FOR five days, Ms Sarah Christine Gorecki faced complaints at dinner time.

The air-conditioning was too cold or the food was too spicy. Or worse, drinks had been spilled on the diners who now demanded a free drink as compensation.

How to deal with difficult customers topped the list of lessons taught to the 20-year-old and about 40 others at a five-day boot camp last month on giving good service - always.

The group is the first to complete the Certified Service Professional programme, which was launched yesterday. Its aim is to instil a strong service mindset among existing and prospective workers in the tourism sector using real-life scenarios.

For Ms Gorecki, the lessons have given her a new outlook. Today, demanding customers no longer frustrate the trainee supervisor at Hei Sushi restaurant in recreation complex Downtown East.

'I've learnt not to take what customers say personally as they may be having a bad day. As a professional, you just deal with it, smile and get on with the job.'

The programme for the boot camp, developed by the Workforce Development Agency (WDA), will train 36,000 service personnel such as waiters, tour guides, shop assistants and chambermaids over the next three years.

These front-line positions form the bulk of the 60,000 jobs coming onstream in the burgeoning tourism industry over the next few years.

By enacting real-life scenarios and workplace practices, the programme aims to give participants a foretaste of what the industry is like, such as its rewards and responsibilities.

Speaking at the launch, WDA chief executive officer Ong Ye Kung said the camps will also help identify who has the 'basic DNA' for the job.

'If someone spends his or her whole life in a semi-conductor plant wearing overalls and doesn't really like talking to people, it will be hard to expect him to be transformed during the course of the camp,' he said.

Mr Douglas Foo, chief executive officer of Apex-Pal International, which runs the Sakae Sushi chain of restaurants, praised the programme for being a useful 'reality check' for people eyeing a tourism-sector job.

'In the food and beverage business, there is sometimes a mismatch between what people coming into the industry want out of the job, and the company's expectations of them,' Mr Foo said.

'With a boot camp like this, the company and the workers will be on the same page.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times on May 23, 2008.