I hate customer service
Well, shucks, I almost forgot I even had a blog. The Internet died for about a month, life... you know, those little inconveniences.
Not much to report. I shy away from the news and the papers, but not even I could escape the bombardment of an entire country going bankrupt. The magnitude of our stupidity is enough to allow a corrupted government to swindle the economy away. I'm not clear as to the details... I tried to shut it all out. Schools closing, federal employees suddenly finding themselves unemployed... chaos.
The phrase on everybody's mouth is "las cosas estan malas".
Ohmigosh, just now I discovered Dentyne-isms! :D I recently bought 6 packs of Dentyne Ice gum, and only now do I find the little "Dentyne-isms" on the back of each pack! I share some with you:
Dentyne-ism #5:
Today's the day.
(If not, tomorrow is too.)
Dentyne-ism #17
Lift someone's spirits
(but try not to throw out your back).
Heehee. I loved those. I'm so dorky! :3
I almost quit my job last week.
I asked my boss to give me Mother's Day off, but he said the schedule was already made and he wouldn't change it. Furious, I stormed out of the office and scrawled out my letter of resignation. I know, I know, you think not getting a day off doesn't merit a letter of resignation, but believe me, I was just looking for an excuse. That's how much I hate my job.
I went back to the office, thrust the letter under the manager's nose, and said: "I need that day more than I need this job." He sighed in disappointment, and ushered me into the office.
When he closed the door, I burst into tears. I could've kicked myself. I looked away in embarrassment. I try not to let anyone see me when I cry, so for him to witness it was inconceivable. But I couldn't hold back, and somehow I ended up telling him about my sick mother. He said, "You should've told me," and I protested that I never mix personal problems with my job. He said I could come talk to him whenever I needed to, and inwardly I thought that I would never do that. Fresh new tears flowed when I said, "That's not all... I hate this job. I hate it so much!"
He got me some napkins, listened attentively, assured me that even though he was an S.O.B. sometimes, he did have feelings. I almost felt bad about thinking so harshly about my boss... but almost. He can be very unfair and hypocritical sometimes, but the compassion he showed me took me off guard. I'd thought I'd walk out of the office without a job, but instead I walked out with a promise that he'd arrange for me to work in another area as soon as possible.
So I'll be starting in kitchen soon. Tough area, but I'll be far away from the customers. I've come to loathe them. When I come in to work and see the crowds, it makes my skin crawl. I don't want to serve them, help them, be nice to them, clean up after them. I'm sick of sweeping crumby carpets, sick of the callouses and the backache, sick of wiping greasy fingerprints from the acrylic. I'm fed up with customer service. Some people say to me, "How do you plan on being a teacher if you can't handle customer service?" I say it's not the same thing. In the classroom, I'm the authority. What I say, goes. But in customer service, "the customer is always right" (bullshit...) In customer service, they can just say, "Get me the manager!" and they'll complain and complain like a little kid with a tantrum until they get what they want. In customer service, the customers think they have the right to tell you how to do your job. I almost punched a man who once gave me a lecture on attitude because I gave him a free token, with the clear intention that it was just to make him shut up. Because I'm a lowly, under-paid employee, I can't say anything.
Enough bitching!
Last night I went shopping for Mother's Day presents. Instead of the cliché flowers or chocolates (well, I *did* get her chocolates...), I went to the supermarket and stocked up on high-iron food. Oatmeal, prunes, raisins, whole wheat bread, etc. When I got home, I put everything on the dinner table and told my mom that she was to eat it all, no complaints. She ate some prunes, and this morning I made her some oatmeal. I'm going to have to carefully monitor her eating habits from now on. I can't allow her to stay anaemic for long... my aunt, who's a nurse, scared the daylights out of me when she told me my mom was following simliar patterns as my grandmother, who died from leukemia. I pray my mom gets better soon.
Well, I think I wrote plenty for now. Hasta la vista, bebbies.
Not much to report. I shy away from the news and the papers, but not even I could escape the bombardment of an entire country going bankrupt. The magnitude of our stupidity is enough to allow a corrupted government to swindle the economy away. I'm not clear as to the details... I tried to shut it all out. Schools closing, federal employees suddenly finding themselves unemployed... chaos.
The phrase on everybody's mouth is "las cosas estan malas".
Ohmigosh, just now I discovered Dentyne-isms! :D I recently bought 6 packs of Dentyne Ice gum, and only now do I find the little "Dentyne-isms" on the back of each pack! I share some with you:
Dentyne-ism #5:
Today's the day.
(If not, tomorrow is too.)
Dentyne-ism #17
Lift someone's spirits
(but try not to throw out your back).
Heehee. I loved those. I'm so dorky! :3
I almost quit my job last week.
I asked my boss to give me Mother's Day off, but he said the schedule was already made and he wouldn't change it. Furious, I stormed out of the office and scrawled out my letter of resignation. I know, I know, you think not getting a day off doesn't merit a letter of resignation, but believe me, I was just looking for an excuse. That's how much I hate my job.
I went back to the office, thrust the letter under the manager's nose, and said: "I need that day more than I need this job." He sighed in disappointment, and ushered me into the office.
When he closed the door, I burst into tears. I could've kicked myself. I looked away in embarrassment. I try not to let anyone see me when I cry, so for him to witness it was inconceivable. But I couldn't hold back, and somehow I ended up telling him about my sick mother. He said, "You should've told me," and I protested that I never mix personal problems with my job. He said I could come talk to him whenever I needed to, and inwardly I thought that I would never do that. Fresh new tears flowed when I said, "That's not all... I hate this job. I hate it so much!"
He got me some napkins, listened attentively, assured me that even though he was an S.O.B. sometimes, he did have feelings. I almost felt bad about thinking so harshly about my boss... but almost. He can be very unfair and hypocritical sometimes, but the compassion he showed me took me off guard. I'd thought I'd walk out of the office without a job, but instead I walked out with a promise that he'd arrange for me to work in another area as soon as possible.
So I'll be starting in kitchen soon. Tough area, but I'll be far away from the customers. I've come to loathe them. When I come in to work and see the crowds, it makes my skin crawl. I don't want to serve them, help them, be nice to them, clean up after them. I'm sick of sweeping crumby carpets, sick of the callouses and the backache, sick of wiping greasy fingerprints from the acrylic. I'm fed up with customer service. Some people say to me, "How do you plan on being a teacher if you can't handle customer service?" I say it's not the same thing. In the classroom, I'm the authority. What I say, goes. But in customer service, "the customer is always right" (bullshit...) In customer service, they can just say, "Get me the manager!" and they'll complain and complain like a little kid with a tantrum until they get what they want. In customer service, the customers think they have the right to tell you how to do your job. I almost punched a man who once gave me a lecture on attitude because I gave him a free token, with the clear intention that it was just to make him shut up. Because I'm a lowly, under-paid employee, I can't say anything.
Enough bitching!
Last night I went shopping for Mother's Day presents. Instead of the cliché flowers or chocolates (well, I *did* get her chocolates...), I went to the supermarket and stocked up on high-iron food. Oatmeal, prunes, raisins, whole wheat bread, etc. When I got home, I put everything on the dinner table and told my mom that she was to eat it all, no complaints. She ate some prunes, and this morning I made her some oatmeal. I'm going to have to carefully monitor her eating habits from now on. I can't allow her to stay anaemic for long... my aunt, who's a nurse, scared the daylights out of me when she told me my mom was following simliar patterns as my grandmother, who died from leukemia. I pray my mom gets better soon.
Well, I think I wrote plenty for now. Hasta la vista, bebbies.
posted by Kaede at 2:33 PM
2 Comments:
The problem is that the 'the customer is always right' doctrine has been preached so long that customers are beginning to believe it.
They now think that every wrong has a remedy. They are beginning to think that any inconvenience to their time will warrant them with some sort of special treatment, no matter how far beyond the control of the staff member they choose to bellow at that inconvenience is.
They make personal attacks on people who often aren't given the authority or control to fix the issues that cause a customers inconvenience.
They assume that they are more important than every other customer, and believe that their needs should come first, ahead of every other customer, because they, by chance, have been inconvenienced whilst others haven't.
Oh and PS.
You can say something, at the risk of your job.
Last night at work, I told a customer to 'fuck off'.
I apologised for an inconvenience he faced, but he continued to make snide remarks and made the attack personal when he said: "You can't even run a fuckin' service station."
That was the biggest insult to me. I don't 'run' the service station. I don't have the authority to 'run' the service station. I'm not paid to 'run' the service station.
I have limited authority. I don't make capital expenditure decisions. I don't make maintainance decisions, nor do I schedule rosters.
And half the reason why this customer was inconvenienced, was caused by things well beyond my scope of control.
Furthermore, his arrogance clearly said to me, that he expected me to put him well ahead of the rest of the customers. There were atleast 20 other people in the store, who had also been inconvenienced by the failure of the EFTPOS, and I was working like mad to ensure that their inconvenience was minimal.
What I didn't need at that point, was some smart arse coming in and dictating how I should be doing my job.
There was no remedy I could possibly make, and he clearly wasn't happy with an apology - so he was told to fuck off.
I'm only sorry that so many other people in the store had to hear that, and I apologised to as many of them as I could, and felt extremely embarrassed about my outburst.
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