It's Mercy. Not Marcy.

I know I’m a weird messenger to be giving advice, but I truly mean this to be helpful, @JDVance. Fire your whole team. They clearly hate you. This is TV production 101, and they failed it. 1) Someone is supposed to scout ahead and make sure everyone there is interested in being on camera AND excited to talk to you. And if your team finds out that no one at the place is interested in talking to you and some don’t even want to be on camera with you - situations that I’m sure you are used to by now - then your team needs to find another establishment. 2) Someone is supposed to prep you with names and talking points. This is especially true because, as you know, you are horrible at small talk. Your team must even know this by now. Your team has to give you follow up questions so you are ready to go. “What is your bestselling donut?” “What’s your favorite?” “What do you recommend?” “What’s your favorite part of your job?” “Do you eat too many donuts because you work here.” This is simple stuff. But again, I get that it is extremely hard for you to speak to humans. That’s why you need a better team. 3) in lieu of small talk, which I would recommend you skipping because you are - again - HORRIBLE at it, your team should have given you a pre decided order so you were ready for the “difficult task” of ordering donuts. Here are a few suggestions for next time. “I’ll take a dozen glazed.” “Just give me a dozen of your bestsellers.” “JUST FILL THE BOX WITH SPRINKLES THAT YOU SCRAP OFF OF SPRINKLE DONUTS, AAAAAARGH!!!” That last one was a trick. If you believed it then you need more help than I even imagined. The good news is I’ll happily take you on as a client to teach you how to appear more human, all for the price of one jabilliondee dollar bucks. Currently, there is a 1% discount. But I need your answer by… more