Anne Elizabeth Angeles is executive assistant for a Dubai-based company.
Don't bother learning the menu Part of a waiter's training should be to taste every dish on the menu and learn about its ingredients. "I'll go and check" are words that drive me nuts.
Look like something the cat dragged in If you work behind a cosmetics counter but look like last night's leftovers, I'm not buying your product.
Put on weight instead of lifting one It's not inspiring to arrive at your first training session to find that your instructor could stand to lose a few more pounds than you could.
Put someone on hold, then forget them Nothing is more irritating than waiting on hold for 10 minutes only to be cut off, or worse being transferred around the office because the receptionist doesn't know who you should be speaking to!
Yack your way through your customer's massage She's paying good money to destress, unwind and zone out, but that's not possible when the masseuse can't stop gabbing at the weather, Angelina Jolie's twins or the price of eggs.
Be an unkempt nurse What could be more terrifying than lying in a hospital bed watching a nurse insert a drip with her dirty, torn fingernails, scruffy uniform and messed up hair?
Bring the wrong order You can top bringing the wrong order by bringing the wrong order 45 minutes late. By this stage, the customer is so starving he'll eat it anyway!
Hire less staff than you need The result will be long queues of frustrated customers and potential buyers who leave in a huff when no one is there to help.
Hire stupid shop assistants and don't give them training The only thing worse than an understaffed establishment is an establishment staffed by dunces who've never been trained. They've never heard of the products they stock, send you on wild goose chases and are rude to make up for their ineptitude.
Say you don't have change Why is it that whenever a taxi driver sees that you are in a hurry, he suddenly "doesn't have change"? You're in too much of a hurry to argue and tell him to keep the extra Dh15 but that ripped-off feeling will ruin the rest of your day.
