So my wife went and picked her up for her shift, and took her
in. And I had her car towed to a service station, and we were able
to, through a barter program in our community, take up some
of our barter money and take care of that entire bill for her. That
spoke tons to her. Every shift since then, she'll do everything she
can in her power to help us out. So I think just treating your staff
like you'd want to be treated goes a long way.
GROOT: Awesome. Thank you. Jerry, up to you.
KALAL: I joke with some of my customers at the counter. This
just happened again yesterday, where a customer said, "You
know, your staff is just so nice and so friendly," and one of my
standard lines is, "Yeah, they're friendly. You know, we make
everybody take a psychological exam before we hire them, and
if they pass the exam, we don't hire them."
During the summer, I'm in here early one morning, one of
the [employees] comes in—wearing a Fred Flintstone outfit.
And I just said, "Hey, hi, Fred"—didn't even pay attention to
it. I came out on the floor a few minutes after they got all set
up, and I said, "Anything special going on today I should know
about?" He goes, "Nah, it was laundry day. I thought I'd mix it
up a bit." I've got to tell you what a wonderful day we had. The
two of them were swimming in tips at the end of their shift,
lots of comments, nothing negative, everybody thought it was
just funny as hell, and we moved on with our day.
"A lot of times, I'll
bring other staff
members into the
interview process."
—Lance Ratze
Final point: During the summer—It was really hot last
year. And I had three days in a row where we closed down at 2
o'clock, because with the heat index, it was over 112 [degrees].
And the staff members that were working the afternoon shift,
from 2 o'clock on, I told them, "Just fill out your time like you
were here. I'm going to pay you straight through. All I ask you
to do is, between now and the end of the year, make that five
hours up to me. Give me a half hour here or fifteen minutes
there." And I just trust them, and everybody did great, and
they were very appreciative of it. So we really do look out for
each other, and that creates an environment that customers
can feel. SCR
WEB EXTRA: A podcast of this discussion is available on
Specialty Coffee Retailer's website, www.specialty-coffee.com
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