[quote=“Maoman”]Maybe you’re misreading the situation. Maybe office dude doesn’t like his closed door meetings to be interrupted - by anyone - which is why he has a door, and which is why it’s closed.
I have a similar pet peeve with waiters who interrupt conversations, especially focused conversations, whether they be romantic, intimate dinners, or serious lunch meetings. Waiters, good ones at least, know how to make themselves visible at the periphery and should not appear until they are wanted.[/quote]
I think they’re very different situations. One is contracted to do a job at a certain time of the day, and the other is paid to wait. One takes out the trash, the other is supposed to do customer service.
And even if someone is being out of line, it’s up to you to treat them civilly.
“Here you go. I’m in a meeting, please just leave it outside the door. Thank you.”
“Excuse me, but I’m fine. I’ll call when I need something. Thank you.”
Poor behaviour by the staff is usually the result of the customer not making their expectations clear. If you don’t want the cleaner coming into a meeting room then leave instructions with your secretary that you don’t want to be disturbed. Until she knows what you want you can’t expect her to know that it’s OK to not do the job she’s being paid to do. And T’s executive did give her the bin, so he obviously recognised that the job had to be done.
She was doing what she was paid to do at the time she was paid to do it. A little respect goes a long way.
I think my attitude stems from taking a walk with my grandfather when I was about 7. We passed a guy sweeping the street, and my grandfather gave him a cheery “good morning” and went on to comment that the street looked very nice. As we carried on with our walk he told me that he liked to see someone taking care of the community, and that it was an important service worthy of recognition.
Years later when I started working for a living, someone pointed out to me that you don’t hire people to do nothing. If they’re collecting a wage they should be doing something useful for it. Why give someone a hard time for doing what you pay them to do? Madness.
It’s different with waiters because you’re paying them to piss off until you finish your bloody meal in peace and quiet.
