GIRL TALK - Never, ever send your steak back

As everyone knows, a well made coffee is one of those tiny little highlights on the horizon of an otherwise grey working day and when it bombs the pain is sharp.There is so much to be said for respecting the serving classes.
And for once in my life, I'm not being facetious, or even especially ponky.
They may be on minimum wage, and treated like it, but the people who pour our coffees, flip our burgers and fit our bras have more power than most of us would ever really care to reflect on.
I discovered this the hard way yesterday when my own poor time management saw me in desperate need of strong coffee and an extra ten minutes.
Deciding the former was the more pressing concern, I pulled into a service station to get ... well ... service.
What I got was an overworked, underpaid and distinctly harried-looking staff member who was doing his level best to perform the job of several overworked, underpaid and harried-looking staff members.
Having endured my fair share of drudge wiping tables and pulling pints in my unskilled youth, I share a certain sympathy for those in the service industry, who in most cases do a very average job to the best of their abilities (or at least to the extent that they actually give a damn).
Yesterday, though, as I craved my coffee fix and watched precious seconds tick by as the pimply young lad carefully topped up the pie display while equally carefully ignoring me, I snapped. Literally and figuratively.
With a rude click of my fingers and an imperious "excuse me young man", I divorced him from his pies and set him to work on my coffee. Unfortunately, a coffee is only as good as the person making it, and the person making it is only as good as you are to them.
The sum total of this quick equation in service etiquette is that my coffee was crap.
It was cold, weak and too sweet.
And all because I was too rude.
As everyone knows, a well made coffee is one of those tiny little highlights on the horizon of an otherwise grey working day and when it bombs the pain is sharp.
Not only was I now running even more late, I was angry in a way that only a disappointed coffee addict can relate to.
And all because I forgot the golden rule: treat service staff not just the way you would wish to be treated - but better.
The consequences for not doing so can be far more brutal than a bad coffee.
While working in a five-star restaurant in America many years ago, I survived a particularly American onslaught of priggishness from an odious customer by sucking on his lemons before I put them in his water.
For a fleeting moment, my face became as sour as the customer.
Then it was transformed with an evil grin.
For the rest of his meal, I was able to happily assist with his unreasonable and rude requests because at every single sip of his drink, I was getting even.
But the lesson in this has always stayed with me.
Knowing that I'm not only a nice person but a hygienic one as well, I have always wondered what nasty, unclean waiters might serve back from the kitchen in response to the cheek dished out by customers.
There isn't much worse than paying good money for an overcooked steak, except paying for a perfectly cooked one with unknown ingredients added by a disgruntled waiter.
People, there is a lesson in my cold coffee for us all this week: be nice to service staff.
And never, ever send your steak back.