When you’re in the service industry, it’s always a little dicey to call customers on rude behavior.

Well, here’s a pointer for employees following an incident aboard a cruise ship: If you have to ask customers not to be rude, don’t equate their actions with an ethnic group.

Ship Captain Christopher Wells made an announcement to the vessel’s 2,000 passengers asking them not to reserve deck chairs by leaving towels on them.

“We don’t want that kind of Germanic behavior here,” he said.

The chair-saving had already spurred heated arguments and nearly turned violent, according to wire service reports.

Wells’ comment on top of that made the situation worse.

The captain apologized to passengers for his remarks. But the British Equality and Human Rights Commission said it will hold an inquiry into whether the remarks were ethnic slurs.

Here’s the kicker: Wells’ wife is German – which makes us wonder if the captain and his wife had been having arguments at home over the Barcalounger.