WHAT’S SO FUNNY: Nothing new to report

A local bank recently sent selected customers a letter asking them to participate in a program to monitor its employees.

“You will be asked to visit your branch office approximately once a month for the next 12 months … to conduct routine business. You will receive a simple questionnaire to complete and return in a postage-paid envelope. For each questionnaire you complete, you will be paid $5.”

The selected customers are supposed to evaluate the service they got at the branch office. They are not to tell the bank personnel they’re doing this; for the “Mystery Shopping Program” to be effective, the employees can’t know which customers are the Mystery Shoppers.

Paying the customers to report on the service they get is a stunning idea. Whether in a bank, shop or restaurant, we’ve all wanted to sound off about the service at times. We’ve all come up against employees who seem to believe the customer is always right.

But I can’t take part in the program. I always have just enough sympathy with the teller, clerk or waitress to dilute my irritation with the delay, the foul-up or the menu.

In the film “Five Easy Pieces,” when Jack Nicholson threw his famous tantrum because the waitress in the diner wouldn’t adjust his order, I sympathized with her. She’d obviously been on her feet all day. She clearly wasn’t living her dream.

The “service” industry chafes the server as much as the customer. I know this because I was a waiter — for one night. That was all I could stand. People kept giving me orders.

Often it’s the bosses who order employees to say things that irritate customers. The first time a grocery check-out lady asked if I needed help to get my bags to my car, I took it as a comment on my appearance and got mad. It took two weeks to find out she wasn’t just saying it to me.

Being polite and responsive to erratic and demanding customers makes for a long shift. Finding out the customers are getting paid to report your failings must put the cherry on top.

No, I couldn’t fill out one of those questionnaires. I couldn’t secretly grade my bank officer. It seems like snitching, and I won’t snitch. Not for just $5 a month.

I’m going to stick to the old program. When they don’t treat me nice at the bank, I’ll just knock the pen set onto the floor, as Jack would do.

SHERWOOD KIRALY is a Laguna Beach resident. He has written four novels, three of which were critically acclaimed.