Um, you wanna but some stuff from me?

Forgive Them Boss, For They Know Not What They Sell
By Joseph Walther


Now that we are full swing into the holiday buying season, I thought it appropriate to comment on a few things that bug the daylights out of me. These are general customer service complaints running the gamut from fast food restaurants to major retail department stores. While some retailers provide outstanding customer service, it is not the norm. Today, tolerable customer service seems outstanding simply because the general trend throughout the retail world is just plain dreadful. It has become prevalent to the point the many people assume that we have to put up with it. We don’t! But, as long as we do, we’ll continue to get it.

In 1958, at the wise old age of sixteen, I began a part time job as a cashier/clerk in a grocery store called ACME Markets. I was an outgoing, likeable little twerp who could talk anyone into or out of anything. I was an “A” student at an academically strict Catholic high school. Other than a slight whiff of cockiness caused by my belief that I new all there was to know about life, people seemed to like me and I liked them. Since I wanted to buy a car, I decided to let ACME hire me.

I arrived for my interview with the store manager, a man named Ashman. I thought that Mr. Ashman was a bit on the old side. Try to understand. I was sixteen and I considered thirty as almost dead. Mr. Ashman, in my estimation, had to be close to fifty! Anyway, I filled out the application and completed the short math test attached to it. I aced the math part. I also came to the interview already knowing how to operate a cash register. In fact, in my heart of hearts, I saw no reason why Mr. Ashman should not hire me on the spot.

A woman came over to me and told me that Mr. Ashman was ready for me. She led me into his office. He stood, extended his hand to shake mine, and said, “Hi, I’m Harold Ashman. May I call you Joe?” I said yes. He asked me to sit down. I did so, literally beaming with a sense of self-confidence on knowing that this man could not possibly not want to hire me.

He began the interview by complimenting me on acing the math test attached to the application. He explained that while many people passed it, I was only the third applicant to get all the problems right. I grinned and took the opportunity to let him know that I already knew how to work a cash register. He just smiled and asked me about my grades in school and if Father Gambit was still the Prefect of Discipline at Salesianum. He than asked me why I wanted a job. I told him that I wanted to buy a car and that my mother wouldn’t buy it for me, nor would she pay for the insurance.

He leaned forward and said, “I like you, Joe, you’re outgoing and intelligent. Only time will tell, but I think you’d be a good fit here.” I beamed and said thank you and that I would not disappoint him. Still smiling, he said that he wanted to make sure that I understood something before he agreed to give me the job. I asked him what it was.

“Joe”, he said, “I’m not looking for someone who knows how to operate a cash register or stock shelves. I’m not even looking for someone who can ace a math test. That stuff is all nice to have, but it’s nothing I can’t teach you as long as you have the ability to learn it. You’ve already convinced me that you have the ability to learn the mechanics.” I thanked him again and promised that I’d do my best.

“Joe”, he continued, “I am looking for someone who knows how to treat my customers as welcome and important. I’m looking for someone who can make people want to come back to my grocery store repeatedly.” He continued. “There are five other major food chain stores within four miles of this one. We all sell the same things at virtually the same prices. The only prices that differ are the sale items. The question I have for you, Joe, is why should a customer come to this store instead of one of the others?”

I said, “Good service.” He asked, “What do you mean by good service?” I replied, “Knowing all of the prices by heart, making sure there’s stuff on the shelves to buy, and making sure the people working the cash registers are fast.” “Joe”, he said, you’re right about these things, but the other stores have them too. So what would make a person want to come here to shop instead of one of the other stores?” His question stumped me and I admitted it.

He laughed one of those understanding laughs. “That’s a great sign, Joe! It tells me that you’re not ashamed to admit you don’t know something. You are sixteen and you bring a sixteen-year old’s perspective to this meeting.”

He continued, “When you arrived here for this interview, how did Mrs. Kratzer make you feel? She is the woman who talked to you when you arrived here and brought you into my office.” “She made me feel at ease about this whole thing”, I said. “I was a little nervous when I got here but she helped me not to worry too much.” He then asked, “How did you feel about me after we met?” “You, also, made me feel comfortable about talking to you”, I said.

“I expect everyone who works here to make the customers feel the same way, Joe. That takes a lot more than fast cash registers, memorizing the prices, and fully stocked shelves. Every time that a customer has a good experience shopping here, they will come back. You do this by knowing who the customer is and what makes them feel good about themselves. Do you think you can do this?” I told him that I would do my best. He told me that we had a deal. As long as I stayed customer focused, I’d have a job.

While I did not realize it then, I have come to realize it over the years. Harold Ashman was a genius. There are too few Ashmans around the retail world today. His breed understood their customers. He and those like him never put much stock in target customers. He understood that every customer who walked into his store had a circle of influence consisting of friends, family members, co-workers, associates, and neighbors. He understood that customers do not make decisions in a vacuum and that the only relevant question to answer is “Why would any customer choose to do business in my store at all?”

The next time you are in a fast food restaurant and some teenybopper clerk treats you like you’re an imposition, blame the manager for being clueless. The next time you go into a major electronics store and have to search all over for some help, aim your scorn at the store manager for having no clue.

Of course, owners understand bottom lines. When this starts to diminish, they make changes. Operating managers know this and when customer numbers begin to diminish, they make changes. If you want a return to the Harold Ashman type of customer service, you have to start demanding it. I don’t know where Mr. Ashman is today. I just know that we need more of him. He made a lot of sense. Of course, I am not a marketing or employee training genius. If I owned a retail store, I’d sure try it, though.

Have a great week.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send email to: publisher@thetruefacts.com

Vaporize the SOB!

Talk About Brain Dead People
By Joseph Walther


I’ve had it! That’s right. My patience has completely evaporated with respect to brain dead people in general and stupid drivers in particular. The former category consists of lawyers, judges, politicians, school administrators, and political talk radio hosts. The latter category consist of people who drive in a trance-like state making life both dangerous and inconvenient for the rest us sane people.

Medical science has defined brain death as a consistently flat EEG. They issue death certificates based on this. I think they should reconsider this position. Just because there is no apparent brain wave activity, does not necessarily mean death. Millions of people go on to pester the hell out of us long after their brains have ceased functioning.

Space does not permit me to show you all of my research. However, here in good old Delaware, we can find several examples of people whose EEGs went flat years ago. We don’t have to look very far to find an ample number of national examples, either.

Delawareans, look at our governor. Has she let a flat EEG stop her? No! She can open her eyes, walk, talk, breathe on her own, and even eat unaided. Thinking, however, is just not her cup of tea. This is why she has announced that she will quickly appoint an Attorney General as soon as she figures out what an Attorney General does.

The State Prison Administration botched an execution a couple of weeks ago. Who knows about it? Everyone in the country not currently brain dead. That’s who. Worse, people throughout the country are beginning to snicker about it.

Nationally, FOX TV’s Bill O’Reilly has renamed torture as “extreme interrogation.” The stupid thing about all of this is this. Torture is torture. All sides in a war do it and have always done it. Everyone knows it. America, however, has always opted to ride the white horse, wear the white cowboy hat, and claim the moral high ground. Doing this becomes an embarrassing problem, though, especially when preserving our way of life demands that we absolutely, positively, must have certain information. We end up looking silly and phony to the rest of the world. The entire world understands what’s going on except for our brain dead leaders.

On the legal front, people do outrageously stupid things resulting in personal injurious consequences. Do a Google search on the Stella Awards. This is a web site dedicated to debunking the myth of brain death. The site is loaded with unassailable proof. A person breaks into a home to steal the owners’ valuables. It’s dark in the home and the would-be thief falls down the basement steps and breaks his leg. The police arrive in answer to a silent alarm and arrest the perpetrator. The thief then sues the owners for negligence because they left the basement door open.

Far be it from me to call the thief brain dead. He’s not. He’s merely retarded. However, the lawyer who took the case IS brain dead. The judge who decided that the case had arguable merit and let it go forward is also brain dead, as are the members of the jury who awarded the plaintiff damages. And let’s not forget to include the appellate judge who upheld the original award. These people are brain dead, yet no medical authority has signed a death certificate.

Let me talk about stupid drivers to wrap this up. Just this past Wednesday, I was driving on I-95. The speed limit where I was driving is 55-MPH. Lest I forget, people in the east refer to Delaware as an east coast speed bump. This is why. Anyway, I going about 75-MPH in the left hand lane. A car pulls along side of me to my right. The driver was a woman who appeared to be in her 50s. She was applying makeup! The woman is brain dead. She scared me so bad that I dropped my newspaper and cell phone simultaneously. The cell phone hit the cup of coffee between my legs, splashing it between my legs and severely scalding big Jim and the twins. All I can smell when I enter the car now is spilled coffee and the stains left by the ruined Egg McMuffin on the front seat. I may have to burn the car.

How many of you folks have pulled up behind another vehicle stopped at a traffic light. The front driver is signaling a right-hand turn but won’t go because there is a sign that reads, “No turn on” with a red arrow pointing to the right. That’s right, we have to sit there because this idiot thinks that the sign prohibits a right turn on a red light. The front driver is not brain dead, just retarded. The folks who designed the sign are BRAIN DEAD!

People drive along our roads with no idea that there are others sharing the roads. They make lane changes without warning. They swerve all over the place, adjusting radio dials and talking on cell phones. You can see them talking to themselves at red lights. In some cases, they seem to be yelling at themselves. These are all indications of brain death and we need to protect ourselves.

All road vehicles should have two kinds of firing devices mounted on the hood. The first should be a vaporizing laser gun. As you drive along a freeway and approach some driver meandering along at some lazy-assed slow pace of 70 or 75-MPH, hit the trigger. Poof! All that’s left is a small, rising puff of steam. The same fate applies to the people who refuse to turn right on a red light because they can’t tell the difference between a red light symbol and a red arrow symbol. Poof! A small, rising puff of steam and problem solved.

The second firing device should have the capability of silently shooting small, variously colored rubber pellets that stick harmlessly to the exterior of today’s automobile. The federal government would have to standardize the color-coding and enforce it in every state. We’d all know what the various colors represent. Obviously, the pellets shouldn’t cause any damage to the vehicle. In fact, drivers wouldn’t even notice the pellets until they get out of their vehicles.

You see someone making a lane change without signaling and you fire a small red pellet that sticks to the trunk of the offending vehicle. If you see someone looking down, obviously tuning a radio or inserting a CD, you fire a blue pellet. Talking on cell phone gets a green pellet. Talking to oneself gets a yellow pellet and actually yelling at oneself gets a bright orange pellet. Grooming oneself gets a hot-pink pellet.

True, the pellets are not as harsh and final as the vaporizing laser beam. This is because vaporizing people should be restricted to just the most flagrantly irritating conduct: going too slowly and obstructing traffic. However, the colored pellets could be very effective.

Just image yourself getting out of you automobile in your driveway only to discover hundreds of red, blue, green, orange, hot-pink, metallic black pellets all over your car’s trunk. You’d know at a glance that someone had observed you doing something stupid. Oh, yes, I forgot to explain what the metallic black pellet represents. I’ll bet your curiosity is just killing you, isn’t it? Well, it could be embarrassing because the metallic black pellets are for those who pick their nose at varying stages of driving.

Have a great Thanksgiving. Stay safe and watch out for those colored dots, especially the metallic black ones.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send email to: publisher@thetruefacts.com

Hail Mary, full of grapes...

Hail Mary, Full of Grapes…
By Joseph Walther


I was at a shopping mall a couple of days ago and I overheard a great conversation between a young mother and her seven-year old (my estimate) daughter. The two of them were sharing a slice of pizza. I happened to be sitting at the table next to them. Mom asked daughter what she had done in school that day. Daughter told mom that they had talked about Sodman Insane. Mom, confused, asked daughter to explain. Daughter, losing patience with mom’s ignorance in foreign affairs said, “Oh, mommy, you know… that guy in Earrack!” Mom then said, “Oh, that Sodman Insane” and let her daughter continue her point.

As I said, it was a great give and take conversation. If it was an indication of this young mother’s ability to interact with children, she’s going to be a fantastic parent. My point in bringing this up, however, is about what children hear when people speak to them as opposed to what we think they heard. Soon, the day will come when this little girl will realize that the guy’s name was Saddam Hussein and the name of the country was Iraq, not “Earrack” or “Eyerack” as many grownups call it.

I went to Catholic elementary and high schools. At the age of five and a half, the nuns taught me to say the Hail Mary. Here is what I heard. “Hail Mary, full of grapes. The Lord is with thee. Blessed is Art among swimmin, and blessed is the fruit of thy wound, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.” I repeated this prayer, using these words, every day for over a year.

At the same age, in September of 1947, the nuns taught me to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Here are the words that I heard. “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for witches’ stands: one Nation, indivisible, with Liberty and just ice for all. Again, I used these words every time I said the Pledge, even though my friend Roger insisted that it was, “the Republic for Richard Stands.”

In May of 1949, a month before my seventh birthday, I made my first confession and received my first Holy Communion. At the time, I was convinced that I was the only one to have ever sinned during a confession. I made up a few sins because I didn’t think I had enough of my own. The nuns, though unintentionally, had succeeded at convincing me that I was on a par with pond scum. They were really into penance and I was not going to disappoint them. Here are the words to the Act of Contrition as I heard them the first time.

“O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins, because I dread the boss of heaven, and the pains of hell; but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, Who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to end my life. Amen.”

I can remember going to 11 A.M. mass with my dad. I was only seven years old. At the end of the mass, the congregation sang a hymn. Some of the words to that hymn are, “Oh, Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” I know this now; but what I heard at the time was, “Oh, Mary can see without seein, pray for us who have a course to thee.”

I’m sixty-three years old now. But, you know what? We adults are just as susceptible to mishearing things as five, six, and seven-year olds. The difference is that five, six, and seven-year olds do not propagate hatred or start wars over what they mishear. Adults often do. Or at the very least, they form hurtful prejudices that manifest themselves, at some point, in some bizarre behavior.

Civility and intellectual debate as a means of constructive discourse seem to be disappearing nowadays. Mention God or any semblance of religious doctrine in the wrong place and the left wing extremists will mock you into oblivion. Legitimately question extreme religious doctrine or other conservative positions and the right wing extremists will destroy you.

I read an article titled: “Did God Create Evil?” It was thought provoking and points up the concept of perceptive logic. Let me summarize it a bit for brevity.

An avowed anti-religion university professor with a reputation for stomping people who professed a belief in God, posed this question to his students. “Did God create everything?” One of the students loudly proclaimed, “Yes, He did!” Clarifying the student’s response, the professor asked, “God created everything?” Sticking to his position, the student reiterated, “Yes, sir.”

The professor, showing great contempt for religion in general, said, “If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then God is evil.” This, he claimed, proves for the last time that Christian faith is a myth. All but one student sat there in silence.

That one student asked the professor if he could ask a question or two. The professor invited him to ask anything he desired. The student stood and asked, “Professor, does cold exist?”

“That’s not a very bright question”, said the professor. “Of course cold exists. We have all felt cold.” The student replied, “I disagree, sir, cold does not exist and our laws of physics prove it. Everybody and every object are susceptible to study when they have or transmit energy, and heat is energy. Absolute zero (-459 degrees F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at absolute zero. I repeat. Cold, sir, does not exist. It is a word humans use to describe how they feel when there is too little heat.”

“Professor”, the student continued, “Does darkness exist?” The professor said that it does. “Again, sir”, said the student, “I must disagree. Darkness does not exist. It is nothing more than the absence of light. Light is energy. We can study light, but we can’t study darkness. We can use Newton’s prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. We cannot measure darkness.”

Continuing, the student said, “One ray of light can fracture a world of darkness. The only way to tell how dark a space is, is by measuring the amount of light present. Certainly you cannot deny this, can you?”

“I suggest that evil does not exist as an entity unto itself, professor. Man’s inhumanity to man and the multitude of crime and violence in our world are only manifestations that we call evil. As darkness manifests the absence of light and cold manifests the absence of heat, perhaps evil is what results when humanity does not have God’s love in its collective heart.”

The student sat down and the professor was speechless. I don’t know the professor’s name; but the student was Albert Einstein.

I do not advocate that this is proof that there is a God. It is, however, a point of discussion that should open the matter to some civil discourse that could lead to a lot more tolerance than now exists relative to an entire range of topics.

What I remember most about my dad is the ability he had of explaining things to me without mocking my ignorance. He died when I was fifteen and I still miss him, even at my ripe old age of sixty-three. What made the young mother that I spoke of at the beginning of this piece stand out was her ability to get right down into her daughter’s reality and talk to her in a way meaningful to a seven-year old. Not everyone can do this. I hope the child will one day realize how lucky she is.

Now, let us all pray. Hail Mary, full of grapes…

Have a great week, folks.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send email to: publisher@thetruefacts.com

You want fries with that?

Eeewww! I Didn’t Order This Stuff.
By Joseph Walther



You are on the road. It’s about 2:30 in the afternoon as you approach a restaurant emanating a charcoal aroma that is driving you to distraction. This, coupled with the fact that you are starving, causes your eyes to glaze over in a robot-like, empty stare. Suddenly, you’re in the parking lot getting out of your car. You have no conscious memory of pulling in. You are no longer in control of your actions. Drooling and methodically mumbling, “char burger, char burger, char burger”, you find yourself seated in a booth gazing at unrealistic pictures of charbroiled hamburgers and crisp, golden brown French fries similar to the way a zombie fixates on an intended victim.

Is this you? If so, please STOP freebasing the Prozac. Get a grip before you kill someone. You’ll never catch me doing this. First, I use Paxil, not Prozac. Second, I know, ever since the health food Nazis came into prominence, that there is no such thing as “crisp, golden brown French fries. Third, I never frequent known hamburger joints because there’s no fun in it. Let me explain.

I am an unpredictable, out-of-control writer who will go to any length to get a story angle. I am not above putting people on, as it were. I’m so bad that my attractive, moderately reserved daughter would rather drink a glass of liquid Drano than risk going to a restaurant with her dad. I can’t help myself. Just knowing that nothing freaks a health food nut like someone, well within earshot, ordering a rare to medium rare hamburger or New York strip steak, causes me to salivate in Pavlovian proportions. But this pales compared to a restaurant manager’s reaction when I deny ordering what the waiter put in front of me. Again, let me explain.

It’s important for all of you to realize the importance of always picking a general entrée restaurant. Health food freaks don’t go to steak houses and hamburger joints. Be realistic. These people look awful. They all have that emaciated look. Such people would NEVER eat a McDonald’s Quarter Pounder because it’s too heavy for them to lift. On top of this, the menus for general entrée restaurants tend to be bloated with unrealistic pictures of the food, not to mention over-hyped entrée descriptions. This is all of the ammunition one needs to send the food back.

Last week, I stopped at such a restaurant. It was not very crowded and that surprised me because it was 12:50 PM on a weekday. Where was the lunch crowd? I seated myself in one of the small, two person booths. A waiter arrived with a glass of water, eating utensils wrapped in paper napkin, and a menu the thickness of a short novel. She told me that she’d be back shortly to take my order. I told her to take her time as it could take several hours to read the menu. Not only was she was gone before I could finish the sentence, she displayed all of the warmth and personality of paper clip. I had a nasty feeling about this place and I should have left. But I didn’t.

As I thought about leaving, I heard a man and woman, seated in the booth next to mine, discussing the ills of red meat. He was the picture of death and she was death warmed over. This, in addition to a snotty-assed waiter, screamed at me to STAY. This was going to be fun and I was going to get a column out of it to boot!

The menu was loaded with unrealistic pictures of the food. Each entrée had exaggerated descriptions full of pure marking babble. On the second page of the menu, under a section called “Burger Heaven”, I noticed an item: Charburger Supreme with a picture. The picture showed a thick, juicy looking, perfectly brown hamburger on a large bun; topped with a beautifully dark green, fresh slice of leaf lettuce and two large, red-ripe slices of tomato. A plate of golden brown French fries accompanied the burger. Here is the entrée description, verbatim. “A quarter pound of our freshly ground top sirloin, broiled to perfection, served on one of our very own fresh, sourdough buns, and topped with generous slices of red ripe tomatoes and garden green leafy lettuce with a side of piping hot, crisp, golden brown French fries.”

The waiter returned. “You ready, yet”, she asked with an obvious air of impatience. I said, “Well, yes, unless you have something more important to do.” Her demeanor changed slightly for the better and she asked, “What would you like, sir?” Following a George Carlin comedy routine, the next paragraph describes exactly how I ordered.

I’d like the a Charburger Supreme, a quarter pound of your freshly ground top sirloin, broiled to perfection, served on one of your very own fresh, sourdough buns, and topped with generous slices of red ripe tomatoes and a generous leaf of garden green lettuce. Please don’t forget that piping hot serving of crisp, golden brown French fries. “How would you like that cooked, sir?” I told her that it would be fine as long as it does not wince with pain when I bite into it. (The meat-hating man in the adjacent booth developed chest pains and the woman with him went into a fetal position.)

When the order arrived, it looked nothing like the picture. Since the food’s appearance has nothing to do with the waiter, I asked for the manager. When she arrived, I told her that I had not ordered this. She retrieved the check from the waiter and said that I had ordered it. “It says right here that you ordered an H1, medium rare with iced tea. An H1 is our code for a Charburger Supreme.”

I admitted that I had ordered the Charburger Supreme. However, I further explained that I ordered one like the picture in the menu and described as “A quarter pound of our freshly ground top sirloin, broiled to perfection, served on own very own fresh, sourdough buns, and topped with generous slices of red ripe tomatoes and garden green leafy lettuce with a side of piping hot, crisp, golden brown French fries.” Clearly, I explained, the bun’s stale. The crumbling and dryness is a dead gave away. The meat could pass for leather and the lettuce was neither green nor fresh. I’m rather observant; otherwise, I would have missed the single, paper-thin slice of unripe tomato. I also explained that the French fries were closer to tepid than piping hot, light beige, not golden brown, and definitely not crisp.

At this point, she apologized and offered the meal on the house. I explained that I didn’t want a free meal. I told her what I was doing and why and gave her one of my “The True Facts” business cards. I asked her if she had any say in the menu content of pictures and descriptions. She said that she did. So, I won’t divulge the name of the restaurant because I’d like to see if the manager can make a few changes as outlined below. If she does, it may not be as easy to get a seat the next time. If not, I’ll bet there are other businesses lined up to lease the space.

I asked her to consider eliminating the pictures. They are unrealistic. It’s impossible to cook food to look like the pictures. Make the entrée descriptions simple and straightforward, and serve what you advertise. Hire waiters who enjoy the work because they enjoy meeting other people. Once you have good waiters, treat them like you really care and they will take care of your business.

Great restaurants have certain things in common. If any of you want to see one in action, go the Crossroads Restaurant, located midway between Wilmington and Newark, Delaware. Specifically, it’s located at the intersection of Kirkwood Highway and Limestone Road. There are no food pictures on the menus. The entrée descriptions are accurate, and the food is terrific. The waiters are fantastic people who make you feel like a respected paying customer.

I know. I know. I am going to get a few emails from people who have had bad experiences at the Crossroads. Well, that’s too bad. You’re probably getting old and becoming unreasonably cranky.

Have a great week.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send email to: publisher@thetruefacts.com