by Bert Zethof

Is it just me or are others coming up against retail clerks and waiters who speak way too fast?

The first time I heard a waiter rattling off the daily specials like the radio announcer speeding through the possible bad side effects of a pharmaceutical, I thought she was an exception. But I've come across several other servers with the same need for speed.

While I haven't done a scientific study, these speed demons tend to be teens or twenty-somethings. I can appreciate that my speech processing ability may not be as quick as theirs, but as a customer I deserve the opportunity to understand what the server is trying to communicate. Don't I?

Just a heads up to managers: If you don't already, you may want to cover "pace of speech" in your customer service training programs. I'll be happy that you did.