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#1GF! and I went into a Barnes & Noble to grab a coffee the other night while I picked up a book that Chris’s Mom wanted me to read. We were pretty jovial going in, which was promptly doused by the coffee guy behind the counter. I can’t say that he was rude in any way, but he completely resisted any attempt that we made to engage him in any friendly banter.
At the time, I thought to myself, “People have bad nights. He’s obviously having one. Plus, how much should a person have to smile and pretend that taking coffee orders is some great social experience for eight or nine bucks an hour? How much customer service do we, as customers, expect? We expect that guy getting the shitty wage behind the counter to kiss our asses and be our best buddies for the 2 minutes that we grace him with our presence. If they don’t, we think that they’re assholes or suck at their jobs.”
So. My question is. How much do you think that the people that you come in contact with owe you for just being you?
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October 25th, 2005 at 9:07 pm
Scads…merely because if they gave it a chance, I might make them laugh really hard-thus bringing one small modicum of joy and humor to their lives in that very moment. Kidding.
Seriously, they don’t owe me anything more than common decency, politeness and consideration. Please and thank you can go a very long way to cover those three bases. If I get more than that, I consider it a really good moment.
October 26th, 2005 at 10:27 am
I know it sounds like corporate propaganda, but if you have a job directly servicing customers, then you’re the face of the company that you’re working for and should put your best foot forward (and try to keep it out of the customer’s a$$). If the customer doesn’t get the warm fuzzies he/she might not come back. If it doesn’t suit you, then find another job where someone else talks to the engineers. People should understand what they’re getting into when they take the job. But like you said, everyone has off nights - maybe the previous customer wasn’t as nice.
October 28th, 2005 at 1:18 pm
They should bow down and kiss the freakin ground and hum the crappy tune of thunderstruck by AC/DC . Then get up and do their crappy job cause their the one who applied for it and their the one who excepted responsibility to smile and be jolly for the customer. If not tell ‘em to get a diff-F’n job like paving roads. No one went up to that guy and said “hey you must work here!” . smile and listen to Jon’s darhma-like crazy comments …especially if that kids got the beard packin’