Observation mode activated!

👀 I realized recently, I never switch off my observation mode!

Without my intention or plan, I pick up an excess of details from all around me each day, every day, due to my intensive and extensive luxury service behaviors training profession.

🕵 I function, often unnecessarily, on a constant mystery shopper frequency, noticing all the good, the bad, and, the abundantly ugly aspects of the service employees’ behaviors around me. At the mall, the coffee bar, the ice cream shop, the balloon stand, the grocery store, everywhere!

This makes it difficult for me to relax, enjoy the simplicity of a coffee, tune out and focus, pretend I don’t mind, ignore below-mediocre service, or explain to my friends why being treated with respect as a customer is the bare minimum and so important to me.

Call it what you will: a professional defect, the hospitality eye, attention to detail, or professional vigilance - I want to know how to tone it down.

When in a hotel lobby for a meeting I feel like smiling at other guests, adjusting the corner of a chair, and I am on alert to answer possible questions guests may ask. In the supermarket, I feel like arranging the products myself or straightening the clothes in a retail store. Mostly, in any service-based interaction, I see when employees are distracted, disinterested, not picking up on my cues or other customer’s signals, sloppy, too slow or too fast, disengaged, or bluntly rude.

I also observe how wonderful the gentleman selling popcorn in the amusement park is, how caring and smiling he behaves, and how he offeres me a bag to carry some extra personal belongings. Or the grocery store lady who does not give up until she takes me to the specific aisle and finds the product I was looking for or goes to check if there are any left in the storage. 

This is a powerful tool, that allows me to see the world through a uniquely discerning lens. 

However, each interaction becomes an unintentional evaluation, a spot-check or a detailed audit.

🧐 I know, I know, there are no recipes, only awareness, and choices!

❓ As a hospitality professional, how do you handle this hyper hospitality state of mind? 

❓ And for all professionals, what behaviors transferred from your work to your daily life that you could notice?