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Winning and Losing in Mordor
I spent the weekend at a medical conference in Washington D.C., which I lovingly refer to as Mordor. Flying out of DCA this morning, I stopped at a burger place near my gate to get lunch before boarding my flight. As I walked up, the short Middle-Eastern-appearing man behind the counter told me, in heavily accented English, “The Barbeque Bacon Burger really hit spot. Thick slabs bacon.” Appreciating his obvious concern for my anorexic appearance, I said sure, why not. As I’m leaning over to get a drink from the fridge next to the cash register, he says, “Our Elevation Chicken Sandwich has organic chicken!”
Wondering why he’s telling me about other options after I’ve already ordered, I look up from the fridge. He’s looking past me, to a slender 60ish-year-old woman with her gray hair pulled back into a ponytail. She’s wearing a Native American-styled narrow headband, and a blue surgical mask. Her blue eyes light up, and she says, “Really!?!” Really. I’m not making this up.
I look back at him and say, “The mask is cheating.”
He smiles and says, “I don’t need mask. I read people. I read you, right?”
Me: “I don’t appreciate being profiled.”
Burger Guy: “But I was right, right?”
I look to my right, and there’s an overweight Black man, waiting for his order. I’m just about to ask him what he ordered when the cook in the back hollers, “Barbeque Bacon Burger!”
I grimace and say, “He got you too, huh?” The Black guy smiled sheepishly and shrugged.
His wife piped up, “You ain’t sellin’ no brotha’ no organic chicken.”
I turned to see what Mask Lady thought of this, but she wasn’t there. She had wandered off. Perhaps to ponder the energy of some crystals, or to encourage some Arabs to murder some Jews. Or whatever.
So I turn back to my Middle Eastern friend behind the counter. He’s wearing a self-satisfied smirk. I lean over to the Black gentleman to my right and whisper, “I’ll pay you $20 to change your order.”
Burger Guy heard me, smiled, and said, “Your $20 says I’m always right. 80 percent. You stay here for an hour. I be right 80 percent. You pay me $20.” Big smile.
I’m not sure what to do. I look around. I see a 40ish-year-old white guy with a laptop bag over his shoulder, walking up the concourse. I stop him, and say, “Hi! Um, how are you? So, look. Ahhh, we’re running a survey here at, um, Elevation Burger and I wonder if you could help us out…”
The Burger Guy calls out from behind me, “Our Elevation Chicken Sandwich has organic chicken!”
I’m still looking back over my shoulder at Burger Guy, and I hear Laptop Guy behind me, “Really? Cool!”
Me: “F-word!!!”
Burger Guy: “Ha!”
Laptop Guy: “What?”
Me: “How did you…”
Burger Guy: “Designer eyeglasses.”
I turn to look at an increasingly confused, and now vaguely concerned, Laptop Guy. He was wearing fancy eyeglasses, with elaborate frames, and I hadn’t noticed. But they didn’t seem important. To me, at least. I guess.
The Black guy to my right laughed and said, “Dude’s about to lose $20!”
Laptop Guy, feeling uncomfortable, tries to regain control of the situation by asking me, “Have you tried the organic chicken?”
The cook yells out from the back, “Barbeque Bacon Burger!”
Me: “F-word!”
Burger Guy: “Ha!”
Laptop Guy: “What?”
I look back at the Laptop Guy. I shake my head and say, “Hey, I’m really sorry. I was just settling a bet with my friend behind the counter. Sorry about all that.”
Laptop Guy smiled nervously and said, “So I’m not getting a chicken sandwich?”
I said, “Absolutely you are. It’s organic chicken. On me.”
I toss The Burger Guy a twenty and say, “You, my friend, are a very dangerous man.”
The Burger Guy laughed and said, “I read people.”
I looked at the Black Guy to my right. We both shook our heads and wandered off together, with our Barbeque Bacon Burgers. We were both a bit offended. But on the other hand, we were thankful that we didn’t have to eat organic chicken.
You win some, you lose some.
I spoke to the Black guy’s wife for a while as we walked down the concourse to our gates. She said she never bought organic chicken because it was so much more expensive, and tasted the same. I said that I felt the same way. She went on at some length about the price of groceries.
I asked her how she thought the Burger Guy figured me out – what was I wearing that tipped him off. She said, “It wasn’t your clothes. It was your belly.” Her husband found this hysterical. I pretended to be offended. But she was probably right.
But that’s ok. The Barbeque Bacon Burger was delicious.
You win some, you lose some.
Published in General
There is much you can learn from a person whose livelihood depends entirely on their people skills.
So true. The guy was really good. And I suspect he’ll be really good at whatever he sells next.
Some people just show up to work & go home. I really admired the pride he took in his work.
Hahaha!! Love it! Embrace the bacon bbq and be thankful you didn’t look like an organic chicken guy.
Heuristics. It works sometimes.
Sixty percent of the time it works every time!
I wonder what he’d try to sell me. I wouldn’t prefer either of those choices. Was anything else on the menu?
Could also be your bearing, how you stand.
Burger Guy has a lot of data on his side – hundreds of orders per day, and it sounds like he’s quite observant.
He also has the power of suggestion on his side. It is unlikely the customers approach with a strong pre-conceived idea of what they want. So once he makes a suggestion that suggestion has a more than minimal chance of swaying the customer’s decision. Unlike a hometown restaurant where it is quite likely customers arrive with a strong idea of what they want. When I choose a restaurant in my town, I most likely choose it because I want some specific item (or at least a narrowed selection of items) that the restaurant serves. But if I’m getting something at an airport restaurant at an airport I’m passing through, chances are I’ve never even heard of the place before and have little idea of what they serve, so I’m receptive to a suggestion.
Thank you for your small social experiment. I’m sure some academic could spin your experiment into at least two heavily-funded research projects. :)
Yes, there was. But I didn’t read it – the Barbeque Bacon Burger sounded good. The Burger Guy saved me the trouble of agonizing over the other options. Which a good salesman often does.
Paging Erving Goffman.
I hear organic chicken taste like … um what was it? Oh yah, chicken. I love merica.
Your pic of burger guy had no intention of conquering that monstrosity. The smile was telling
Thank you for sharing this.
My husband has been on low-cholesterol diets a couple of times. He’s never happy about it. :)
One year he had been following the diet for months. As Father’s Day rolled around, he heard about a local five-star hotel and restaurant that was offering a Father’s Day special brunch buffet. My husband decided to give himself the day off from his diet, and he made a reservation. He was really looking forward to this brunch.
Father’s Day arrived, and we went to church. Then the five of us–daughters 1 and 2, ages 9 and 7, and son aged 1.5–headed over to the restaurant. The restaurant entrance was through the hotel’s lobby. The chefs had set up a long buffet line from the restaurant entrance to the space where the tables were. It was so elegant. The five us went past the carving stations for a huge ham, a turkey, and gorgeous prime rib roast. My husband’s face was so cheerful. All those months and just look at that prime rib!
The waiter seated us at the table and brought over a highchair for my son. We ordered orange juice for the kids. The waiter brought the juice over to the kids, and he plunked a crystal juice glass down on my son’s highchair tray. My son promptly picked it up and bit into the glass. I am not making that up. He really did. :)
Needless to say, his father scooped him up and took him to the local emergency room where we spent the rest of the morning. As it turned out, the doctors couldn’t see any glass slivers in the x-rays, so they guessed he was okay. Why the glass did not cut into his insides I will never know. But we eventually went home, and he seems okay to this day. :) :)
I can still see my husband looking at that prime rib on our way out. :) :) Too funny. :)
Another truly delightful post, Doc. Thank you!
I bet I could manage 80% with two choices. Half a dozen it’d take some work. Thirty or so I’d be out.
It really isn’t that hard to make some basic inferences from people’s appearance. I practiced on women’s shoes. No, really. I had three hours to sit in an airport and the bars weren’t open because COVID. Most women were wearing sneakers. Those were the ones who were just trying to travel and wanted to do it in comfort. Some were wearing heels. Those were the ones more concerned about maintaining correct appearance at the expense of comfort. That simple comfort/style axis is enough to tell you a lot about how they see themselves and what they were anticipating about today as they got up this morning.
The inferences aren’t that hard. Like the designer glasses all you have to do is look and try to understand.
There’s a classic Dilbert. Google “clues from women’s hair.”
I never buy organic anything. I don’t see the value added.
Just FYI. I got my cholesterol down from 118 to 101 by lowering my butter intake a ton and substituting tater tots and fish stick like stuff made in an air fryer. It’s only one cycle, but I was a little shocked.
The stupidity of public health is beyond description. I hate these people.
When I see “Organic Food”, I really wonder if the other stuff is made of sand and oil. How exactly do you make Inorganic Food? And truly, most Organic Chemistry uses Oil or Natural Gas as feedstocks.
Plus he’s having fun, and it makes the shift go by quicker, and folks will remember the place next time they hit the airport.
Get ready. There will be another inevitable doom cycle coming your way just in time for election season. Can’t have people thinking for themselves or anything.
Exactly. He has an active mind, and he’s in a boring job. So he finds ways to make it interesting.
Good for him.
For what it’s worth, when I see people in boring jobs like that, and I have a lot of choices to make, I always ask them what they would do. It always turns out really good. I got an incredible sandwich at Jimmy John’s once. Same thing at Papa Murphy’s.
Thanks for making my mouth water this morning . . .
Hey Doc,
I think you should make it a game and attempt to fool him next time you are in town. Some suggested looks to pull it off….
Great post and people watching is fun. I will also tell you that most countries I have been in are master of human intelligence, not having all the tech capabilities of the U.S. And they are good at it. Seeing and remembering everything.
That’s a GREAT idea!
Ah. I’ve got to come here more often. Thanks for a day-brightener.
Organic in this context doesn’t mean organic any more than Diversity means diversity or Sustainability means sustainability. Also, Organic is not necessarily the same as USDA Organic.
A lot of people buy it in order to ingest less pesticide residue. In some cases it might matter and in others it’s probably hokum on the order of saying the covid vaccine is a mass killer. Mrs R often buys organic apples, and I approve of that choice (though don’t turn down other “non-Organic” apples to eat). When I see from the spoilage that our apples are safe for various bacteria and parasites, I figure they’re probably safe for me to eat, too.