Tales from the Pit - The Things People Say: Part II

#2: GIVING UNSOLICITED ADVICE ON HOW TO RUN A RESTAURANT / NO ONE FUCKING CARES WHAT YOU SAY

I was standing against the wall, blankly staring at the outside as cars rushed past on the busy street. It was mid-afternoon and the lunch crowd had gone and died down. Nothing out of the ordinary really.

A customer walked in, drawing my attention from the colors of the floor tiles. He was an average height, white male with a slight belly.

"I don't want to buy anything actually." He remarked plainly. Naturally, I was a bit annoyed.
"Okay...."
"I just want to say that you should write on your sign out there something like "Tastes like Smokehouse" or something along those lines..."
"Well, you can try our sauce to see..." I began warily, pointing to the bottle of sauces near him.

He grabbed a bottle and tasted the sauce.

"Yeah, tastes like Smokehouse."

I sighed, mildly irritated at this unwelcome interlocutor.

"Look, we've been open for almost 3 months and we haven't done any advertising really. We've done reasonably well for ourselves."

"Oh, really? Well, that's good. I'm just saying. Thanks again." He left promptly, likely for his own safety considering I would've thrown him out sooner or later.

VERDICT: NO ONE ASKS FOR YOUR ADVICE. THEREFORE, DO NOT GIVE IT. I get lots of unsolicited advice every week. Besides, this was likely a lawsuit in the making if I put something like that up. Seriously, most people who give advice on how to run a restaurant DO NOT FUCKING KNOW HOW TO RUN A RESTAURANT. I'm certain that most of them have never owned a restaurant, much less know how to give advice on advertising. Thanks to the oversaturation of advertising and bombardment of images that we experience as a massive consumerist society, many people who go into chain restaurants want food and are generally sheep lured by discounts and shiny colors laced with saturated fat. Sheep do not tell managers what their next meal should be. Sheep simply need to eat and fork over their money. That is how the system works.