You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar

I was late, but not late in the sense of clocking in. I’m one of those people who would rather be early than late. Someone once told me that being late showed a fundamental lack of respect for other people’s time, and I’ve never forgotten that.

I had parked down the street and was hurriedly walking across the parking lot to the blacked-out restaurant. There were three people on that black tarmac: myself, the guy spraying the parking lot with a high-pressure hose and the middle-aged woman heading directly toward me on an intercept course. Even though she was nearly 20 feet away, I knew she was heading for me. And I had a feeling why.

“Excuse me,” she said in a way that wasn’t exactly polite.

If I had to describe it, I would say insistent.

“Yes,” I said, continuing to walk.

She actually positioned herself between me and the direction into which I was heading.

“I’m trying to get into the restaurant, and the door is locked,” she said with an air of bewilderment.

I pointed at the sign.

“We don’t open until 4 p.m.,” I said.

“But I need to speak to a manager,” she said.

“Did you try calling?” I asked, moving to the right to get around her.

And she stepped in front of me.

“No one answered,” she said.

I pointed at the sign again.

“Did you try calling during open hours?” I asked, stepping to the left.

That seemed to really annoy her.

“Look,” she said rather aggressively, “I just want to drop off a résumé, and I don’t really have time to hang around waiting for you guys to open.”

Normally I would have just shrugged and walked away. I have found that we don’t always have to take on other people’s problems, but there was something about her manner, and her aggressiveness, and the fact that she was looking for a job that triggered me.

“Hey,” I said, stepping slightly to the right of her, only to quickly step to the left.

She tripped over her feet slightly trying to make the adjustment going backwards.

Now safely past her, I continued.

“I’m going to give you a little piece of free advice,” I said. “No manager at any restaurant anywhere wants to be bothered by someone when the restaurant isn’t open. And they really, really don’t want to be bothered by someone looking for a job.”

And that’s good advice for anyone else, too. Trust me, you’re not being clever or cute by banging on the locked door or peering through the windows with cupped hands; you’re being really annoying. There’s a reason the door is locked. There’s a reason we aren’t answering the phones, and the reason is that we don’t want to be bothered. All day long we will have people coming at us — literally. This is our moment of peace, our moment to get things done uninterrupted.

Years ago, I worked at a restaurant that let people in before we opened. And it was always the same: a litany of questions and requests from the person who just said that they wouldn’t be a bother.

“How long have you worked here?”

“Can I get some hot water?”

“I need to buy a gift certificate.”

It’s not that any of that is really a problem; it’s just that there is a time and a place to do them. And that time is when we are open. When a restaurant is getting set up, it’s imperative to get set up. Once you’re open, it’s too late. The very first person in the restaurant expects full service, and really, they deserve it, too, because they are paying the same price as everyone else. But it’s hard to provide that if the time that was allotted to set up that experience was compromised. If I’m busy getting hot water and lemon for you, that means I wasn’t cutting up the fruit, making the infusions, polishing the glassware, getting the ice or doing any of the many other things necessary to do my job for the entirety of the evening.

The woman in the parking lot wasn’t interested in my advice. In fact, I suspect she was put off by it. But I know that the most indignant of people are the ones who just got caught rigging the system. And I know how to handle them too.

“Is that your résumé?” I asked, pointing at the paper in her hand.

“Yes,” she said.

“I’ll give it to him,” I said.

Leaving me with these thoughts:

• It’s truly shocking how many people want to know a way around a posted rule.

• The customer may always be right. But you aren’t a customer until you’re buying something.

• Do you like being bothered by work on your time off? Well, neither do we.

• There’s a garbage can conveniently placed right next to the back door. Just saying.