We went on holiday last week, 6 of us. Me and Alison, Grace (my eldest), Rosie (my youngest daughter), Callum, my son and his girlfriend, Maisie (who edits the blog).
We go out for breakfast in Portugal. It’s highly recommended the place we go, and we like breakfast. We're a group that likes to share food and meals together, and we love to share breakfast, particularly somewhere warm, so we go to the black and white cafe.
It's rated high, and it's amazing, except when we get there, the waitress is a little grumpy.
We needed a table for 6, we'd like one outside, it's a bit of a hassle, it takes a bit of time.
She has a little bit of a face like a slapped arse, she's about to ruin the potential experience of somewhere that lots of other people have found great, but we make the best of it, and we order our breakfast, and it's sensational (truly sensational).
The waiter who serves us, though, is also sensational. I never got his name, but he was brilliant. I had a conversation with him at the end; he'd worked there for a while. It had been the best place he'd ever worked; he loved it.
He referred to me as ‘my man’, and when we went back the second day, (because it had actually been that good). He was there again, and he recognised me, and he spoke to me again. Nothing was too much trouble; he would help us with the menu, he would compliment us on our choices or suggest something different, ask us to try this, and deliver everything with a big smile on his face. Massive enthusiasm, massive positivity.
On the last day we were there, the family went home early, and Tom and I were heading to the conference. We were a little bit short of time, but Tom hadn't been to the black and white café, and so, I decided it was worth the cost of an Uber to go back into the old town with our suitcases and have breakfast there just for us both to experience it (see yesterday's blog).
Service from the second waiter was good enough to overcome the lack of service from the first.
It was good enough to make it such a memorable experience that I wanted to take Tom; it was good enough to make it so good that I wanted to write about it here.
If you're in Lagos, go there for your breakfast, but more than that, you get to choose which waiter you are in your job. Imagine the difference you can make if you’re like the second one.
This is a choice that we all make; it's about how we turn up. Turn up like him, and your day will be massively better, but so will everyone else's day, and you're well over halfway to becoming a linchpin.
Blog Post Number - 4331
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