The Irony of the New York Minute
Whether good or bad, the world generally perceives New Yorkers as a hurried and impatient lot, continually on the move, always rushing off to somewhere more important than the place we are at a given moment. Without question, many of us take a certain pride in being seen as the most demanding, of marking time in nanoseconds, of living our daily lives under the rule of the “New York Minute“.
But the truth is that New Yorkers tolerate some of the most – if not the most – apathetic customer service in the nation. Forget the notion of a New York minute if you need to pick up toiletries or a gourmet coffee – it’ll cost you 15 of those minutes at least. And if you need technical help at a wireless store or, heaven forbid, need to cross a bridge or tunnel? You’ll need to set your watch to count off in quarter-hour increments. Despite what Don Henley may suggest, everything can change in a New York minute … but only if you’re not stuck in line at Duane Reade, Starbucks, or the George Washington Bridge.
I’m always reminded of this myth/reality disconnect whenever I am in San Francisco. California is famous for its slower pace and less stress lifestyle, yet residents here enjoy a prompt level of customer service that far exceeds the standards found in New York City, even at the most everyday of establishments. Generally speaking, there’s an attentiveness to customers and an urgency to help them complete their transactions and get them on their merry way that is in stark contrast to life in the Big Apple. No exaggeration, it’s akin to culture shock to this beaten-down NY consumer. Budgeting extra time to stand in long lines is part of my daily ritual.
Consider the evidence:
Walgreens vs. Duane Reade
Like Duane Reade in New York, there seems to be a Walgreens on every block in San Francisco. That’s where the similarities end.
The managers of San Francisco-based Walgreens seem to realize their customers want to shop in a clean, logically-organized, uncluttered, friendly store, and that they have better things to do than stand aimlessly in line once they’ve found everything they need. If the queue becomes more than three or four people deep, cashiers call for backup without reservation. Employees performing stockwork and other functions drop what they are doing and open a register to move the people through the line quicker.
While there are a few Walgreens in New York, the city is unquestionably dominated by a chain called Duane Reade. Poor customer service is Duane Reade’s hallmark. Forget death and taxes, the only thing you can REALLY bet the house on is that you will never, ever go to a Duane Reade store in New York and not wait in line – even if there are no customers in the store. You’ll simply have to wait while the cashier finishes talking to her colleague, changes the receipt paper, or perhaps fills the coin slots in the till, breaking open the individual coin rolls and counting out every last quarter, dime, nickel and penny packed in them before ringing you up. I am not exaggerating.
Peet’s vs. Starbucks
There is absolutely no debate among coffee aficionados that Peet’s Coffee & Tea, an expanding, locally-based chain whose stores are predominately in California, is far superior to Starbucks when it comes to deep roasted coffee goodness. But their baristas are also worthy of praise.
People who work at Peet’s take great pride in their product – and it shows. They are friendly and energetic, and quick to pleasantly greet you and take your order. The flavor of the coffee is consistent and fresh, and is seemingly made with considerable care rather than with the soulless push of a button. Soothing classical music can be heard in the background. While lines sometimes do form during peak times, it’s not for a lack of hustle on the employees’ parts. It’s simply the popularity of the product. Most important, Peet’s has a pure gourmet coffee shop feel to it. When I walk in there, I don’t put up my guard that they are going to try to cross-sell me 18 other types of products.
Starbucks in New York has essentially become just a fast food chain – minus the “fast” bit. At the store in my neighborhood, the lines move maddeningly slow, they frequently pour coffee that isn’t fully brewed, and on more than one occasion, they actually didn’t have any coffee ready. The baristas like to blast music through tenth-rate quality speakers and while there may indeed be people who truly enjoy “The music of Starbucks,” I’m not one of them. I go to a coffee store just to buy coffee.
Verizon San Francisco vs. Verizon New York
Verizon may be synonymous with bad customer service, but someone forgot to tell Muki, the manager at the company store at 768 Market Street, just off Union Square. I’ve had to visit the store on numerous occasions, and have been impressed with not only the speed of the service but with the knowledge of its tech support people (maybe it has something to do with San Francisco’s proximity to Silicon Valley). I’ve always managed to get in and out of the store within 10 minutes.
Verizon stores in New York are a service nightmare. A while back my colleague Jeff had some problems with his cell phone that required frequent lunchtime visits to the Verizon store near our office. Whenever he announced he was heading over there, we all knew to block out a solid two hours before he would be back and available again for meetings, conference calls, etc.
As an aside, when I casually mentioned to an employee at the Market Street store how much better the service was than Verizon’s New York stores, he remarked, “You know we just had someone else here from New York who told us the same thing.”
Whole Foods on Fourth Street vs. Whole Foods New York City
Whole Foods is a retail delight for anyone who prefers to eat healthy, fresh food. The one on Fourth Street in San Francisco has these wonderfully prepared hot foods and a comfortable seating area to sit and enjoy them. Now here is the best part: I’ve visited the store at peak times and I’ve never had to wait in line. There are plenty of open registers at all times, and cashiers manning them are quick to get you on the move.
While the stock selection and prepared foods are equally good in New York, it’s the untraditional one line to check out that earns the Whole Foods stores their demerits. Simply, it takes too long to check out. Literally, the hot bowl of soup you were looking forward to enjoying for lunch is lukewarm by the time you pay for it and grab a seat. I suppose I could try going at an off-peak hour, but it seems more logical to accommodate customers who want to eat lunch at lunchtime. The New York Times did a profile late last June on the advantage to Whole Foods way of queuing people in one main line and then feeding them to registers as they free up – like they do it at Motor Vehicles – but the “longer the line, the shorter the wait” experience they talk about is nothing I’ve ever appreciated first hand.
The Golden Gate Bridge vs. The George Washington Bridge
Okay, I don’t have hard statistics to back this claim up, but the toll booth collectors at the Golden Gate Bridge run circles around their counterparts at the George Washington Bridge. Maybe they have performance goals and better attitudes, and maybe they just get the credit for what’s really a function of better designed roadways to keep the traffic flowing. The bottom line is that crossing the Golden Gate is comparatively quick and easy.
When I travel back from the Napa region, it is usually on a Sunday evening. On occasion there have been some extremely long backups, but it’s never taken me more than 20 minutes to make it through to the tollbooth. Once you get there, the collectors seem decidedly more polished and engaged, focused solely on accurately processing your transaction. A collector told me the working goal is to have cars pass through in ten seconds or less.
Back on the other coast, Sunday night backups on the George Washington Bridge can easily take more than an hour out of your life, especially in the summer. While part of the delay is no doubt due to the sheer volume of cars trying to squeak through, partial blame must lie with the distractions with which the tollbooth operators surround themselves. They chat on their cell phones, converse with each other by yelling across the lanes, and play loud, pulsating music while supposedly doing their jobs. While there are certainly other advantages to signing up for the E-ZPass automated toll payment system, there is none more persuasive than the promise of not having to deal one-on-one with human toll collectors who make you feel like you are an interruption to their fun.
I read somewhere that the expression a “New York minute” was coined by a guy from Texas who described it as “… a nanosecond, or that infinitesimal blink of time in New York after the traffic light turns green and before the ol’ boy behind you honks his horn.” I can only imagine what the definition would have been if he had taken the subway instead and based it on time standing in line at Duane Reade.
2 of 9
- Googling Weak Journalism
- The Irony of the New York Minute
- Out of the City and Into the Woods
- Seeking a Cure for The San Francisco Treat
- Top 10 Ways to Help Hotels Go Greener
- Clearing the San Francisco Air (Part One)
- Clearing the San Francisco Air (Part Two)
- If You Are Going to San Francisco
- A Demonstration We Can Do Without
I’ve always been dubious about the “taken out of context” defense. It’s like the proverbial dog-ate-my-homework excuse. Sure it’s a possible explanation, but nobody really buys it.