40 It’s your best friend – the awkward customer

You’re doing a great job. You’ve done all you can and everything is sweet. Then suddenly it happens, the awkward customer appears. You know the one: they take hours of your time. They ask what seem to be the dumbest questions and change their minds constantly. No matter what you do, you can’t seem to please them.

In Fawlty Towers, the brash owner Basil Fawlty dealt with customers, especially the awkward ones, in a unique way. He would scream and shout, and sometimes even physically remove them. He would treat his staff in the same way, and how we laughed. The temptation to ‘do a Fawlty’ is huge when Mr or Mrs Awkward is once again trying to make ...

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