Paranoia

I stayed in a hotel recently, just a weekend break. I'd been looking forward to it; an escape from the everyday routine. So the first night involved a bit of social indulgence at the bar.

The next morning I  came down from my room, heading for breakfast. A staff member approached me as I headed into the dining area.
“Excuse me, sir. Are you going to breakfast?” she asked.
I stopped and said, “Yes.”
She looked at me. “I need to tick you off.”
Slightly perturbed, I said, “Tick me off?” 
“Yes,” she said.
I mentally scanned the number of Jack Daniels I’d had the night before. “Uh, what have I done?”
“Done? Sorry?” she said.
“Uh, yes. The … err, ticking off thing.” I checked around me. There was a queue forming.
She raised an eyebrow. “Your room, I -“
“My room? It’s fine.” I did a quick mental flit through the room I had just left. Okay, I’d left a towel on the bed, but it seemed fine to me. The room wasn’t trashed. I might want to live like a rock star but I don’t behave like one! I shot a quick glance at the queue to see if I recognised anyone from the previous night, leaned in and whispered, "yup, all good."
The staff member raised the other eyebrow. Now they were both parallel. “Good, glad you enjoyed it, sir. I just need your room number so I can tick it off to say you have attended breakfast.”

Food Hygiene

You know that food hygiene classification that restaurants and bars stick on their doors … the one that rates them between one and five, with five being super duper, you could eat off the frigging floor, and one being ‘even rats won’t dine here.’ Yeah, so, what’s the point of sticking it on your restaurant door unless you get a 5?

You get a 1 rating, game over, it’s bottom of the league by a long shot (see aforementioned rat view). So, you ain’t sticking that on your door. What about a 2? Well, that ain’t happening either ‘cos it suggests that if Sam and Ella booked a table they’d be right at home. Okay, then there's a 3 - hmmm, three is tooo middle of the road, it’s neither Arthur nor Martha (with apologies to the ‘offended’ who might read stuff into that expression that ain’t there). You get a 3, you kind of feel that you could stick the rating label on your door, probably ‘cos your clientele are usually the type that, having downed fourteen pints of 'Stella Act a Twat', show up at 3:00am in the morning after failing to pull in a shit club, and will never complain ‘cos at that time of the morning, they know they have consumed enough alcohol to neutralise viruses, bugs, germs and maybe even Sam and Ella! But, the thing is, YOU know a 3 is not going to get you the clientele your aspirations wanted when you decided to take the pain of the catering trade and opened your food establishment. 

Now we’re on 4s. What do you do? 4 … it ain’t bad but some knobhead is gonna ask why you ain’t a 5. Trust me. They will. You know you gotta step up but you look at your staff and you know they are never gonna get you to a 5. They're going through the motions, clock watchers, corner cutters, don’t see the detail that those who know about ‘surprise and delight’ just get!

So, where does that leave you? Yeah, you know it, only one conclusion - it’s all about about a 5, as a basic. Nothing else matters. Therefore, the whole ‘stick it on your door’ to show your achievements is pointless. If you don’t have a 5 you might as well shut your doors … or open a late night, drunks' takeaway.