Just minutes earlier, a mother I knew from my kids’ elementary school days had stopped to catch up, sharing that her eldest daughter had a job slinging cocktails at a new bar in the west end of the city. That day, she was learning how to make an Old Fashioned and a Pimm’s Cup, my friend said, adding that the learning process is a weeklong, paid.
“The owner guy likes everything to be perfect,” she said, adding that he has been known to write thank-you notes to guests, drive intoxicated customers home and draw on menus with small children so their parents could eat in peace. He even put No Smoking signs at the entrance of the bar after patrons commented in the monthly survey that he sends out digitally on the smell of cigarettes and weed that wafted past the tables each time the door opened.
Wow. So much effort to figure out what customers like, want and need is impressive, and certainly, it makes life easier for us — fun, even — and money for businesses. But let’s get some perspective, people. Same-day delivery and a babysitter-dude during dinner are nice-to-haves, they prop up industries, the economy and grad school case studies, but they don’t contribute directly to life or death. And yet, here we are, surrounded by businesses that spend every second doing what it takes to remain relevant, while the most important operation of all, that of health care, is barely standing.