I can't fake it like I used to.
Today I had another customer chastise me. This is the fourth time such a thing has happened in the past 4 months. A customer has called me out for:
1) having a bad attitude
2) being un friendly
3) being snippy/snarky
Today some lady felt the need to tell one of my co-workers that I was rude and snippy to her because I place her change on the counter!
" I have back spasms" she says. Well how the hell am I supposed to know that! I don't live in the bloody town. I don't know who this pissy woman is.
The thing is, these complaints are all the same thing. Which is, people not getting the servile attitudefrom me that they feel they deserve. I just can' t fake it anymore. The customers in Agassiz seem to think they should get someone who will lick their boots as I make them a sandwich.
I know I am impatient with others. I want to serve them fast, get them out, so I don't have to see them again that day.
However, no one else at work gets this treatment- Even though they are no better or worse at customer service than me. I have never heard a customer say anything bad about the other people at work. There is something about me that rubs people the wrong way. Perhaps my face my voice ? I used to be able to hide my contempt -not anymore. So, I tried to treat people with compassion. Now I'm frightened because I don't have much compassion left.
I afraid I've become not a very nice person. So the real hazard of this job is not the sore feet, or cuts. or burns, or backaches, but the drain of things I used to like about myself.
I was a kind and compassionate person and now I'm a cynical misanthrope.
posted by Sheri Eyre @ 10:27 PM
10 comments
10 Comments:
You're not cynical - you're just not old. Old people think they are right about everything. Old people drive me crazy. Sheri, you're awesome! And if you can't fake it anymore becasue you hate your job, than quit and find a new one. Easier said than done, I know, but worth looking into.
It's totally the Agassiz mentality. I worked at the Credit Union there one summer, and it was always like this, with both co-workers and customers. In fact, my all-female cast of co-workers called me "Keith" all summer because they had a Keith previously. They just don't like anyone who's not also forced to live in Agassiz.
sheri, it is definitely not you. take heart. collect the paycheque, an just put yourself on auto-pilot.
hey matthew, can I call you Keith too?
Hey Keith, when are you and Candice coming out next? Maybe new years?
- Bonnie (of the new Bonnie and Sheldon)
ask Vic, she'll explain
Matt- there is a customer who insists on calling my co-worker Shelly, "Sheri". I corrected him one day, much to his embarrasment- and Shelly's chagrin since he had been calling her Sheri for four years! Anyone elses name and I would've kept my mouth shut. However,Dammmit, that's my name!
Mine!
Since then he didn't seem to be able to make the switch in names. Every time he came into the deli, he said bewildered, "her name isn't Sheri?"
"No, it's Shelly" to which he would chant "Shelly Shelly Shelly" trying to make it stick.
Well, today he came in and after much mental effort- had reverted to straight facedly calling her "Sheri" again. ARGHHHH Get me out of this black hole...
I love ya Shelly. Oops, I mean Sheri.
Ha... just kidding.
So one day I'm in Kroger (grocery store) when I'm waiting to talk to the store manager for something regarding my students. I'm in line behind this lady who stands there and yells at the manager because of the cashier's
"bad attitude." Even her own grandiose telling of it didn't really sound like a reason to complain. Then she threatens the manager "reminding him" that she can spend her money at the competing grocery store if she "needs to." THEN, as if she weren't already making an ass of herself, she proceeds to shrill her voice even more (all while pretending to be the calm, upper-crust lady that she is) and to annouce very melodramatically that her day is now ruined. Then she leaves. I walk up to him and he's as calm and as curteous as could be and I tell him, "Before I tell you why I'm here I just want to tell you that it's not really worth it... no matter how much money she spends in here (as if Kroger isn't one of the largest grocery chains out there anyway) and that if she wants to shop elsewhere then let her. Then I just looked at him and said "I can't believe that that one little cashier had the power to ruin her day." He looked at me and smiled and said, "I know. I've just been diagnosed with cancer. THAT will ruin your day." I was floored!! I thought, "Wow, this man just handled this woman as politely and professionaly as I've ever seen a manager do as she rants in all her petty glory and he would have been totally justified to just let her have it with both barrels and to let her know what it's truly like to have your day ruined." Ya know, you just never know what another person is going through! WOW!
Wasn't it C.S. Lewis who spoke about the idea that someday we may get to Heaven and see that old grouchy man from down the street and only then learn that he had lived with a lifetime bout of severe gastrointestinal issues and that, all things considered, he was behaving pretty well considering the pain?
There's a first century Jewish man who once said, "Be kind. Everyone is fighting a great battle." I wish that people like your customer realized that.
well said Stacy. I'm writing that last quote inmy journal to look at before I start my day.
Hey Shelly,
Want my advise? Well here it is anyway: punch him right in the face.
Honestly.
The next time you have a crabby customer, punch him right in the face. Hard. All the other customers will take notice and not be crabby to you.
Well... will they? Nope.
:)
can you tell I don't work in custoemr service?!
Ah Amy
We thought about instituting The Salami Law. Anyone who pisses us off gets thwacke over the head with a whole salami
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