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I sat at the bar sipping on a Miller Lite, spare thoughts rummaging about my brain as they often do.
Ashley manned the main bar where I was, while someone else stood guard at a smaller bar just in the other room. Ashley is efficient, personable, polite, and mixes a mean drink...everything you'd want in a superb beverage slinger, and she was hustling for her half-busy bar.
Wandering up to the counter, just to my right, was a middle-aged woman who immediately flagged Ashley down. I was close enough to actually be in the conversation, though I just eavesdropped.
The lady wanted a bag of Fritos.
All of the food is at the other bar in the other room and is purchased there. Ashley could have said that to her....could have simply pointed to the door and politely directed her there. But instead, she said without a hitch, "Let me get them for you."
As the woman watched and I marveled, Ashley exited, walked around her bar, across the room, between tables, out the door, into the other bar. After a quick beat or two, she returned the same way she came, Fritos in hand.
I was impressed. The lady was stoic, as if what Ashley did was the expected norm. I marveled at that too.
That scene soon faded and I went back to fidgeting with my brain and glanced at a basketball game on the flat screen every now and then. I asked Ashley for a pen, grabbed a napkin and jotted down a thought for a book I'm writing, pondered, and jotted some more. Ashley brought me another beer.
About thirty minutes of this and the woman was back. She brought her empty Fritos bag back as if she was turning it in for a refill. She told Ashley she'd like another one.
I thought, "Really?" She saw the lengths to which Ashley had to go before. She couldn't figure out the trail to the Fritos on her own yet?
I figured this time Ashley would simply, but respectfully, tell the woman that she needed to buy her Fritos at the other bar. Surely this woman could handle this, yes?
No.
Without hesitation again, Ashley exited, walked around her bar, across the room, between tables, out the door, into the other bar. After a quick beat or two, she again returned the same way she came, Fritos in hand.
Ashley knows what I do for a living and, after the lady walked away, I told her that my next newsletter was going to be about her.
And so it is.
Ashley understands the value of a customer. She was busy, but she wasn't so busy that she could not fetch the Fritos. Ego would say to tell the lady to go get them herself...laziness would too. Customer service says, yeah, I could do that, but I have the time, why not do it myself?
I'm certain that if Ashley had an overflowing and intensely busy bar, she would have directed the woman to the other room to get her Fritos. You can't disappoint other customers to please one.
But she had the time, though barely. What she didn't have was the selfishness and the ego, or the laziness.
She took care of the customer above and beyond. She did it simply because she could.
I'll be back at the bar soon because Ashley is terrific...but I'll get my own bag of Fritos.
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