mind torture Japanese style

So this was the last scene of yesterday's business meeting, it is much easier to describe the poor guy's look by quoting Coldplay's second album "a rush of blood to the head", and I did not know if it was proper to sqeeze a compassionate smile in front of my boss.

The seemingly innocent look, grateful eyes, over-modest attitude, humble manner...the perfect conspiracy of Japanese!

So, here's a perfect example. My boss went out for dinner with 2 friends. She usually sticks with the place she trusts even it means she has to pay extra for memership fee. This time it was Xiao Nan Guo. She undoubtedly believes in the consistent dish quality. One unfortunate splash of soup poured over her coat, one waitress unfortunately did not appologize; as the night went on, they tried to distract themselves from the unhappy incident. Carrying on with the dessert, one friend all of a sudden screamed and from her mouth spit out a broken piece of spoon, sharp corners and everything. The next thing was she calling the restaurant manager over and her voice volumn increasing. Of course, according to my boss, fighting does not make things better. Thus, to reasure her friend, she was willing to step forward for her friend and show off her wicked mind torture Japanese style.

Attention. Here came my boss, short as B. The restaurant manager, short as M.

B (in a rather calm voice, higher gesture): How would you explain what has just happened? This is the second unhappy moment in the short night.

M: Mamm, we can prepare a few extra dishes for free. Or deduct a few dishes cost. (She's very professional, however, she did not appologize)

B: But we have already finished dessert, we might not have any more appetite. It is more reasuring to us that we have all expense deducted.

M: Sorry Mamm, this is all we can do.

B (still calm, really calm): Try to think that you are having dinner with your friends, you even paid the special booking fee so that you can stay in the VIP room, yet the service you get is quite out of expectation, would you be happy? (That is a wicked question - a yes or no question)

M (think for a while): Not really...

B: So would you please deduct the expense for us?

M went in to ask for her manager's permision.

M came out: Sorry Mamm, I was not entitled to give you an all deduction, but we can give you coupons. Would that be ok?

B (sharpened her mind torturing knife by now): I believe that you are a wonderful employee to this restaurant, I believe you are very capable of dealing with unexpected incident. Let me ask you one question, what do you think is the most important thing to a restaurant?

M: ...

B: It is the public praise. (pause) I came here because your dish quality is surprisingly guaranteed, every time I order the same dish and they always taste the same. It never fails me. Customer will come back if the restaurant offers good food and good service. If it dissapoints the customer, they will never come back. And this is crucial to a restaurant, the public praise.

M suffered...

B: I myself is an owner of a business. I grant my employee the certain rights to deal with customers, and I always ask them to make the customers happy, try to fulfill all their needs. I believe that if your restaurant owner is a wise person, for this I have no doubt, then she will give you the rights to deduct the costs for us. Because today we are really unhappy. My friend's life can be threatened by the broken spoon piece.

M was out of words long ago and she went back in for authority.

My boss then talked to her friend: I know she's a professional staff and what she did is absolutely correct. No restaurant owner would deduct all the cost for customers but I just want to see how she would deal with the situation.

M came out: Mamm, this is the result and I hope it'll make for your loss.

My boss took over the bill and on it the orginal 600 RMB was now merely a number of 60 something, which means they have deducted cost of all expensive dishes and have made drinks free.

How is that?! And what happened after? Of course they accpeted the solution, and next round, they went to somewhere for proper dessert feast!

Do not mess with Japanese, coz by killing you softly, they'll make you want to commit suicide.