Gone Are the Days

Gone are the days of Employee Etiquette. The days of Patrons not knowing, having to think about, or even realizing we Customer Service Representatives are Human. Those days are long gone. Patrons never knew we peed, or ate, or smoked, or how we even arrived to work. Just that we did and now we were here to serve them.
 
As a Customer myself, I would go out to eat or shopping in my local restaurants and never give a second thought to where the cashier or waitress had been the night before or that they just returned from a lunch break or a smoke break. I mean, God forbid if I had ever smelled smoke on someone just returning to their work area. That was just unheard. It never crossed my mind because no in your face evidence was ever provided.
 
As a Customer myself, the days are gone of never noticing the texting on cell phones hidden under aprons or behind the cash register in a secret spot, or even the blatantly obvious: picking up a call right in front of a Patron. Yikes!
 
The days are gone of being made to feel special by your Customer Service Representative asking you how your day is and how you plan to spend your weekend. Instead, CSRs find it acceptable to give you their “woe is me” stories while waiting on you.
 
I miss that Employee Etiquette there once was. I miss how Customer Service was all about impressing the Patron with all you had. IMPRESSING! Not “this is my job, so I do it.” Not “I’m just doing this to pay the bills or until something better comes along.” Not the nonchalant body language given off now that makes you feel as if you’re just another Patron and another one will come along in your absence.
 
I welcome that Employees use the back door to come and go from their shift. I appreciate that Employees don’t dine at the tables next to Patrons while still on the clock and in uniform. I encourage Employees to either arrive to work in no uniform at all or in a full, perfectly presentable uniform. I strongly recommend the use of private, Employee only restrooms so as not to run into one of your Patrons in a quite intimate spot. I value an Employee that leaves their cell behind in their car, or a locker, or is able to turn it off and leave it off while working. I promote the use of alternate places to shop and dine other than your own place of employment on a regular basis.
 
This is Employee Etiquette.
 
Should I consider myself old school; a dying breed; a breed that supported proper Employee Etiquette?