It's three days before Christmas and yes I am ready. In fact I have been for awhile now. No secret to it. I start early and each year we have a budget as to the amount we want to pay for each gift. It's surprising what you can find within your budget if you look for it.
I keep a little book in my purse and as I visit with family and friends throughout the year, I jot down ideas in it, so I have some help as to deciding what to get them.
All our gifts are not big ticket items, they are gifts that say, thank you for being who you are throughout the year by being our friends and family.
Let's now turn our minds to our past (depending on how old you are) when wages were small and some jobs have stayed the same over the years. One position was being a waitress. Waiting on people, whether then or now have not changed. Some people are a joy to serve and others, well, you wish they hadn't come into the place to eat. The first job I worked at in a restaurant paid me 25 cents an hour. Imagine that. I had to quit to get a raise to 50 cents.
Through out my life I have worked at one place or another as a waitress. I learned that I loved customer service and dealing with unhappy customers. I also learned to respect my co-workers even if I didn't really like them personally. She knew her job and was really good at it. I learned from her regardless of how I felt about her. I have never held any job that there wasn't a negative aspect to it. There is in every job out there I imagine. I must admit that as small as my wages were at that time, along with my husbands wages, we did mange to put food on the table, keep clothes on the children and a roof over our heads. It was just a matter of getting what we really needed instead of what we wanted. We had a lot of help from family and friends.
I am a firm supporter of Christmas Cheer. We have used it a couple of times and both times we were in tough spots. The last time we were down to a can of beans in the cupboard; I kid you not. We were trying to figure out how we were going to come up with the money to survive when out of the blue there was a knock on the door. Christmas cheer arrived with food and gifts. I will never forget the experience I felt when it happened. Just a few days before, all the money I had was stolen from my purse at work. It was devastating. Christmas cheer came to our rescue. I don't however, like to see it abused as I have seen it abused a few times over the years.
I was talking about customer service. One of the idioms I have used over the years keeps me in mind of how I want to be treated as a customer while I was a waitress.
Treat a customer as you would want to be treated as yourself a customer.'
Another idiom I have used from time to time was 'Keep my voice even and low, it's hard for a person to respond in any other way.' What more can I say about customer service. I suppose there is a lot more than I say here. To me most of it is common sense, treat a person as you would want to be treated.
Enough for today. If I don't get back before the holidays then have a great and safe one.
Cec
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