Customer Service: It Gets Worse
July 31, 2013 4:26 PM Subscribe
Remember when Dan Savage started a campaign to convince LGBT teens that "it gets better"? It's a noble cause, but sadly there's still a huge subset of the population out there for whom it will only get worse...
I found this depressing.
posted by unknownmosquito at 4:46 PM on July 31, 2013
posted by unknownmosquito at 4:46 PM on July 31, 2013
I was relieved that none of the Metafilter mods contributed examples.
posted by alms at 4:50 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by alms at 4:50 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
unknownmosquito: "I found this depressing."
If you're in customer service, it turns out that it gets worse.
posted by Blasdelb at 4:50 PM on July 31, 2013
If you're in customer service, it turns out that it gets worse.
posted by Blasdelb at 4:50 PM on July 31, 2013
A lot of people are extra nice to people who work in the service industry. I however feel its better to be extra mean so the rest of the day seems better in comparison. Really, I'm doing them a favor, it's like a tip.
Please note I don't actually do that.
posted by Ad hominem at 4:50 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
Please note I don't actually do that.
posted by Ad hominem at 4:50 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
Know what's actually worse? Being a bullied LGBT teen. The framing of this unfunny video is particularly odious.
posted by FreezBoy at 4:51 PM on July 31, 2013 [26 favorites]
posted by FreezBoy at 4:51 PM on July 31, 2013 [26 favorites]
Since he mentioned it....he kind of does look like a bald Ryan Reynolds.
posted by Diablevert at 4:58 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by Diablevert at 4:58 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
I was relieved that none of the Metafilter mods contributed examples.
I thought them though, all the way through this video.
posted by jessamyn at 4:59 PM on July 31, 2013 [14 favorites]
I thought them though, all the way through this video.
posted by jessamyn at 4:59 PM on July 31, 2013 [14 favorites]
Given that we're a service economy these days, I think it should be mandatory for everyone aged 18-21 to serve in some kind of service industry job, just so they're about to empathize with all the crap that these people get.
posted by mullingitover at 5:02 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by mullingitover at 5:02 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
I worked at a call centre for a year (I had an arts degree in Eastern Canada, okay?). One day I was at Subway to pick up dinner after my shift. The guy ahead of me in line, who worked with me, was treating the cashier like absolute shit. I never understood that. You work customer service too, dude; you can't give this guy a little slack?
posted by ODiV at 5:04 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by ODiV at 5:04 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
Couldn't make it through that. Painfully unfunny. The LGBT framing of the project is far more depressing than the video.
posted by dobbs at 5:05 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]
posted by dobbs at 5:05 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]
I'm one of those LGBT peeps and I found it funny. *shrug*
posted by andreaazure at 5:07 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by andreaazure at 5:07 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]
... The guy ahead of me in line, who worked with me, was treating the cashier like absolute shit. I never understood that. You work customer service too, dude; you can't give this guy a little slack?
Sadly, I've come to think that understanding why this exact thing happens is key to understanding an important facet of human nature.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:14 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]
Sadly, I've come to think that understanding why this exact thing happens is key to understanding an important facet of human nature.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:14 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]
I did a bunch of retail in my teens & twenties and I just CANNOT be rude/impatient/dehumanizing to service workers. I dont really care of you are rude, incompetent, dont return my greeting or make eye contact. it takes A LOT for me to be discourteous to service industry employees because it sucks SO MUCH ASS. I may not add a ray of sunshine to the gloom but I'll not bring another cloud of soul-sucking sisyphean despair into the day of that person...
posted by supermedusa at 5:18 PM on July 31, 2013 [10 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 5:18 PM on July 31, 2013 [10 favorites]
omg I am soooooo happy that I am a free-lance web developer!! do I win some sort of sick award for greatest worst achievement ever????
posted by supermedusa at 5:19 PM on July 31, 2013
posted by supermedusa at 5:19 PM on July 31, 2013
What is a worse job, meth dealer maybe?
posted by Ad hominem at 5:21 PM on July 31, 2013
posted by Ad hominem at 5:21 PM on July 31, 2013
I think meth dealers make better money.
posted by The Whelk at 5:23 PM on July 31, 2013 [7 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 5:23 PM on July 31, 2013 [7 favorites]
Wow, i was actually typing a post about this right now.
I've worked two customer service jobs, probably more if you count short stuff. One was at a burgers+teriyaki shop, the other was at a non-starbucks large coffee chain as a barista. I've seen it from both the small business and the big corporate side, and they both sucked a lot in quite different ways. You sort of have to choose whether you'd rather constantly be hamstringed by labyrinthine corporate policy which basically amounts to "no really, the customer actually is always right" mixed in with "you have to do this our ridiculous complex way even though there's a blatantly obvious better way", vs small business "you can't tell that person they're not welcome here because they'll tell your friends you were rude and it'll kill the family business" and similarly weird "my way or the highway" shit. It all sucks.
Jesus christ did this resonate with me though, even though i'm several years out of doing anything like this.
I've had a psychotic homeless dude throw a rock hard burger in my face so hard that it actually gave me a black eye. Why was it rock hard? He ordered it, then left, then came back 30-40 minutes later when it had been sitting in the hot table the entire time. He didn't throw it at me because it was rock hard, he threw it at me after eating like 1/3rd of it because there was mayo on it and he "ordered it without mayo and i'm allergic to mayo!". He hadn't, he tried this fucking scam a couple times a week to get a burger and a half for the price of one. He'd just rotate what he was allergic too.
One time it seemed like a hooker had exploded in the bathroom. Everything was covered in blood and strawberry milkshake and food bits, and random bits of clothes. They tried to get me to mop up the blood. With paper towels and my hands.
I once stood in awe as a crunked out hooker came in with no shirt on, just a leather jacket, and her belt undone. mumbled something about a grilled sandwich and FELL OVER THE COUNTER ONTO ME. a bunch of my friends were chilling in the shop frying balls on mushrooms and one of them picked her up and threw her out of the store. we never spoke of it again.
I regularly dealt with a ton of people who constantly had a new scam every day to try and get free food. they were like fucking team rocket with this shit.
and then someone would come in and steal the entire tip jar. not just the tips, the jar too.
As a barista i dealt with multiple snooty rich women nearly every day who were convinced i had made their drink wrong. Either i'd remake it exactly the same and it was fine, or more often they'd hold out for getting one of the female baristas to make it for them, and accept that one as "perfect" despite them being identical. We always all shot eachother a "jesus, what a fucking fuckhead" look. It was always the same people. Always. Other customers included Snooty entitled faking a disability to work from home and get lots of PTO guy(I called him one legged transportation man. I forget how we were 100% sure he was faking, but it was something super lulz like he showed up with the leg brace on the wrong leg one day. And that he eventually got fired IIRC), numerous high end condo real restate agents who looked at us as slaves, and lots of clones of entitled drink is wrong woman. I feel like i'm forgetting some memorable people, but most of my memories from that job are of the other people who worked there.
They had ALL been working for BigCoffeeCompany for 10 years or so. Every single one of them, the light had long since gone out in their soul. They were all jaded as fuck and most of them got hammered every night. Several of them were like 40 and aspired to not really do much else with their lives.
Customer service is some fucked up shit.
posted by emptythought at 5:31 PM on July 31, 2013 [25 favorites]
I've worked two customer service jobs, probably more if you count short stuff. One was at a burgers+teriyaki shop, the other was at a non-starbucks large coffee chain as a barista. I've seen it from both the small business and the big corporate side, and they both sucked a lot in quite different ways. You sort of have to choose whether you'd rather constantly be hamstringed by labyrinthine corporate policy which basically amounts to "no really, the customer actually is always right" mixed in with "you have to do this our ridiculous complex way even though there's a blatantly obvious better way", vs small business "you can't tell that person they're not welcome here because they'll tell your friends you were rude and it'll kill the family business" and similarly weird "my way or the highway" shit. It all sucks.
Jesus christ did this resonate with me though, even though i'm several years out of doing anything like this.
I've had a psychotic homeless dude throw a rock hard burger in my face so hard that it actually gave me a black eye. Why was it rock hard? He ordered it, then left, then came back 30-40 minutes later when it had been sitting in the hot table the entire time. He didn't throw it at me because it was rock hard, he threw it at me after eating like 1/3rd of it because there was mayo on it and he "ordered it without mayo and i'm allergic to mayo!". He hadn't, he tried this fucking scam a couple times a week to get a burger and a half for the price of one. He'd just rotate what he was allergic too.
One time it seemed like a hooker had exploded in the bathroom. Everything was covered in blood and strawberry milkshake and food bits, and random bits of clothes. They tried to get me to mop up the blood. With paper towels and my hands.
I once stood in awe as a crunked out hooker came in with no shirt on, just a leather jacket, and her belt undone. mumbled something about a grilled sandwich and FELL OVER THE COUNTER ONTO ME. a bunch of my friends were chilling in the shop frying balls on mushrooms and one of them picked her up and threw her out of the store. we never spoke of it again.
I regularly dealt with a ton of people who constantly had a new scam every day to try and get free food. they were like fucking team rocket with this shit.
and then someone would come in and steal the entire tip jar. not just the tips, the jar too.
As a barista i dealt with multiple snooty rich women nearly every day who were convinced i had made their drink wrong. Either i'd remake it exactly the same and it was fine, or more often they'd hold out for getting one of the female baristas to make it for them, and accept that one as "perfect" despite them being identical. We always all shot eachother a "jesus, what a fucking fuckhead" look. It was always the same people. Always. Other customers included Snooty entitled faking a disability to work from home and get lots of PTO guy(I called him one legged transportation man. I forget how we were 100% sure he was faking, but it was something super lulz like he showed up with the leg brace on the wrong leg one day. And that he eventually got fired IIRC), numerous high end condo real restate agents who looked at us as slaves, and lots of clones of entitled drink is wrong woman. I feel like i'm forgetting some memorable people, but most of my memories from that job are of the other people who worked there.
They had ALL been working for BigCoffeeCompany for 10 years or so. Every single one of them, the light had long since gone out in their soul. They were all jaded as fuck and most of them got hammered every night. Several of them were like 40 and aspired to not really do much else with their lives.
Customer service is some fucked up shit.
posted by emptythought at 5:31 PM on July 31, 2013 [25 favorites]
I think meth dealers make better money.
True, better job even factoring in the downsides.
posted by Ad hominem at 5:48 PM on July 31, 2013
True, better job even factoring in the downsides.
posted by Ad hominem at 5:48 PM on July 31, 2013
OK, I liked the basic theme of the video, and I think we need more examination of the nasty elements of the downwardly-mobile (or keeping you down) aspects of our fast-growing (such as it is) service economy, but I was also bugged by the framing, because, you know, an honest examination of class and work doesn't have to also be an appropriation of LBGT imagery and struggle. I mean, it's not like there isn't 150 years of socialist material you couldn't mine....
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:49 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:49 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]
It's funny because it's true!
(But I have been blessed to work a couple of customer service jobs where the customer was NOT always right. I don't know how it is now but back in the day, third shift waffle house waitress was a protected category. I even hit a customer over the head with a menu once. He deserved it. No one even spoke to me about it. )
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 6:07 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]
(But I have been blessed to work a couple of customer service jobs where the customer was NOT always right. I don't know how it is now but back in the day, third shift waffle house waitress was a protected category. I even hit a customer over the head with a menu once. He deserved it. No one even spoke to me about it. )
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 6:07 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]
There's a lot of stuff I'm sure I've blocked out. The hopelessness is the worst part; the really vile stuff you can tell yourself you'll laugh at someday, and some of it turns out you can. I'd love to see the lady who slapped me, the man who spat on me, the man who expected me to handle items caked with cow manure while he laughed, and the jogger who kept his morning coffee money inside his Fruit of the Looms on a Japanese game show together.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:18 PM on July 31, 2013
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:18 PM on July 31, 2013
Jesus, "Appropriating"? Is there no space for satire anymore?
They're not even poking fun at or "minimizing" the message of the original videos(which have been criticized fairly harshly in some legitimate ways, in addition to being another stupid dan savage wankfest).
It's just taking something that's been right in the focus of your average internet, possibly tumblry nerd those videos would have been cruising through and riffing on it. It even honestly feels like they went out of their way to completely avoid anything offensive they could have hit by referencing any LGBT stuff or trying to tie in to the original videos in anything but name and presentation. This is like so vanilla that it could be an SNL skit or something on network television like that.
Hell, i've seen way more offensive stuff on TV. Especially when it comes to the T in lgbt, but that's another discussion.
I just really want to know how this is appropriating anything when all it's doing is using a similar referential presentation that'll cause people to go "Hah, i see what they did there". I also think that appropriating the struggle is reaching, since all they're really saying is "Hey, these people are also getting treated like shit"
It's a completely different front, and a completely different war. It's like hating on an organization trying to save fish populations from being destroyed by pollution for stealing attention away from a similar organization devoted to saving birds. But honestly, even more disparate than that.
Feel free to let me know if i'm totally missing the mark here. But "this video struck a weird note for me" Is not the same thing as "This video is horrible and appropriation-y"
posted by emptythought at 6:18 PM on July 31, 2013 [9 favorites]
They're not even poking fun at or "minimizing" the message of the original videos(which have been criticized fairly harshly in some legitimate ways, in addition to being another stupid dan savage wankfest).
It's just taking something that's been right in the focus of your average internet, possibly tumblry nerd those videos would have been cruising through and riffing on it. It even honestly feels like they went out of their way to completely avoid anything offensive they could have hit by referencing any LGBT stuff or trying to tie in to the original videos in anything but name and presentation. This is like so vanilla that it could be an SNL skit or something on network television like that.
Hell, i've seen way more offensive stuff on TV. Especially when it comes to the T in lgbt, but that's another discussion.
I just really want to know how this is appropriating anything when all it's doing is using a similar referential presentation that'll cause people to go "Hah, i see what they did there". I also think that appropriating the struggle is reaching, since all they're really saying is "Hey, these people are also getting treated like shit"
It's a completely different front, and a completely different war. It's like hating on an organization trying to save fish populations from being destroyed by pollution for stealing attention away from a similar organization devoted to saving birds. But honestly, even more disparate than that.
Feel free to let me know if i'm totally missing the mark here. But "this video struck a weird note for me" Is not the same thing as "This video is horrible and appropriation-y"
posted by emptythought at 6:18 PM on July 31, 2013 [9 favorites]
I spent the better part of two decades behind a bar so I'll take their @sshole customers and trump them with the fact that almost all of mine were drunk. There was however the slight consolation that if they really got out of hand I could give 'em the bum's rush and deposit their butts on the sidewalk. There is a certain satisfaction in that not available to all in the service industry...
posted by jim in austin at 6:21 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by jim in austin at 6:21 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
Picture a 25 gallon rubbermaid bin full of returned rental VHS cassettes. Did you know that even with a two hour reel of videotape inside, there's ample free space inside just one cassette to hold enough baby oil to coat every tapebox in that bin?
posted by radwolf76 at 6:32 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by radwolf76 at 6:32 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]
One time it seemed like a hooker had exploded in the bathroom.
o_O
I'll keep that mental image at hand for next time I feel tempted to complain about my in all comparison comfy work.
posted by Iosephus at 6:40 PM on July 31, 2013
o_O
I'll keep that mental image at hand for next time I feel tempted to complain about my in all comparison comfy work.
posted by Iosephus at 6:40 PM on July 31, 2013
What is a worse job, meth dealer maybe?
Are you kidding? You're met with maniacal insane joy!
Some maniacal insanity may be involved.
posted by wallabear at 6:58 PM on July 31, 2013
Are you kidding? You're met with maniacal insane joy!
Some maniacal insanity may be involved.
posted by wallabear at 6:58 PM on July 31, 2013
there's ample free space inside just one cassette to hold enough baby oil to coat every tapebox in that bin
radwolf76, I can't tell if that's is a warning, a suggestion, or something else.
On the main subject of the post: yeah, most customer service jobs with public contact can suck pretty hard. It's been a long time since I had to do that sort of work, but I try my best to treat people who may be serving me like human beings - saying "please" and "thank you," making eye contact, using a pleasant tone of voice, just basic stuff - and it's kind of depressing how many of them seem surprised by it.
posted by Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner at 7:12 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
radwolf76, I can't tell if that's is a warning, a suggestion, or something else.
On the main subject of the post: yeah, most customer service jobs with public contact can suck pretty hard. It's been a long time since I had to do that sort of work, but I try my best to treat people who may be serving me like human beings - saying "please" and "thank you," making eye contact, using a pleasant tone of voice, just basic stuff - and it's kind of depressing how many of them seem surprised by it.
posted by Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner at 7:12 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
I work in software support now, but retail is where I cut my teeth. It dawned on me recently that no one grows up wanting to work in customer service. Its so obvious now! gosh.
posted by tmt at 7:17 PM on July 31, 2013
posted by tmt at 7:17 PM on July 31, 2013
Jesus, "Appropriating"? Is there no space for satire anymore?
Deep breaths, empty thought. There's a lot of Francis-es in the world, someday they'll meet their drill sargent.
posted by Diablevert at 7:22 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]
a hooker exploded in the bathroom, that's gonna stay with me. horrible
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 7:31 PM on July 31, 2013
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 7:31 PM on July 31, 2013
Obviously a giant blinking YMMV, but I've genuinely enjoyed the actual work part of most of the service jobs I've had. I think it does suit some personalities and work styles. For me, the biggest parts that sucked weren't anything about the job, but were the poor wages and non-existent benefits.
posted by threeants at 7:33 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by threeants at 7:33 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
It dawned on me recently that no one grows up wanting to work in customer service.
I've had the recent similar realization that if I could somehow feel that I could avoid the bulk off odd assholes, I'd love doing customer service type stuff forever. I mean I'm trained as a librarian, for what that's worth, but what I really want to do is help people, usually with computers or communicating. That's a lot of what I do here at MeFi and, jokey comment above nonwithstanding, it's mostly amazing. The awesome-to-asshole ratio here is really high? low? whatever the good way is. And especially with virtual type work, 99.99% of the time I close my laptop and the problem if there is one is immediately gone, at least temporarily. I wish I could hang out with my coworkers more.
I worked for an ISP right out of grad school and even though the customers were sometimes really terrible people, the boss always supported us and did not think that getting yelled at should be part of a level 1 support tech's job. He'd take those calls himself. I think part of what makes these entry level jobs so lousy is that some people's bosses really do think that getting yelled at is part of the job, not a terrible embarrassing aberration. When I started here, mathowie would take the creepy or assholish emails that I wouldn't deal with. He still will if something is really out of hand. And I'll do it for a lot of the newer mods. If someone's got a weird hate-on for one of us we'll all tell them to chill, not just makes "sucks to be you" ascii faces at whoever was unlucky enough to be on shift at the time.
Having a culture of "No one should get to holler at you when you're just doing your job" in these sorts of workplaces would go a long way towards having these jobs not have to default to being undignified and sometimes unsafe. It's good to help people, we should encourage folks to do that.
posted by jessamyn at 7:35 PM on July 31, 2013 [21 favorites]
I've had the recent similar realization that if I could somehow feel that I could avoid the bulk off odd assholes, I'd love doing customer service type stuff forever. I mean I'm trained as a librarian, for what that's worth, but what I really want to do is help people, usually with computers or communicating. That's a lot of what I do here at MeFi and, jokey comment above nonwithstanding, it's mostly amazing. The awesome-to-asshole ratio here is really high? low? whatever the good way is. And especially with virtual type work, 99.99% of the time I close my laptop and the problem if there is one is immediately gone, at least temporarily. I wish I could hang out with my coworkers more.
I worked for an ISP right out of grad school and even though the customers were sometimes really terrible people, the boss always supported us and did not think that getting yelled at should be part of a level 1 support tech's job. He'd take those calls himself. I think part of what makes these entry level jobs so lousy is that some people's bosses really do think that getting yelled at is part of the job, not a terrible embarrassing aberration. When I started here, mathowie would take the creepy or assholish emails that I wouldn't deal with. He still will if something is really out of hand. And I'll do it for a lot of the newer mods. If someone's got a weird hate-on for one of us we'll all tell them to chill, not just makes "sucks to be you" ascii faces at whoever was unlucky enough to be on shift at the time.
Having a culture of "No one should get to holler at you when you're just doing your job" in these sorts of workplaces would go a long way towards having these jobs not have to default to being undignified and sometimes unsafe. It's good to help people, we should encourage folks to do that.
posted by jessamyn at 7:35 PM on July 31, 2013 [21 favorites]
I can't tell if that's is a warning, a suggestion, or something else.
A tale of woe from a bygone era.
(The worst part about it is that the baby oil filled tape was the first rental on a newly opened account. Woman had come in, talking about the romantic weekend getaway her husband was taking her to at a local hotel, and that she needed to rent an Action film. "He LOVES Action," she told us several times. After going through several rolls of paper towels during the cleanup, we didn't even want to think about just what kind of "action" on a romantic hotel weekend would result in a VHS tape FILLED with baby oil.)
posted by radwolf76 at 7:37 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
A tale of woe from a bygone era.
(The worst part about it is that the baby oil filled tape was the first rental on a newly opened account. Woman had come in, talking about the romantic weekend getaway her husband was taking her to at a local hotel, and that she needed to rent an Action film. "He LOVES Action," she told us several times. After going through several rolls of paper towels during the cleanup, we didn't even want to think about just what kind of "action" on a romantic hotel weekend would result in a VHS tape FILLED with baby oil.)
posted by radwolf76 at 7:37 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
(I've gone to grad school now, and really hope to find something fulfilling and stimulating in my field. But in the abstract, if offered the choice between a random mediocre office job that pays better than I'm accustomed to and a random mediocre customer service job that even pays less than that but still a genuine living wage, I'd take the latter in a freaking heartbeat.)
posted by threeants at 7:38 PM on July 31, 2013
posted by threeants at 7:38 PM on July 31, 2013
When I'm bored, I dip through notalwaysright.com.
posted by wenat at 7:57 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by wenat at 7:57 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
If it helps, it is not always awful. Today the sharpest-dressed 74-year-old dude I've ever seen came into the vintage shop where I work and told me and the other customer in the store stories about his awesome life (at various points he was in the military, baked fancy cheesecakes, and now paints portraits). He also had the coolest cufflinks I've ever seen-- tiny gold Egyptian-style bas-reliefs!
Later on I let two twelve-year-old girls try on the super fancy Barbie-colored 60s party dresses that are too tiny for normal people to wear.
Things like that totally make up for the mean French-speaking ladies who periodically come in, make a huge mess of the dressing room, and try to haggle.
posted by nonasuch at 8:00 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
Later on I let two twelve-year-old girls try on the super fancy Barbie-colored 60s party dresses that are too tiny for normal people to wear.
Things like that totally make up for the mean French-speaking ladies who periodically come in, make a huge mess of the dressing room, and try to haggle.
posted by nonasuch at 8:00 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
I've had one customer service job, at an ISP. This was way after everyone who had any technical sense had moved to broadband. The day the owner's son came in and told me they were selling the company and laying everyone off was a really happy day. Especially the fact that they were giving me a month's severance.
It was only several month's worth of work, I almost feel I haven't gotten enough of customer service in order to build up sufficient amounts of empathy.
posted by zabuni at 8:05 PM on July 31, 2013
It was only several month's worth of work, I almost feel I haven't gotten enough of customer service in order to build up sufficient amounts of empathy.
posted by zabuni at 8:05 PM on July 31, 2013
It dawned on me recently that no one grows up wanting to work in customer service.
This actually isn't totally true. What about people who dream of growing up and owning a $THING store? like a tea shop or a toy store or whatever. Plenty of those people go on to actually have their own little store.
I always think it's pretty cute honestly, even if they end up still being stuck in the CS grind.
a hooker exploded in the bathroom, that's gonna stay with me. horrible
I still don't know what the fuck happened. I saw her go in, and never saw her come out. I was at the counter the whole time and even went back and banged on the door after X minutes. It was locked, but this was a bathroom you could lock and close and it would stay locked(twisty nub in the handle variety, single person bathrooms)
There was actual like, dexter-style blood spray in like, streaks up the walls and shit. Like what you'd see him describe as "Arterial Spatter". It genuinely looked like a fucking horror movie.
Maybe it's just become more grandiose in my memory, as this was like 5-6 years ago... and i was stoned as fuck. But there was definitely an ass-ton of blood and strawberry shake(the shake was sitting in the sink)
Suicide attempt and thrashing around maybe? but how the fuck did she get out of the place probably covered in blood and stuff without me noticing? i was just standing at the counter going -_- with the stereo blasting.
It's definitely one of the moments from that place that stuck with me, for sure.
Oh, and i left almost immediately after it happened. Clocked and walked saying "fire me", knowing they wouldn't. i wasn't gonna touch that shit. I have no idea if the cops got called or what, but knowing the owners they just bleached it all down and acted like it never happened. Bathroom looked normal the next day.
posted by emptythought at 8:17 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
This actually isn't totally true. What about people who dream of growing up and owning a $THING store? like a tea shop or a toy store or whatever. Plenty of those people go on to actually have their own little store.
I always think it's pretty cute honestly, even if they end up still being stuck in the CS grind.
a hooker exploded in the bathroom, that's gonna stay with me. horrible
I still don't know what the fuck happened. I saw her go in, and never saw her come out. I was at the counter the whole time and even went back and banged on the door after X minutes. It was locked, but this was a bathroom you could lock and close and it would stay locked(twisty nub in the handle variety, single person bathrooms)
There was actual like, dexter-style blood spray in like, streaks up the walls and shit. Like what you'd see him describe as "Arterial Spatter". It genuinely looked like a fucking horror movie.
Maybe it's just become more grandiose in my memory, as this was like 5-6 years ago... and i was stoned as fuck. But there was definitely an ass-ton of blood and strawberry shake(the shake was sitting in the sink)
Suicide attempt and thrashing around maybe? but how the fuck did she get out of the place probably covered in blood and stuff without me noticing? i was just standing at the counter going -_- with the stereo blasting.
It's definitely one of the moments from that place that stuck with me, for sure.
Oh, and i left almost immediately after it happened. Clocked and walked saying "fire me", knowing they wouldn't. i wasn't gonna touch that shit. I have no idea if the cops got called or what, but knowing the owners they just bleached it all down and acted like it never happened. Bathroom looked normal the next day.
posted by emptythought at 8:17 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
“Do you still not wish for all humankind to be swallowed into the pits of hell where it belongs?”
No. Never did. S’why I never became one of those nuclear silo guys. Maybe it’s my vile mood of late (which, to be fair has been brought on by a vile environment) but right now the best thing for humanity to me looks like a quick nuclear death rather than the slow, agonizing, pitiful wimper-warseizure-ragequitfail that we seem to be headed toward. Turn the key when ordered? Hell, I’ll do it right now.
I think the thing is, a person is awesome. Several people? They’re kick ass to hang out with. Even a bunch can be fun to party with if you can tolerate the one or two idiots. En masse? Nah, man. Cockroaches turn.
posted by Smedleyman at 8:18 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]
No. Never did. S’why I never became one of those nuclear silo guys. Maybe it’s my vile mood of late (which, to be fair has been brought on by a vile environment) but right now the best thing for humanity to me looks like a quick nuclear death rather than the slow, agonizing, pitiful wimper-warseizure-ragequitfail that we seem to be headed toward. Turn the key when ordered? Hell, I’ll do it right now.
I think the thing is, a person is awesome. Several people? They’re kick ass to hang out with. Even a bunch can be fun to party with if you can tolerate the one or two idiots. En masse? Nah, man. Cockroaches turn.
posted by Smedleyman at 8:18 PM on July 31, 2013 [5 favorites]
I still don't know what the fuck happened. I saw her go in, and never saw her come out.
somebody call Fringe Division.
posted by The Whelk at 8:18 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]
somebody call Fringe Division.
posted by The Whelk at 8:18 PM on July 31, 2013 [4 favorites]
There was actual like, dexter-style blood spray in like, streaks up the walls and shit. Like what you'd see him describe as "Arterial Spatter". It genuinely looked like a fucking horror movie.
In.. er.. certain circles.. they call them "blood flowers". When injecting drugs, you typically have a small amount of blood and whateveryouweresold left in the syringe. More asshole-y types get a kick out of spraying this on the ceiling, in corners, or other relatively difficult areas to clean. Even more aggregiously asshole-y types will fill the syringe back up with blood and leave a bouquet.
posted by mediocre at 8:36 PM on July 31, 2013 [7 favorites]
In.. er.. certain circles.. they call them "blood flowers". When injecting drugs, you typically have a small amount of blood and whateveryouweresold left in the syringe. More asshole-y types get a kick out of spraying this on the ceiling, in corners, or other relatively difficult areas to clean. Even more aggregiously asshole-y types will fill the syringe back up with blood and leave a bouquet.
posted by mediocre at 8:36 PM on July 31, 2013 [7 favorites]
What is a worse job, meth dealer maybe?
Reminds me of that great line from Norm MacDonald, when he did the SNL Weekend Update desk: "Last year's number one worst occupation -- crack whore -- was replaced this year by the new worst occupation: assistant crack whore."
posted by anothermug at 9:05 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
Reminds me of that great line from Norm MacDonald, when he did the SNL Weekend Update desk: "Last year's number one worst occupation -- crack whore -- was replaced this year by the new worst occupation: assistant crack whore."
posted by anothermug at 9:05 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
mediocre, that actually sounds incredibly plausible and explains a lot. We had a huge problem with people doing drugs in the bathrooms at this place since it was right behind, and close to like three shitty motels full of sex workers/mentally ill/quasi homeless who didn't want to get caught doing drugs in their rooms and get kicked out of the motels.
Also, your username is the one i wanted when i returned to MeFi and forgot i already had an account. Weird.
posted by emptythought at 9:12 PM on July 31, 2013
Also, your username is the one i wanted when i returned to MeFi and forgot i already had an account. Weird.
posted by emptythought at 9:12 PM on July 31, 2013
Having a culture of "No one should get to holler at you when you're just doing your job" in these sorts of workplaces would go a long way towards having these jobs not have to default to being undignified and sometimes unsafe. It's good to help people, we should encourage folks to do that.
I could not agree more. I have a customer service job in an office people are not happy to visit and for all my joking that I spend most of my time getting yelled at, I wouldn't have stuck it out for nearly five years now if my boss hadn't told me when I started that she would back me up any time a customer gave me a hard time and then kept her word. I consider it my responsibility to pass it on and similarly step in to help the students working in my office (I work at a university).
Also, I like helping people, and have some useful customer service strategies learned mostly through paying attention to more experienced co-workers and reinforced via formal training. Unfortunately, I'm guessing most workplaces are like mine and only set up trainings when there's been an issue or a complaint (or as I remember from my retail days just show a video and call it a day).
posted by camyram at 9:25 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
I could not agree more. I have a customer service job in an office people are not happy to visit and for all my joking that I spend most of my time getting yelled at, I wouldn't have stuck it out for nearly five years now if my boss hadn't told me when I started that she would back me up any time a customer gave me a hard time and then kept her word. I consider it my responsibility to pass it on and similarly step in to help the students working in my office (I work at a university).
Also, I like helping people, and have some useful customer service strategies learned mostly through paying attention to more experienced co-workers and reinforced via formal training. Unfortunately, I'm guessing most workplaces are like mine and only set up trainings when there's been an issue or a complaint (or as I remember from my retail days just show a video and call it a day).
posted by camyram at 9:25 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
I don't know. I actually really enjoy my customer service job, and while I'm working towards a degree and maybe, if I'm I lucky,a different, higher-paying job at my same company, I still enjoy coming into work almost every single day. There are some bad moments. As an autistic person working customer service, I have a lot of trouble some times with the nonverbal stuff and empathizing appropriately or just, you know, not matching what that customer expects. Most customers aren't bothered too much by it, but the ones that are get really nasty, really fast. I've been called "retarded" a few times after trying to explain that no, I wasn't lying, I just wasn't able to make eye contact because autism. I've had customers start being super condescending and talk in an obnoxious baby voice, slowly, and loudly. I've had a customer exclaim to the entire store how lucky I was to find an employer who would hire me since she wouldn't ever hire someone like me. But for every one of those times, my coworkers and managers have been behind me 100%. And other customers, too, have apologized to me for the bullshit they witnessed, and some go out of their way to interrupt a person mid-rant. Anyway, a lot of customer service sucks, but not all of it sucks.
posted by awesomelyglorious at 9:53 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by awesomelyglorious at 9:53 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
a hooker exploded in the bathroom, that's gonna stay with me. horrible
Okay, that's probably worse than getting bullied for being gay. You win.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:02 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
Okay, that's probably worse than getting bullied for being gay. You win.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:02 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]
... The guy ahead of me in line, who worked with me, was treating the cashier like absolute shit. I never understood that. You work customer service too, dude; you can't give this guy a little slack?Sadly, I've come to think that understanding why this exact thing happens is key to understanding an important facet of human nature.
You and the Man From Mars.
No really, go back and read Stranger In A Strange Land. Mike finally groks humanity after watching this exact dynamic play out.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:05 PM on July 31, 2013 [2 favorites]
It's called kicking the cat.
posted by benzenedream at 10:06 PM on July 31, 2013
posted by benzenedream at 10:06 PM on July 31, 2013
In.. er.. certain circles.. they call them "blood flowers".
I would like to once again state my appreciation for this big blue place we all share. I learn the coolest idioms here.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:17 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
I would like to once again state my appreciation for this big blue place we all share. I learn the coolest idioms here.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:17 PM on July 31, 2013 [3 favorites]
I worked at an optical department for 8 years within a mall nearby home and school, and loved a good chunk of the customer base as a large majority of them have gotten to know me over the years. At the very least, a bunch of them are returning patients who get their glasses adjusted every now and then thus developing a rapport as time goes on. You'd be surprised how much people are willing to open up when you ask them something simple like "how'd your weekend go" and elaborate from there. Some of them would bring in baked goodies, a t-shirt, and etc. for the type of service and friendliness that I provided. One of them was a retired player who played for the LA Dodgers who offered me and a guest free tickets to watch a game with him. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend to his kind request due to a hectic work/school schedule at the time. Yes, there are pricks you come across from time to time. For the most part, I enjoyed working with the customers as the only thing that really blew was the pay itself. Close proximity to home, terrific doctor to work with, nice returning patients you see from time to time, and 25% store discount. If the pay didn't suck monkey balls, it was probably really damn close to being the perfect job.
posted by tnar23 at 12:32 AM on August 1, 2013
posted by tnar23 at 12:32 AM on August 1, 2013
Know what's actually worse? Being a bullied LGBT teen.
were we having a contest here? i dare say a starving ethiopian child has it worse than any of us
you don't have a monopoly on suffering
furthermore, the way customer service people are treated in this country IS a form of bullying
furthermore, teens become adults - there are many people who stay in customer service all their lives - the idea that i'd ever return to it after 20 years makes my skin crawl
furthermore, i not only had to go through 20 years of that, but i was bullied as a teen, often with the same language that LGBTs are persecuted with - and that was long before bullying became a social issue that people cared about
no, i didn't think it was funny, either - it's too fucking true to be funny
your lack of compassion is showing
re hookers exploding in bathrooms: people have no idea how much shit one human being can spread over the bathroom - at least i think it was one human being - it might have been two, or possibly three
posted by pyramid termite at 1:18 AM on August 1, 2013 [6 favorites]
were we having a contest here? i dare say a starving ethiopian child has it worse than any of us
you don't have a monopoly on suffering
furthermore, the way customer service people are treated in this country IS a form of bullying
furthermore, teens become adults - there are many people who stay in customer service all their lives - the idea that i'd ever return to it after 20 years makes my skin crawl
furthermore, i not only had to go through 20 years of that, but i was bullied as a teen, often with the same language that LGBTs are persecuted with - and that was long before bullying became a social issue that people cared about
no, i didn't think it was funny, either - it's too fucking true to be funny
your lack of compassion is showing
re hookers exploding in bathrooms: people have no idea how much shit one human being can spread over the bathroom - at least i think it was one human being - it might have been two, or possibly three
posted by pyramid termite at 1:18 AM on August 1, 2013 [6 favorites]
but it's one of those class privilege issues we don't do well ...
posted by pyramid termite at 1:20 AM on August 1, 2013
posted by pyramid termite at 1:20 AM on August 1, 2013
I've noticed that experienced restaurant servers fall into two categories: burnt-out addicts, or committed Buddhists.
I treat every jerk customer like another opportunity to practice my patience and compassion. I'm certain I've been that guy without realizing it, and I'd like to think that other people forgave me instead of letting it eat them up inside. Most people aren't trying to make you miserable, they just don't know how to deal with their life and insecurities.
For example, one time a lady asked my name- it's an uncommon ethnic name, and her response was to laugh out loud and say "where'd your mother come up with *that*!?!" I felt livid the entire time I had to deal with her, until she handed me her credit card for the check. I don't remember her name exactly, but it was ridiculous. Like, 'Barbara McEatsALotofCock' bad. Suddenly all my rage lifted away. Of course she'd make fun of my name.
Basically every situation in the world has an explanation along those lines. So why get mad in the first place? You never know the whole story.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 1:51 AM on August 1, 2013 [20 favorites]
I treat every jerk customer like another opportunity to practice my patience and compassion. I'm certain I've been that guy without realizing it, and I'd like to think that other people forgave me instead of letting it eat them up inside. Most people aren't trying to make you miserable, they just don't know how to deal with their life and insecurities.
For example, one time a lady asked my name- it's an uncommon ethnic name, and her response was to laugh out loud and say "where'd your mother come up with *that*!?!" I felt livid the entire time I had to deal with her, until she handed me her credit card for the check. I don't remember her name exactly, but it was ridiculous. Like, 'Barbara McEatsALotofCock' bad. Suddenly all my rage lifted away. Of course she'd make fun of my name.
Basically every situation in the world has an explanation along those lines. So why get mad in the first place? You never know the whole story.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 1:51 AM on August 1, 2013 [20 favorites]
I just really want to know how this is appropriating anything when all it's doing is using a similar referential presentation that'll cause people to go "Hah, i see what they did there". I also think that appropriating the struggle is reaching, since all they're really saying is "Hey, these people are also getting treated like shit"
I can't speak for the others put off by this, but "using a similar referential presentation" is part of what appropriation is; hooking your thing to someone else's thing. It is especially noticeable because the two issues aren't meaningfully connected, either thematically or by the creators. A video criticizing "It Gets Better" videos as not doing much to better actual lives of actual gay teens? Ok, fair point. This video using a tool from a very specific struggle as a joke in a different social struggle? Appropriation. I don't think it's horrible, but it grated and undercut the point they were trying to make. Unless there was a reason they had to use the format to make the point, it was a bad decision.
I've worked a lot of customer service jobs, and it was a huge relief when I got to a place where I could say (fortunately rarely) "if you keep talking like that, I'll throw you out." Customer service can be really awful, especially when you are dealing with distressed people over the phone where that "lack of faces eliminates empathy" thing takes over. So the point of their video is great; their delivery is off the mark. At least for me.
I'll repeat that there is a huge history of working class struggle rife with tropes and images for comedians to mine for their videos about class issues; tropes and images that would work with their theme....
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:05 AM on August 1, 2013
I can't speak for the others put off by this, but "using a similar referential presentation" is part of what appropriation is; hooking your thing to someone else's thing. It is especially noticeable because the two issues aren't meaningfully connected, either thematically or by the creators. A video criticizing "It Gets Better" videos as not doing much to better actual lives of actual gay teens? Ok, fair point. This video using a tool from a very specific struggle as a joke in a different social struggle? Appropriation. I don't think it's horrible, but it grated and undercut the point they were trying to make. Unless there was a reason they had to use the format to make the point, it was a bad decision.
I've worked a lot of customer service jobs, and it was a huge relief when I got to a place where I could say (fortunately rarely) "if you keep talking like that, I'll throw you out." Customer service can be really awful, especially when you are dealing with distressed people over the phone where that "lack of faces eliminates empathy" thing takes over. So the point of their video is great; their delivery is off the mark. At least for me.
I'll repeat that there is a huge history of working class struggle rife with tropes and images for comedians to mine for their videos about class issues; tropes and images that would work with their theme....
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:05 AM on August 1, 2013
I remember one time on this very website I made the observation that one detail of life was puzzling to me. That is the behavior of the people who work for the post office when you see them in the office versus out of the office. When you encounter a postman out and about or when one comes to your front door they seem (usuallly) to be about the most pleasant people you ever run into. They are smiling. If you happen to make eye contact they greet you. When you go to the post office they are robotic at best and often surley. Another metafilter poster pointed out to me that working the counter at the post office is a retail service job and all those totally suck, even the ones where you work for the post office.
posted by bukvich at 5:14 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by bukvich at 5:14 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
One of the small benefits of working in a club with sound levels so high that human speech was barely audible was that you could, with a happy to be of service smile on your face, cheerily say, "Ah, fuck you very much!" when the situation demanded. A great stress reliever and a ready source of amusement for co-workers (and cow-orkers)...
posted by jim in austin at 5:15 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by jim in austin at 5:15 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
Oh, egads, the entitled privileged people. I was pretty lucky in that my longest stint in customer service was in a pretty cool place; a national park. The management was of the "customers can be wrong, just don't tell them that; call us instead and we'll back you up" philosophy. So if we had someone come in and go wacko, another of us (we were usually in pairs; only the more experienced cashiers could work solo) would grab the interphone and call a code-whatever. A manager would then show up and handle the wacko.
Being one of the earnest, pedantic types who had Matisse and music theory posters on her walls and balanced her till to the penny, I was quickly allowed to work solo. Including when our head managers went on vacation. They left a middle manager in charge, a woman who was great fun and would drive me around the park in her massive silver Ford 450 on weekends I wanted to camp elsewhere.
I even hit a customer over the head with a menu once. He deserved it. No one even spoke to me about it.
Rather than being at the usual information desk, I was put on the register in the store entrance, where all the cheap knick-knacks that have "NATIONAL PARK NAME" stamped on them are. The cutesy carved wooden bears, beavers, buffalo, stuffed animals, plastic toys, collectible plates, forks, spoons, that sort of thing. In waltzed a couple of Rich Privileged Folk who ooh-ed and aah-ed over the shop, then came to look at the ice cream to my side. I was not allowed to handle ice cream for customers, in spite of it being wrapped up in paper and carton, because we could then be sued if a customer fell ill after eating it. On the ice cream freezer was thus written: "Self-Serve Only".
Ice-Cream Customer: "Miss. Miss. Miss." I was ringing up a line of tour bus customers who just wanted their collectible spoons.
Me: "Sorry ma'am, as you can see I'm busy right now."
Ice-Cream Customer: "Miss. MISS. MISS."
Me: "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but..."
Ice-Cream Customer: "I would LIKE to BUY an ICE CREAM but I don't know which ONE."
Me: "It's self-serve ma'am, feel free to look at them and decide."
Ice-Cream Customer: "MISS. MISS. EXCUSE ME, YOUNG LADY."
Me: "Ma'am, I'm actually not allowed to help people who aren't in my register line when I have customers in it? And I can't open the ice cream chest for customers either, that's why it's self-serve. Feel free to grab the one you want and get in line," I added as cheerily as possible.
Ice-Cream Customer: "THIS ONE IS TURNED OVER."
Me, to customer in line: "Is it all right if I help this woman a moment?"
Compassionate customer: "Oh yes, no problem, I have time."
Me to Ice Cream Woman: "It's the same vanilla waffle cone as others in its bin."
Ice-Cream Customer: "I want you to turn it over for me so I can be sure."
Silence.
I glance at Compassionate Customer. His face was as befuddled as mine probably was.
I glance back at Ice-Cream Woman.
Ice-Cream Customer, imperiously: "Did you hear me, young lady?? I asked you to TURN IT OVER."
I started ringing up Compassionate Customer. "That won't be possible, ma'am. I'm not allowed to get ice cream for customers."
Cue a frenzy like that of a lioness deprived of her surefire hunt. She yelled, she shouted, she imperiousness-ated, she tore out a customer feedback card and wrote horrible things about me on it, in front of me, on the very ice cream chest she refused to open. The racket had caught the attention of the middle manager, who had come to watch. She asked me what was going on. "This customer would like me to open the ice cream chest for her." Middle Manager asked the lady what for.
Ice-Cream Customer replied: "SHE HAS TO DO WHAT I TELL HER TO."
Middle Manager responded, matter-of-factly, putting on her best in-charge persona: "Please finish your feedback form, I'll handle this."
Ice-Cream Customer imperiously shoved the card into the box and cackled gleefully. Middle Manager checked which ice cream the customer wanted, got her vanilla waffle cone and rang it up, then explained, "our cashiers are not allowed to open the ice cream chest. I made an exception." She then took out her keys, opened the feedback box, tore up the card in front of the customer, told me I had deserved a break, and that she would come by with a chocolate bar for me, which she did.
You better bet I behave like Compassionate Customer in shops. People can be unbelievable.
posted by fraula at 5:38 AM on August 1, 2013 [16 favorites]
Being one of the earnest, pedantic types who had Matisse and music theory posters on her walls and balanced her till to the penny, I was quickly allowed to work solo. Including when our head managers went on vacation. They left a middle manager in charge, a woman who was great fun and would drive me around the park in her massive silver Ford 450 on weekends I wanted to camp elsewhere.
I even hit a customer over the head with a menu once. He deserved it. No one even spoke to me about it.
Rather than being at the usual information desk, I was put on the register in the store entrance, where all the cheap knick-knacks that have "NATIONAL PARK NAME" stamped on them are. The cutesy carved wooden bears, beavers, buffalo, stuffed animals, plastic toys, collectible plates, forks, spoons, that sort of thing. In waltzed a couple of Rich Privileged Folk who ooh-ed and aah-ed over the shop, then came to look at the ice cream to my side. I was not allowed to handle ice cream for customers, in spite of it being wrapped up in paper and carton, because we could then be sued if a customer fell ill after eating it. On the ice cream freezer was thus written: "Self-Serve Only".
Ice-Cream Customer: "Miss. Miss. Miss." I was ringing up a line of tour bus customers who just wanted their collectible spoons.
Me: "Sorry ma'am, as you can see I'm busy right now."
Ice-Cream Customer: "Miss. MISS. MISS."
Me: "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but..."
Ice-Cream Customer: "I would LIKE to BUY an ICE CREAM but I don't know which ONE."
Me: "It's self-serve ma'am, feel free to look at them and decide."
Ice-Cream Customer: "MISS. MISS. EXCUSE ME, YOUNG LADY."
Me: "Ma'am, I'm actually not allowed to help people who aren't in my register line when I have customers in it? And I can't open the ice cream chest for customers either, that's why it's self-serve. Feel free to grab the one you want and get in line," I added as cheerily as possible.
Ice-Cream Customer: "THIS ONE IS TURNED OVER."
Me, to customer in line: "Is it all right if I help this woman a moment?"
Compassionate customer: "Oh yes, no problem, I have time."
Me to Ice Cream Woman: "It's the same vanilla waffle cone as others in its bin."
Ice-Cream Customer: "I want you to turn it over for me so I can be sure."
Silence.
I glance at Compassionate Customer. His face was as befuddled as mine probably was.
I glance back at Ice-Cream Woman.
Ice-Cream Customer, imperiously: "Did you hear me, young lady?? I asked you to TURN IT OVER."
I started ringing up Compassionate Customer. "That won't be possible, ma'am. I'm not allowed to get ice cream for customers."
Cue a frenzy like that of a lioness deprived of her surefire hunt. She yelled, she shouted, she imperiousness-ated, she tore out a customer feedback card and wrote horrible things about me on it, in front of me, on the very ice cream chest she refused to open. The racket had caught the attention of the middle manager, who had come to watch. She asked me what was going on. "This customer would like me to open the ice cream chest for her." Middle Manager asked the lady what for.
Ice-Cream Customer replied: "SHE HAS TO DO WHAT I TELL HER TO."
Middle Manager responded, matter-of-factly, putting on her best in-charge persona: "Please finish your feedback form, I'll handle this."
Ice-Cream Customer imperiously shoved the card into the box and cackled gleefully. Middle Manager checked which ice cream the customer wanted, got her vanilla waffle cone and rang it up, then explained, "our cashiers are not allowed to open the ice cream chest. I made an exception." She then took out her keys, opened the feedback box, tore up the card in front of the customer, told me I had deserved a break, and that she would come by with a chocolate bar for me, which she did.
You better bet I behave like Compassionate Customer in shops. People can be unbelievable.
posted by fraula at 5:38 AM on August 1, 2013 [16 favorites]
You and the Man From Mars.
No really, go back and read Stranger In A Strange Land. Mike finally groks humanity after watching this exact dynamic play out.
The relevant bits from that book:
No really, go back and read Stranger In A Strange Land. Mike finally groks humanity after watching this exact dynamic play out.
The relevant bits from that book:
When he had first seen a zoo, Mike had been much upset; Jill had been forced to order him to wait and grok, as be had been about to take immediate action to free all the animals. He had conceded presently, under her arguments - that most of these animals could not stay alive free in the climate and environment where he proposed to turn them loose, that a zoo was a nest ... of a sort. He had followed this first experience with many hours of withdrawal, after which he never again threatened to remove all the bars and glass and grills. He explained to Jill that the bars were to keep peopIe out at least as much as to keep the animals in, which he had failed to grok at first. After that Mike never missed a zoo wherever they went.posted by DreamerFi at 6:13 AM on August 1, 2013 [6 favorites]
But today even the unmitigated misanthropy of the camels could not shake Mike's moodiness; he looked at them without smiling. Nor did the monkeys and apes cheer him up. They stood for quite a while in front of a cage containing a large family of capuchins, watching them eat, sleep, court, nurse, groom and swarm aimlessly around the cage, while Jill surreptitiously tossed them peanuts despite "No Feeding" signs.
She tossed one to a medium sized monkey; before he could eat it a much larger male was on him and not only stole his peanut but gave him a beating, then left. The little fellow made no attempt to pursue his tormentor; be squatted at the scene of the crime, pounded his knuckles against the concrete floor, and chattered his helpless rage. Mike watched it solemnly. Suddenly the mistreated monkey rushed to the side of the cage, picked a monkey still smaller, bowled it over and gave it a drubbing worse than the one he had suffered - after which he seemed quite relaxed. The third monk crawled away, still whimpering, and found shelter in the arm of a female who had a still smaller one, a baby, on her back. The other monkeys paid no attention to any of it.
Mike threw back his head and laughed - went on laughing, loudly and uncontrollably. He gasped for breath, tears came from his eyes; he started to tremble and sink to the floor, still laughing.
"Stop it, Mike!"
He did cease folding himself up but his guffaws and tears went on. An attendant hurried over. "Lady, do you need help?"
"No. Yes, I do. Can you call us a cab? Ground car, air cab, anything. I've got to get him out of here." She added, "He's not well."
"Ambulance? Looks like he's having a fit."
"Anything!" A few minutes later she was leading Mike into a piloted air cab. She gave the address, then said urgently. "Mike, you've got to listen to me. Quiet down."
He became somewhat more quiet but continued to chuckle, laugh aloud, chuckle again, while she wiped his eyes, for all the few minutes it took to get back to their flat. She got him inside, got his clothes off, made him lie down on the bed. "All right, dear. Withdraw now if you need to."
"I'm all right. At last I'm all right."
"I hope so." She sighed. "You certainly scared me, Mike."
"I'm sorry, Little Brother. I know. I was scared, too, the first time I heard laughing."
"Mike, what happened?"
"Jill ... I grok people!"
"Huh?" ("!!??")
("I speak rightly, Little Brother. I grok.") "I grok people now, Jill, Little Brother ... precious darling, little imp with lively legs and lovely lewd lascivious lecherous licentious libido ... beautiful bumps and pert posterior ... with soft voice and gentle hands. My baby darling."
"Why, Michael!"
"Oh, I knew all the words; I simply didn't know when or why to say them ... nor why you wanted me to. I love you, sweetheart - I grok 'love' now, too."
"You always have. I knew. And I love you ... you smooth ape. My darling."
"'Ape,' yes. Come here, she ape, and put your bead on my shoulder and tell me a joke."
"Just tell you a joke?"
"Well, nothing more than snuggling. Tell me a joke I've never heard and see if I laugh at the right place. I will, I'm sure of it - and I'll be able to tell you why it's funny. Jill ... I grok people!"
"But how, darling? Can you tell me? Does it need Martian? Or mindtalk?"
"No, that's the point. I grok people. I am people ... so now I can say it in people talk. I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much ... because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting."
Jill looked puzzled. "Maybe I'm the one who isn't people. I don't understand."
"Ah, but you are people, little she ape. You grok it so automatically that you don't have to think about it. Because you grew up with people. But I didn't. I've been like a puppy raised apart from other dogs, who couldn't be like his masters and had never learned how to be a dog. So I had to be taught. Brother Mahmoud taught me, Jubal taught me, lots of people taught me ... and you taught me most of all. Today I got my diploma - and I laughed. That poor little monkey."
"Which one, dear? I thought that big one was just mean ... and the one I flipped the peanut to turned out to be just as mean. There certainly wasn't anything funny."
"Jill, Jill my darling! Too much Martian has rubbed off on you. Of course it wasn't funny - it was tragic. That's why I had to laugh. I looked at a cageful of monkeys and suddenly I saw all the mean and cruel and utterly unexplainable things I've seen and heard and read about in the time I've been with my own people, and suddenly it hurt so much I found myself laughing."
"SHE HAS TO DO WHAT I TELL HER TO."
Wow. I suspect this kind of person is beyond saving and there actually is such a thing as being a case of terminal asshole.
posted by Iosephus at 6:24 AM on August 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
Wow. I suspect this kind of person is beyond saving and there actually is such a thing as being a case of terminal asshole.
posted by Iosephus at 6:24 AM on August 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
Unlike what seems to the common experience, I've always received the best customer service in the post office, DMV, county courthouse, and other such places. Granted, I've never lived in a major city so MMMV. I always put it down to the fact that they may have been doing much the same work as frontline workers in the private sector, but being compensated better for it.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:06 AM on August 1, 2013
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:06 AM on August 1, 2013
I work customer service now and I like my job - it wasn't where I thought I was heading after some 15 years in museum education and communications but . . yeah. Retail. In many if not most ways it's vastly more difficult than every office job I've ever had and of course it doesn't pay anywhere near as well as even a nonprofit office job. I am now one of the very few who have full time work and benefits but, still, the video is accurate and the horror stories are accurate but the good stories are accurate too. The retired seventh grade teacher who was looking for a new copy of Dorothy Parker's short stories and told me about how her students used to react to The Lottery; the poet thrilled to find a rare ee cummings volume; the delighted fan with the last three of her series that just came in that day; the dude I flirt with who buys such a wild, interesting mix of CDs. And there's one customer who brings us ice cream and cookies every so often.
Still, every day on my way in I think to myself "What variety of mental illness will I encounter today?" Maybe it will be the lady who likes us to walk with her from book to book and complains loudly if we say we have to help other people. She likes to bring her selections up to the counter and wait until there's a line, then proceed to stand there and read bits and pieces of each book, blocking the line completely. Maybe it's the lady who wants us to go through every single unpriced book against her very lengthy list. Maybe it's somebody who wants to shout at us for not taking his cat pee covered live bug encrusted ancient Harlequins. Maybe it's the person with the filthy two inch fingernails who only reads horror and erotica and makes weird little grunting noises all the time. Maybe it's the manager's completely batshit pet loony who screeches anti Obama rants at the top of her lungs - I do have to leave the front when she comes in; I have limits. But maybe it's somebody who will say, hey, this is a great store and you were really helpful; I've been looking for this book for a long time.
posted by mygothlaundry at 7:14 AM on August 1, 2013 [9 favorites]
Still, every day on my way in I think to myself "What variety of mental illness will I encounter today?" Maybe it will be the lady who likes us to walk with her from book to book and complains loudly if we say we have to help other people. She likes to bring her selections up to the counter and wait until there's a line, then proceed to stand there and read bits and pieces of each book, blocking the line completely. Maybe it's the lady who wants us to go through every single unpriced book against her very lengthy list. Maybe it's somebody who wants to shout at us for not taking his cat pee covered live bug encrusted ancient Harlequins. Maybe it's the person with the filthy two inch fingernails who only reads horror and erotica and makes weird little grunting noises all the time. Maybe it's the manager's completely batshit pet loony who screeches anti Obama rants at the top of her lungs - I do have to leave the front when she comes in; I have limits. But maybe it's somebody who will say, hey, this is a great store and you were really helpful; I've been looking for this book for a long time.
posted by mygothlaundry at 7:14 AM on August 1, 2013 [9 favorites]
As a 12 year vet of Customer Service environments my one wish is to some day come into sufficient money to open a bookstore and run it in the manner of Bernard Black from C4's Black Books. I long for this with every beat of my service-blackened heart. My desire to offer literally no service or better yet; advise customers with an attitude jog right the fuck on easily offsets any financial problems caused by the loss of customers.
As time goes by I may even see fit to install a coffee machine and charge £1 a cup so that witnesses can enjoy my invective on a daily basis whilst perusing books that they have no intention of purchasing (never mind my unwillingness to relinquish said books, lest I be forced to phone "the book ordering place that you have to order new books when you run out of books"). I'd rather enjoy generating an income from creatively swearing at people. It's worked well enough for Charlie Brooker.
posted by longbaugh at 7:59 AM on August 1, 2013 [3 favorites]
As time goes by I may even see fit to install a coffee machine and charge £1 a cup so that witnesses can enjoy my invective on a daily basis whilst perusing books that they have no intention of purchasing (never mind my unwillingness to relinquish said books, lest I be forced to phone "the book ordering place that you have to order new books when you run out of books"). I'd rather enjoy generating an income from creatively swearing at people. It's worked well enough for Charlie Brooker.
posted by longbaugh at 7:59 AM on August 1, 2013 [3 favorites]
wenat: "When I'm bored, I dip through notalwaysright.com."
This is pretty great. "(I work in the meat and seafood section of our store. Two customers approach. Customer #1 is a forty-something woman in business attire, who is glued to her cell phone. I engage her first.)"
posted by boo_radley at 8:07 AM on August 1, 2013 [3 favorites]
This is pretty great. "(I work in the meat and seafood section of our store. Two customers approach. Customer #1 is a forty-something woman in business attire, who is glued to her cell phone. I engage her first.)"
posted by boo_radley at 8:07 AM on August 1, 2013 [3 favorites]
As many of my stories begin, I worked for years at a grocery store.
We were beset on all sides by awful, stupid, and just plain mean customers, of all shapes and sizes. We had a rogue's gallery of regulars, who to avoid, who to watch for; the lonely middle aged man who brought a cooler to keep his ice cream cold while he shopped, the overweight bearded man with a breathing apparatus who would pull back his mask to address us each time as "GENTLE-men!", the lady who always tried to pull the "you rang me up wrong" scam, the dude who took me aside to explain the heating properties of even and odd stacked cans, the people buying cat food who *always* had the conversation about how picky cats can be, the woman who wrote a love note to our manager on her prescription bag and eventually had to be officially banned from the premises, y'know, characters.
Rumor has it we were close proximity to an assisted living facility, but I never knew for sure. I think it's because most people with sense shopped at the big, modern, fully stocked Safeway that was literally around the corner.
One of the things I was better at than some of my non-managerial co-workers was, basically, the ability to take shit off any customer and not let it get to me. I mean, I didn't like it, but apologizing 'on behalf of the store' was no less demeaning than putting cans on shelves all day. Hell, talking to customers meant you weren't lifting or carrying something. Also, prior to working at the grocery store, I spent a year as a telemarketer, so I was better at practiced schtick, and dealing with angry folk. Sometimes my role was to just run interference while the co-worker beset upon could go in the back and smoke and punch a wall while I dealt with whatever problem the complainant had.
One cast of characters we 'lovingly' referred to as "The Butter Family". There was something up with the Butters, they were named as such when the one we came to know as "Butter Dad" tied up our manager for about a half hour over Butterscotch ice cream (we didn't have it in those industrial sized tubs, and it was hard for him to accept.) There were at least four of them, we assumed from one family, and they might have been either learning disabled or mentally unstable or something (I fully own up to being a bit of a shit back then).
Suffice it to say, the Butter Family was one of the customers people generally didn't want to deal with, not out of rudeness or prejudice, but because the more 'talkative' customers took time away from the rest of our job. This, in addition to the little tricks of avoidance that most people in customer service learn to streamline their day (like how waitstaff will wait til your mouth is full before breezing by like 'EverythingOk?Great!*zoom*')
But something else I learned while working there, is that as unpleasant as talking to people (especially customers), but helping people with their problems made them go away faster, freeing up the aisle we were on to get our work done faster. It was just efficient. Also I learned that despite what my surly teenage background in grunge and goth had taught me, when you smile at people, sometimes they smile back, and it makes you hate life a little less. So when I could tell that my co-workers just straight didn't want to deal with someone, I'd take it upon myself to 'take one for the team', despite wrestling with all manner of social anxiety back then.
So one day while stocking the Paper aisle, Butter Dad appears behind us; about 5'7", baseball cap, scraggly stubble, shirt that doesn't quite fit over his belly, huge smile. "Excuse me!" he'd exclaim, speech a bit slurred, "Cad you helbp me?"
"Sure, what's up?"
Butter Dad has me follow him, never in a great rush, a few aisles over to where soda and snacks are. He picks up two bottles of Coca-Cola, one of them 20 oz, one of them 1 liter and turns to me "Which one costs less?" This was actually something that I've had to help him with before on different sets of items. I look at the Cokes, and I find where they were on the shelves, and tell him (without an an ounce of sarcasm or condescension in my voice) "Well, this one here is $1.19, and this one is $1.49, so *this* one costs less." and I hand them back to him. He asks a few follow-up questions, and I confirm them. He looks at both the Cokes for a bit and goes "Ohh.. Ok." before putting one back.
Then he turns back to me, looks me in the eye, and says the only non-grocery related sentence I've ever heard him or his family say:
"You're the only one who's ever nice to me."
He walked away with his bottle of Coke.
I just stood there.
I don't share as many "shitty customer" stories anymore.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 8:39 AM on August 1, 2013 [20 favorites]
We were beset on all sides by awful, stupid, and just plain mean customers, of all shapes and sizes. We had a rogue's gallery of regulars, who to avoid, who to watch for; the lonely middle aged man who brought a cooler to keep his ice cream cold while he shopped, the overweight bearded man with a breathing apparatus who would pull back his mask to address us each time as "GENTLE-men!", the lady who always tried to pull the "you rang me up wrong" scam, the dude who took me aside to explain the heating properties of even and odd stacked cans, the people buying cat food who *always* had the conversation about how picky cats can be, the woman who wrote a love note to our manager on her prescription bag and eventually had to be officially banned from the premises, y'know, characters.
Rumor has it we were close proximity to an assisted living facility, but I never knew for sure. I think it's because most people with sense shopped at the big, modern, fully stocked Safeway that was literally around the corner.
One of the things I was better at than some of my non-managerial co-workers was, basically, the ability to take shit off any customer and not let it get to me. I mean, I didn't like it, but apologizing 'on behalf of the store' was no less demeaning than putting cans on shelves all day. Hell, talking to customers meant you weren't lifting or carrying something. Also, prior to working at the grocery store, I spent a year as a telemarketer, so I was better at practiced schtick, and dealing with angry folk. Sometimes my role was to just run interference while the co-worker beset upon could go in the back and smoke and punch a wall while I dealt with whatever problem the complainant had.
One cast of characters we 'lovingly' referred to as "The Butter Family". There was something up with the Butters, they were named as such when the one we came to know as "Butter Dad" tied up our manager for about a half hour over Butterscotch ice cream (we didn't have it in those industrial sized tubs, and it was hard for him to accept.) There were at least four of them, we assumed from one family, and they might have been either learning disabled or mentally unstable or something (I fully own up to being a bit of a shit back then).
Suffice it to say, the Butter Family was one of the customers people generally didn't want to deal with, not out of rudeness or prejudice, but because the more 'talkative' customers took time away from the rest of our job. This, in addition to the little tricks of avoidance that most people in customer service learn to streamline their day (like how waitstaff will wait til your mouth is full before breezing by like 'EverythingOk?Great!*zoom*')
But something else I learned while working there, is that as unpleasant as talking to people (especially customers), but helping people with their problems made them go away faster, freeing up the aisle we were on to get our work done faster. It was just efficient. Also I learned that despite what my surly teenage background in grunge and goth had taught me, when you smile at people, sometimes they smile back, and it makes you hate life a little less. So when I could tell that my co-workers just straight didn't want to deal with someone, I'd take it upon myself to 'take one for the team', despite wrestling with all manner of social anxiety back then.
So one day while stocking the Paper aisle, Butter Dad appears behind us; about 5'7", baseball cap, scraggly stubble, shirt that doesn't quite fit over his belly, huge smile. "Excuse me!" he'd exclaim, speech a bit slurred, "Cad you helbp me?"
"Sure, what's up?"
Butter Dad has me follow him, never in a great rush, a few aisles over to where soda and snacks are. He picks up two bottles of Coca-Cola, one of them 20 oz, one of them 1 liter and turns to me "Which one costs less?" This was actually something that I've had to help him with before on different sets of items. I look at the Cokes, and I find where they were on the shelves, and tell him (without an an ounce of sarcasm or condescension in my voice) "Well, this one here is $1.19, and this one is $1.49, so *this* one costs less." and I hand them back to him. He asks a few follow-up questions, and I confirm them. He looks at both the Cokes for a bit and goes "Ohh.. Ok." before putting one back.
Then he turns back to me, looks me in the eye, and says the only non-grocery related sentence I've ever heard him or his family say:
"You're the only one who's ever nice to me."
He walked away with his bottle of Coke.
I just stood there.
I don't share as many "shitty customer" stories anymore.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 8:39 AM on August 1, 2013 [20 favorites]
Any job where you deal with people will be a pain because people have a unique ability to be pains. Ask teachers about students (and parents!), bus drivers about passengers, doctors about patients, hookers about tricks etc. etc. etc. They'll all have their horror stories (and their "but there are also wonderful moments" stories, too). And, of course, ask customers about the people who serve them; they'll all have their horror stories about unhelpful, rude, callous, insulting customer service people too. Hell is other people. The real problem with customer service is that it mostly isn't adequately remunerated to compensate you for the shit you have to put up with.
posted by yoink at 9:19 AM on August 1, 2013
posted by yoink at 9:19 AM on August 1, 2013
There is a German saying: "life is like a chicken coop ladder". The people above you shit on you, and you shit on the people below you. Goes a long way toward explaining the world..
posted by deathpanels at 9:24 AM on August 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by deathpanels at 9:24 AM on August 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
Uther Bentrazor: "but helping people with their problems made them go away faster"
My evil cynic lecture for new customer/tech support folks at my job is that it's not your job to be right; it's your job to make the customer go away. If the customer goes away happy and wrong, or goes away happy and thinking you're an idiot, or goes away convinced that the only reason the problem was fixed is that they badgered you the right way, those are good outcomes. Generally, the best way to make a customer go away is to make their problem go away. This is win-win, and the target you should aim for, but even if you can't, disengage your ego from the interaction or you will only make an unpleasant interaction longer.
posted by Karmakaze at 9:52 AM on August 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
My evil cynic lecture for new customer/tech support folks at my job is that it's not your job to be right; it's your job to make the customer go away. If the customer goes away happy and wrong, or goes away happy and thinking you're an idiot, or goes away convinced that the only reason the problem was fixed is that they badgered you the right way, those are good outcomes. Generally, the best way to make a customer go away is to make their problem go away. This is win-win, and the target you should aim for, but even if you can't, disengage your ego from the interaction or you will only make an unpleasant interaction longer.
posted by Karmakaze at 9:52 AM on August 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
I spent 10 years doing customer service, albeit in bookstores, which seem to have a much better class of customer jerks. The video was mildly amusing. But. I don't want to work with any of those people, or be a customer at a place where they work. I'm an extrovert, and I was assertively cheerful with every customer, and people were mostly nice, or at least neutral. The exception was when I'd had a string of illnesses before Thanksgiving, and didn't have the energy to be cheerful, and was merely politely neutral. Take a customer who's been dragging an unhappy child around the Mall for hours, on those concrete floors, with all that holiday muzak, and crowds, and it doesn't take much at all for that person to be really cranky.
When I worked in a small independent bookstore, one of the worst customers ever created a scene, stating she was given wrong change. But she waited until the drawer was closed, so the bill was no longer sitting on top. years ago - we just had a cash drawer, and did receipts by hand, can you imagine? She was loud and obnoxious, and I gave her the difference because it was Christmas Eve, and WTF? She mailed it back after Christmas, stating that she'd found that 20 in the other pocket. (foolish as well as obnoxious) But it was made up for by the line of customers, every one of whom after her apologized for the woman's awful behavior, and were sweet and funny.
posted by theora55 at 9:54 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
When I worked in a small independent bookstore, one of the worst customers ever created a scene, stating she was given wrong change. But she waited until the drawer was closed, so the bill was no longer sitting on top. years ago - we just had a cash drawer, and did receipts by hand, can you imagine? She was loud and obnoxious, and I gave her the difference because it was Christmas Eve, and WTF? She mailed it back after Christmas, stating that she'd found that 20 in the other pocket. (foolish as well as obnoxious) But it was made up for by the line of customers, every one of whom after her apologized for the woman's awful behavior, and were sweet and funny.
posted by theora55 at 9:54 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
DreamerFi, thanks for posting that. It's been a long time since I read Stranger, and this passage is so much better than I remembered the book.
posted by theora55 at 9:54 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by theora55 at 9:54 AM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
I don't know, I've done fairly hard time in bookstores and mostly it was not the customers that got to me. Even the guy who, one Christmas Eve, threatened to spank me because I didn't bring him his copy of Mein Kampf on time. It's other things. The fact that stores like that never hire enough people to really give customer service. They could try paying their employees too, and do other things to encourage less turnover so that at least a few people working there would know what they are doing. They could do other things so it wouldn't be so frustrating to shop there. Of course some customers handle it better than others, and some are just not very well on some level, but they come and go.
posted by BibiRose at 10:13 AM on August 1, 2013
posted by BibiRose at 10:13 AM on August 1, 2013
When you encounter a postman out and about or when one comes to your front door they seem (usuallly) to be about the most pleasant people you ever run into. They are smiling. If you happen to make eye contact they greet you. When you go to the post office they are robotic at best and often surley.
there's an explanation for that - they're two different crafts with two different union divisions - carrier and clerk - if you get hired, you go in one or the other, not both - i think you can move, but you're still one or the other and won't be switching back and forth - although i hear management's been making people do that over strenuous objection
and i don't know how it is in carrier craft - not great, i bet - but clerk craft is where management and union have taken contract based petty fighting to almost the level of a contact sport - vicious, bitter and relentless
i had a girlfriend who worked there and was a union officer - it was quite toxic
posted by pyramid termite at 1:27 PM on August 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
there's an explanation for that - they're two different crafts with two different union divisions - carrier and clerk - if you get hired, you go in one or the other, not both - i think you can move, but you're still one or the other and won't be switching back and forth - although i hear management's been making people do that over strenuous objection
and i don't know how it is in carrier craft - not great, i bet - but clerk craft is where management and union have taken contract based petty fighting to almost the level of a contact sport - vicious, bitter and relentless
i had a girlfriend who worked there and was a union officer - it was quite toxic
posted by pyramid termite at 1:27 PM on August 1, 2013 [2 favorites]
For almost three years I worked at a yarn store in downtown Boston. I'd say 75-85% of our customers were, at worst, tolerable, and at best kind and respectful. We also had a lot of people who were either self-employed or were shut-ins who viewed the store as their primary social outlet, and entitled rich women.
Early in my tenure two such ladies had come into the store with a pram the size of a Rolls Royce. Our aisles were narrow, which caused them to park it in front of the emergency exit and the storage room. This was bad enough when I was coming back from break and had to contend with their stinkeye while I waited for them to move it. Sadly, it got worse.
I had to go into our storeroom for a product one of our other customers had requested. When I came back, I could open the door about an inch. I closed the door, attempted once again to open it, and said "help!" from inside the cellar. Someone pushed the blockage out of the way, and I opened the door...
...to find that one of the baby chauffeurs had removed the infant from hir luxury vehicle and placed hir spread-eagle on the craft table where we taught classes and held knit-ins. A clean diaper sat to the right of the baby, and the parental figure had stripped hir of hir pants and was getting ready to take off the diaper. Also, there was a lot of yarn in peeing distance from the baby.
I will readily admit that I wasn't as gracious as I should have been in telling her in no uncertain terms to reclothe her baby and, um, NOT CHANGE DIAPERS ON THE CLASS TABLE PLZKTHXBAI, but given the way she flounced off you'd think I told her I thought she was a horrible parent or something. She returned to the store twice that day, once to buy the merchandise we put on hold for her and once to return said merchandise, for reasons she later detailed on TripAdvisor.com (scroll down for "rude service"). At this remove, all I can do is facepalm and ask myself "What is WRONG with people sometimes?"
posted by pxe2000 at 2:15 PM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
Early in my tenure two such ladies had come into the store with a pram the size of a Rolls Royce. Our aisles were narrow, which caused them to park it in front of the emergency exit and the storage room. This was bad enough when I was coming back from break and had to contend with their stinkeye while I waited for them to move it. Sadly, it got worse.
I had to go into our storeroom for a product one of our other customers had requested. When I came back, I could open the door about an inch. I closed the door, attempted once again to open it, and said "help!" from inside the cellar. Someone pushed the blockage out of the way, and I opened the door...
...to find that one of the baby chauffeurs had removed the infant from hir luxury vehicle and placed hir spread-eagle on the craft table where we taught classes and held knit-ins. A clean diaper sat to the right of the baby, and the parental figure had stripped hir of hir pants and was getting ready to take off the diaper. Also, there was a lot of yarn in peeing distance from the baby.
I will readily admit that I wasn't as gracious as I should have been in telling her in no uncertain terms to reclothe her baby and, um, NOT CHANGE DIAPERS ON THE CLASS TABLE PLZKTHXBAI, but given the way she flounced off you'd think I told her I thought she was a horrible parent or something. She returned to the store twice that day, once to buy the merchandise we put on hold for her and once to return said merchandise, for reasons she later detailed on TripAdvisor.com (scroll down for "rude service"). At this remove, all I can do is facepalm and ask myself "What is WRONG with people sometimes?"
posted by pxe2000 at 2:15 PM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
DreamerFi, I'm glad you posted that excerpt. I never finished that book, because my copy went sailing across the room when Jill, who's more of a meat-puppet for Heinlein than some of his actual meat-puppet characters, said "Nine times out of ten, when a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault." I never picked it up again, and I often wonder what amazing insights people continue to see in it. That's not such a bad example.
posted by Countess Elena at 2:50 PM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Countess Elena at 2:50 PM on August 1, 2013 [1 favorite]
I was a cheesemonger for five years. People are generally more pleasant when buying fancy cheese than when shopping on average, but there were still rude people and weirdos, like the guy in the railroad cap whose every question about cheese somehow involved urine. I assume he was trying the same thing with the women in every other department too.
On Saturday mornings, one of my department managers was fond of saying, as she fished one of the week's inevitable leftover vendor sample bottles of wine out of the cooler, "Let's have something to take the edge off this job." And bless her for that.
posted by jocelmeow at 1:08 PM on August 2, 2013
On Saturday mornings, one of my department managers was fond of saying, as she fished one of the week's inevitable leftover vendor sample bottles of wine out of the cooler, "Let's have something to take the edge off this job." And bless her for that.
posted by jocelmeow at 1:08 PM on August 2, 2013
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posted by yeoz at 4:32 PM on July 31, 2013 [1 favorite]