they made all the supervisors salary people and demanded a 50 hour work week one week and a 60 work week the next. I don’t know the details, but this sounds like it may have been a violation of wage and hour rules in a any case. Her shift started at 4:30 in the morning and she had to wait for the next supervisor to arrive before she could leave, which many times was 4:30 in the afternoon.

And the company expected her and her staff to put on a happy face for customers and try to up-sell.

Now I am certainly in favor of controlling costs and making the best use of your labor talent pool. But when you secret shop a store and get a less than wonderful experience, it may be the company has set up a system that could not possibly result in good customer service.

Anyway, I appreciated the insights and her perspective and thought that was worth a bigger tip than usual.

She likes working for the hotel chain. People are encouraged to try to advance, the benefits are reasonably good and she gets to do a variety of customer service duties that help her learn the hotel business.

It sounds like this hotel chain probably gets a lot of repeat business and if I were secret shopping the shuttle driver, they would have gotten a good report, because she was personable and friendly and that made all the difference.