The Slice: Bad attitude all but invites frank critique

Let’s say you have been a customer at a small business for years.

You aren’t really friends with the owner, but you have established a cheerful “Hi, how are you?” relationship.

But the owner hired someone new to work at the front counter, and you can’t stand this person.

She’s passive-aggressive, patronizing, treats customers like they are a nuisance – the works.

It’s not just you. You have seen this employee giving others a hard time. It’s always when the boss isn’t around. In fact, you are quite sure that the owner has no idea what this employee’s hostile “service” personality is really like.

What do you do?

We all know it can be tricky to say something negative about someone’s love interest. But what about this situation? How do you tell someone that her employee might be driving customers away?

For all you know, the charmless counter person is related to the boss. Or maybe the owner considers herself savvy about hiring and would be insulted by any suggestion that she chose someone stunningly ill-suited to the job.

Offering constructive feedback directly to the repellent employee is out. She has already made it clear that she thinks you are a time-wasting moron.

Maybe quietly ending your relationship with the business is the thing to do. But won’t you feel a twinge of regret when, a few months from now, you hear that the place has gone out of business?

Slice answers: Larry Zimmerman of Electric City would want Clint Eastwood to play him in a movie. “On the day I was bemoaning turning 50, my son ran into the room shouting, ‘Dad! You’re not old! Clint Eastwood is 51!’ ”

Jewel Baccarella would cast her unofficial identical cousin. “For years people have said I looked like and reminded them of Patty Duke.”

Today’s Slice question: What if Spokane had one day each year designated as “Silent Retreat Saturday” and, except for emergencies and necessary commerce, no one would speak out loud?