Quote:
Originally Posted by Harmon
My response would be "I'll leave when I'm through eating/drinking, unless you are prepared to give me a refund for my sandwich/coffee." Then I'd go back to reading my book.
I'm beginning to see a category of rules in modern life that we need a good name for. Something like "Dope Rules." A Dope Rule is a rule that enforced by someone who is not trusted to act with any discretion.
For example, the rules at TSA in the airports incorporate a number of Dope Rules. How many Swiss Army pen-knives have been discarded at the security gate because the TSA employees don't have any discretion to distinguish between a knife that is a potential weapon and a knife that is barely a threat to your fingernails? How many old ladies have to creep out of their wheelchairs to go through the security gates? The answer is "All of them." Dope Rules.
This "no computer" rule is a Dope Rule. The employees don't get to decide if someone is (1) working on a laptop or (2) reading an ebook. Their employer thinks they are dopes, so they give them Dope Rules to enforce.
Sometimes - usually, in fact - there's no way to deal with someone enforcing a Dope Rule. The reason is that he is either really a dope, and therefore unable to make reasonable distinctions, or his employer is requiring him to act like a dope, and is not allowing him to make reasonable distinctions. Now and then you can simply ignore the dope, or speak to a manager (Sometimes a dope, himself.) If possible, you should give the dope an answer which says "yes" but in practice is "no." My hypothetical answer about the refund is such an answer. It changes the conversation from "you can't read an ebook" to "I am entitled to a refund." Another possibility is "I'll stop reading my book when that guy over there stops reading his <pbook or newspaper.>" And another is "I'll leave in ten minutes."
That's not to say that the laptop thing isn't a pain. I never go to the Caribou in my neighborhood because the tables are always taken up by laptoppers. Interestingly, there's another coffee shop - Intelligensia - a couple of blocks away, and the customers don't usually do the laptop thing. The biggest physical difference between the Caribou and Intelligensia is the seating arrangements. The C has the usual table and 2 chair arrangement, with three or for soft armchairs. I has only a few table/chair arrangments, the rest being sofas or wallbars. People read & talk at the I. So I have to believe that at each place, the management has thought about what kind of customers they are serving or want to serve, and set up the place to attract them. |
It's not so much a matter of employees can't be trusted to be discretionary as it is to avoid being accused of discrimination because of desrepancies between one employee and another. If you sit down with an e-book reader and the shop doesn't challenge you then another customer sits down with a laptop and the shop challenges the customer with the laptop, I can almost guarantee the laptop cutomer is going to to scream, "He's got a computer and your not harassing him!" I worked in a convenience store for 5 1/2 years and, believe me, the best way to avoid problems with customers is to follow the rules exactly and treat every one exactly the same. Otherwise, it's going to come back and bite you where you sit. My butt was saved more than once when I was accused of descrimination or harassment because I carded someone because management knew I followed the rules exactly and carded EVERYONE who looked to be under forty. The employees who made exceptions, rationalizing they were being discretionary, were the ones who got themselves into jams, including getting caught in sneaky police stings (which, in AZ, resulted in steep fines and could result in mandatory jail time and a felony rap).