As I stand there, cash in hand, waiting for the person behind the counter to finish their important conversation with their colleague about the viscosity of their ear wax, I want to shout at them ‘Am I TOTALLY invisible?’ or, in my crosser, more hormonal moments, ‘You’d know about it if you worked for me, you wouldn’t for long, there’s good people queuing up to do your job. And they’d do it better. And they don’t have ear wax! ‘

Of course, I don’t, I just resort to one of my telepathic messages of dissatisfaction and fix them with my Angry Stare which Noel says is very scary, and he doesn’t scare easily, except when I ask him to dance.

So when I handed over my insulated mug and asked for a tall skinny latte, the little madam behind the counter at Costa’s outlet at Trowell services on the M1 looked at me as if I had just crawled from under a slimy stone. She said petulantly, ‘I don’t know what that is’. Now it was early morning, I needed coffee, decent coffee, Costa coffee. But I had committed some kind of cross-competitor coffee sin, I had asked in Starbucks speak, where such a request gives me my drink of choice. For some reason, maybe it was the stupid o’clock time, I felt I had to apologise for asking for a drink using the language of a competitor.

“Can you help me out, here?” I asked, “I’m not sure what size fits in my environmentally-friendly mug, which Starbucks gives me a 25p discount for using”

“I don’t know,” she said unhelpfully, managing to avoid The Angry Stare, At that point I should have left it and gone down the road to Leicester Forest East where the Starbucks staff are always pleasant and welcoming. She wasn’t open to making a suggestion on which size, so I guessed, but it was hugely expensive, which I commented on in a HOW MUCH kind of fashion.

“Yes, we are more expensive,” she said, as if that was a good thing. “And we don’t give discounts for using your own mugs either”. Well that’s all right, then, I get the privilege of paying more, helping you contribute to global warming and putting up with bad attitude. Thank you very much, you’ll not be seeing me in your little Kingdom of Bad Service again. Which is a shame, because every other Costa I have ever been to, and there’s mots of those, I drink a lot of coffee, has been excellent.

Contrast that to the superb service I received today from two competitors. My quest for Canadian dollars was fast failing, it seems not many places stock them, not in Pudsey anyway. But the very helpful Amy at Thomson immediately phoned another outlet to ask, though they didn’t have any either. She suggested a competitor, the Post Office, then phoned them too as she didn’t want me to have a fruitless trip up the high street. Yes they did have dollars, she confirmed, then gave me directions not just to the Post Office, but to the location of the foreign money counter. I thanked her and said I was impressed with the service, even though they got no custom from me on this occasion.

On arrival at the Post Office, they had the dollars waiting for me, along with useful advice, which I will definitely take next time. We had a pleasant chat on the general wonderfulness of Canada, particularly for scenic skiing and I left the building, a very satisfied customer.

Good customer service costs nothing, but bad service costs custom. Three cheers for Thomson and the Post Office in Pudsey. A tall skinny latte in a Starbucks mug in the eye of that one member of Costa staff at Trowell.