Monday, February 24, 2014

Mean Customers/workers

                                   (All of these images were found on Google. Not my pictures)





Working in retail can be one of the hardest fields to work in; not because one has to be super intelligent to work the job, most of the things that are done in retail are everyday things. Adding and subtracting, using a computer or at least word, putting items back or keeping the store organized, using a microwave or using simple measurements, or even just pushing a basket or loading someone’s items up; mind you, all of this has to be done in a timely fashion, one can’t just do it when one feel's like it; well sometimes it comes down to that but for the most part, the work itself is not hard…what’s hard is everything around it.

            Sometimes one’s hours may not feel equal to one’s pay, some places are open on holidays and sometimes one may work so much, you never get time to see friends or family. When working in retail, one works eight hours shifts. Some people close at night, just to turn around and be at work early the next morning. I’ve had times when I get off at 10, just to be back at 6 in the morning. I know other people who were off at 12 and had to be back at 5 in the morning. The hours can really suck sometimes but someone has to do it. Then there’s the people on the opposite spectrum; the part-timers which is me as well. The one’s who hardly get any hours. I’m at a cool balance but I’ve heard of some people getting 12 hours a week and they don’t have a second job. 


            The pay is everyone’s biggest complaint. I’ve come to the conclusion not everyone can be a millionaire or well off, someone has to struggle or nobody has to struggle; could you imagine a life were everyone had one million dollars in their account? Some of us would still be struggling because of poor money management, but could we get paid more? I’m sure we could but this post is not about that. This post is about the hardest part of working retail and that’s customer service.

            Customer service can be hard sometime because people are people. The word service means the act of helping someone or doing work for someone. Usually that title comes with a lot of…..entitlement for customers. Usually when something is out of stock, or we don’t sell a certain item, or maybe you can’t find an item, my job is to aid you and help you, my job is to not magically pull the item from out my arse. As a customer, put yourself on the receiving end; when you ask us to do something that’s against our policy or act unethical, you’re causing a problem for me and others. The job of a CEO and his team is to oversee how the business is being run and what changes they can make to insure the company’s future, so we people at the bottom still have a job, and all the customers can continue to shop without any inconvenience. When one disrupts that and sends an angry letter or e-mail to a corporate office about a place having bad customer service, what you are doing is causing a threat. The person will not get fired because of your letter. They get thousands of letters from angry customers all the time. 



I’m pretty sure they don’t read all of them, but I’m sure they’ve read enough to know that customer service has become a problem. Have you been to stores and seen the self check out’s lately? I’m not saying those are due to customer service complaints but CEO’s have the mind frame of killing two birds with one stone; this means they want a speedier check out and the complaints to dwindle. They don’t want to fire anyone because they know for some people this is there means of living. As a customer, you have to look at that as a sign. These companies are what control our country to some extent. Do you realize that they could get rid of a department altogether by replacing cashiers with self check-outs? Think about how many people would be unemployed. I’m not saying they would do it in one shot because that would throw our economy even further out of whack, but the unemployment line and welfare offices would be PACKED. This means more taxes come out of your check, mean customers. Check yourself before you go to the register. The same goes for workers, check yourself before you clock in. 


As a worker in retail, one deals with hundreds of people a day. On an eight hour shift, one’s energy level depletes, get’s replenished, falls again, one goes through mood swings because maybe one is not getting the right amount of nutrition, maybe stress is the issue and all of one’s nutrition is going to fighting stress, maybe one just doesn’t want to be there and feels they have no way out, which is why network marketing is flourishing so well; so for those of you who hate MLM companies, you can thank your mean customers for that. The same thing applies for customers; customers are people and face these problems as well. When does it stop? Feel free to state your own opinion in the comments section below. I would like to hear your response as well. And feel free to Roam around “No Title” and check out the popular post section. Hope you enjoyed and have a nice day. 



3 comments:

  1. Have you ever had bad service at a restaurant? Do you still tip them 15 -20% even though you had to send something back (which is the kitchen's fault, not the servers, yet, the tip usually suffers), do you judge their tip on the service you receive, or do you tip the same no matter what? Have you ever had to wait 45 minutes for a cold meal and sympathize that the server is probably tired or had a bad day? Did you have a bad experience at a restaurant? Perhaps your server thought you were a tiresome customer, and it's your fault that his/her shifts got cut after your complaint. Yes, customer service can suck the big one. So does any job. I hate automated check-out lines and vow never to use one. I come from a lower-income family who had to work these jobs all their lives, and I did, too. I wait in a longer line because automated check out lines does decrease jobs. That's EXACTLY why some really need to learn to leave their egos at the door and give what they are paid to do - customer service without sarcastic remarks, sighs or eye rolling if a customer has a question. it's NOT customers who write letters about your bad service that is causing automated checkout lines - it's the snotty additude workers convey. People would much rather deal with people - nice people. Every single job is going to have things that suck. If you really believe it's the customer's fault for writing letters to the CEO that makes your job suffer or on the line, I suggest you find a new avenue. Be smarter than me - get out while you still can, or these types of jobs will just leave you with anxiety and bitterness. And, you are only part-time! My 20 year old bag-boy cousin has a better attitude than you. You are expendable. Get out now or get more professional.

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  2. I think you missed my point or maybe I did not convey the message correctly. About a paragraph up, I mentioned that the worker as well needs to check their attitude and so does the customer. There have been plenty of times I've went to work in sour mood but as soon as I swipe that badge and I'm clocked in, I drop all of that off at the time clock and it's time to work. I've noticed in my 10 years of working retail, not a lot of people do that. I say this from experience because I've seen that before. People clock in with this attitude and you know something is going to happen because they DID NOT check themselves before they clocked in; however there are some customers out there, who DO NOT check themselves as well when they leave the house. I've had bad service before at a restaurant and I still tip my server because we are human, life happens, but I've also went back to the same place and had the same server and noticed the same attitude all the time. Is it fair to anyone that they have to deal with that? No. Do you deal with it? some do.

    In the past month, my manager was let go of due to cut backs. Do I believe it's the customer's fault because they send letters? Partly...I've went online and saw the reviews for our store, and I saw people talking about the customer service at our store sucks. Not all of us suck at customer service, if anything, I've gotten good reviews by customers who go to our store. Think about it like this, companies are able to target us better because of the internet. Some marketing teams read these reviews and try and find ways of bettering customer service or even an item that people like. I know this because we discussed this in my class and the teacher teaching it, was the president of Wetzle's Pretzels. So if he's telling me that their reading these reviews, it got me thinking about where I work at; it also got me thinking about all of the people I know who I work with who have a, "Fuck off attitude". Are you seeing the connection here? If they have that "fuck off attitude" and that customer has the same attitude, that customer can write a bad review online. If that worker/s continue with that trend, more reviews or letters will be seen and they will take action because that negative attitude means money. This means there's a lot of people who will not shop with a company for whatever reason. The theory of CEO's actually whipping out departments with self check outs was just that a theory; however it was meant for us to check each other.

    We as a people need to check our selves on both sides. I can't be a rude customer and push a worker's threshold, that's just wrong. I can't be a rude worker and push a customers threshold, that's just wrong. If we don't compromise, the repercussion's
    could be the ultimate final decision which is our CEO's taking action to insure the company's future and that could be replacing us with self check outs. That was the message. lol...Nobody want's that. Everyone at the end of the day want's to go home with a job, and nobody want's this economy to become worse then what it is. So before that happens, worker/customers need to check the attitude at the door so business can continue. =) That's all. Thank you for commenting by the way..

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  3. BTW Charlene no hard feelings, I'm glad you spoke your mind.

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