The gift of ‘sorry’

I was with my family – mum, my two sisters, their husbands, and my niece and two nephews. We rocked up at a pub for a meal, no booking, which for six adults, two kids and an infant, isn’t awful for the staff, but it is a decent sized group. They had a table that would seat us, and they encouraged us to order soon as there was another, bigger group coming in for lunch very soon.

We placed our orders for food and drinks, and in fairly good time, we were enjoying good food.

Most of us.

One meal didn’t arrive.

We mentioned to the waiter that we were waiting on one more meal. To which we received the reply, ‘No, you’re not. That’s all there was from the kitchen for this table.’

‘Ah, no, we have paid and ordered another meal here.’

‘I’ll go check.’

When the waiter returned, we were met with simply a reiteration of the earlier statement that everything cooked in the kitchen for this table had been brought to the table.

We went back to the bar, and it turned out one meal did not get put on the docket for the kitchen.

What have you not read, yet, in this story?

That’s right. We have not received an apology yet.

No sorry for the mix up; no sorry your meal didn’t turn up.

Denial, deflection, and defensiveness. All making us feel as if the staff were blaming us – for being there, for questioning, for not putting the order though to the kitchen. Wait. That was their mistake.

Later, as the manager cleared our table after we had, all of us at last, finished our meal, she asked how was everything. The food was great, but we’re disappointed not to have received an apology as yet for the mix up with one of the meals.

‘I would apologise, but I wasn’t here.’

Now that, as someone who has worked in customer service, surprised me a great deal.

The manager went and checked what had happened, and came and explained it to us, with a printed receipt and everything. But that is not what I asked for.

I understood well what had happened. I didn’t want an explanation, or a defence of their mistake.

I wanted an apology. I wanted to feel that we mattered to them.

If one of the staff members had simply said, at any point in those exchanges, ‘we’re sorry for the mix up,’ we wouldn’t have mentioned it again.

Mistakes happen, and we were not upset at the mistake, at the delay in receiving one meal.

We were upset because we had been made to feel we were at fault. We did not matter. We were not wanted there.

And that’s ok.

Because we won’t be back.