My husband and I went out to lunch at our favorite pizza place on Sunday. We had a nice waiter, who was very attentive. Those of you who have read my blog for a while know that I enjoy watching employees at work; it tells me a lot about the business and the employees themselves.
This young man was moving fast on his feet, seating customers, taking orders, creating small talk with the clients and doing it all with a fabulous smile. As I watched him, I was thinking that he just might be an “A+” employee.
But then it happened….. He came to our table and asked if we would like anything to drink before we ordered. We asked for water with ice and lemon. He replied “no problem” and hurried off to get our water. Problem? Where did a problem suddenly come from?
When he returned, we told him we were ready to order and at the end of our order he said “is there anything else?” We replied “no” and he stated “no problem”. Again, problem? What is the problem?
To make a long story short, every time he asked us something and we replied his reply was “no problem”.
I do not think he realized that the word “problem” was a negative word. What has happened to using positive language when encountering others? He could have chosen words like, my pleasure, absolutely, thank you, I will be right back.
People would rather have pleasure over problems any day. We can develop negative language habits and not even realize it.
Here are a few negative choice of words that we hear all of the time:
No problem
Don’t panic
This won’t hurt a bit
It should be okay
Usually things go all right
I hope we don’t see you back about this again
We need to become aware of the messages that we are giving out that have negative words embedded in them and turn them to positive messages. The people with whom we work, live and serve will really appreciate our choice of positive words.
I hope you have a great Tuesday! See how many positive messages you can share.
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