Long History
I was asked recently about my “service attitude” and where I got it. I dug up blog post from a couple of years ago to answer the question. As I read it I decided to re-post it for my new followers to read. I hope you enjoy it along with the comments. 
My father, pictured above (on the left) with his early partner, ingrained it in me. He owned several small meat markets inside local grocery stores, and I grew up raking the sawdust and scraping the butcher blocks. I don’t credit that experience with my vegetarianism, but I did learn a lot about hard work and customer service.
Dad, Marty as he was known, loved chatting with housewives about the meal they were going to prepare that evening. I never saw him cook, but you wouldn’t know that from the way he described menu possibilities which led to large purchases and happy customers. They loved his suggestions and credited him with the successful dinner they had the night before.
Those were simpler times; it was in the late 40’s and early 50’s, before fast food and self service. I remember when Market Basket opened a huge new modern store with the first self serve meat counter featuring packaged meats. Dad was recruited to run the meat department. He sold our house in Santa Monica and we moved to Lynwood, California into our fancy new home. Dad was very excited about this great opportunity, but he wasn’t there long before he began to hate the job. He complained about being stuck behind a glass wall packaging meat and being out of contact with the customers. Within a year he quit the job and bought a small meat counter in a local market where he could do what he loved; service customers.
That’s it; those are my roots.
NOTE: Dad never believed that I had really become a vegetarian in the 60’s, but that’s another story.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 21st, 2010 at 12:22 pm and is filed under Customer Experiences. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.