Rant:Customers that just get to you

deborahthecraft · Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 364 Location: California

I am so sick of our clientel.
Today is the last straw,I am leaving.
I refused to be treated like less than the lady that I am.
I refuse to have people cut me off when I answer the phone and greet them.
I refuse to hear 'let me have' instead of 'can you transfer me to' one more time today.
I refuse to let the customers stare me down while I take their payment.
I refuse to look appologetic when they tell me how expensive this and that is as if it is my fault and they are forced to have any kind of work done.
The end.

lizzymahoney · Joined: 13 Apr 2004 Posts: 804

Oh I hear you, DeborahM. When you start to realize that these jerks are probably just like your nice neighbors or your friends it really stings.

I am so over acting like 'the customer is always right!' No way, if you call and I tell you one thing and you come in and say "the girl told me something else" I'll call you on it right there. Not being nasty, but not taking the blame because you are an idiot. Customers just want to be right even when they are so effin wrong.

It was like that when I had more responsible and high paying career positions, too. Just a more tactful brand of jerk. At least there I could document everything. People still lied, still were rude, still screwed things up and tried to shift the blame.

Now, I'm thinking, "I may be making minimum wage but at least I'm not an a*hole like you, lady." What I actually say is more like, "Perhaps there was a miscommunication, but we provided the best service we could given the information you gave."

sun bear · Joined: 13 Apr 2004 Posts: 443

I read a bumpersticker once that said "The more people I meet, the more I like my dog." That is so true, there are so many rude people out there...sorry you have to deal with them in such an in your face manner. I hope your situation improves!
jt

deborahthecraft · Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 364 Location: California

Thanks for listening ladies!
I feel better today.
I just get tired of people who drive $50g-$70g cars and complain about a $100 service that they asked for.Granted some repairs are upwards of $1,000 but hello,they need and authorized it,whos fault is that?
No one is forcing them to come here.
Their complaints are more in a tone of 'I don't have time for this petty stuff,I am important,I have an expensive car and your taking my payment so you probably don't drive one'...Its such a battlefield somtimes.

They don't know me.I don't care to know them and their pompus attitudes iether.

I think they are un happy people who rely on impressing others with material goods to make themselves feel better.

I'm not impressed.

udandi · Joined: 21 Apr 2004 Posts: 140

Rude people do serve the purpose of reminding me to be sincerely nice and patient!

roxy_fondue · Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2004 9:40 pm Post subject:

mean people suck, through and through.

i hope your situation gets a bit better :)

Katrin · Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 7:53 pm Post subject:

Dear Customer:

Please don't hold the illusion that, when you wait until after I've rung up your order and my till's screen tells me the amount of your change, your deciding to give me an extra quarter on top of that odd number will make it "easier" for me to give you a nice even amount of money back.

Yes, I am an adult. I have a college degree. I am capable of counting and making change without a computer's help. However, there is a line of twenty people behind you, and it's my job to serve all of them as fast as I can. I can't close my till until I've given you the correct change, and once it's closed, I can't open it until the next person pays me. It also happens to be six o'clock in the morning, and I have not had time to have my coffee yet because I'm too busy getting yours.

Just take the damn change I give you. Don't like a bunch of extra dimes and pennies weighing down your pocket? Here's an idea—throw them in the tip jar. You can afford to buy a $4 coffee drink from me twice a day; it's not that big a hardship.

Thank you and have a good day,
Your Cheerful Barista.

roxy_fondue · Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 8:18 pm Post subject:

katrin, your post made me laugh. hope things get better.

roxy, who can barely afford a $1 coffee, let alone a $4 one...

CraftyChicaAZ · Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 686 Location: phx, az

Oh man, I'm so sorry to hear youhad to go through that!

I can relate. I used to be the traffic court appeals clerk back in the day. The angry defendants would come out of the courtroom, pissed because they just lost their case, they come to me to appeal and I had to give them the good news that appealing will cost them 10 bucks!

I let them vent and then I told them I felt sorry for them and that I understood, but it wasn't my fault. I also told them (in a whisper of course) that appealing for a traffic ticket was worthless, I had never seen one win! That usually calmed them down a bit.

It's like you have to stand there and watch them go through the 7 stages of anger right in front of your face! I ended up quitting for a lower paying job at an ad agency. i was poor but i liked it so much better!

I hope things get better, hang in there!!!
_________________
***
<a>CraftyChica.com</a>
See my new product line in Michaels stores this August!

deborahthecraft · Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 364 Location: California

partysaurus · Joined: 27 Apr 2004 Posts: 11

Katrin I'd like to add a couple paragraphs to your letter to the customer.

Please don't make me ask what size drink you want. You order drinks here every single day and you know very well that I can't ring in any part of a 1/2 decaf, triple, 4 pumps vanilla, 3 pumps hazelnut, nonfat, extra hot, no foam, latte, until I know the f'ing size!

No, I didn't forget to put a sleeve on that drink. You don't get one unless you order something that is actually hot, not your freaking bathwater hot chocolate. It will not burn your poor little hand. If you can take a big gulp while demanding an extra piece of cardboard landfill waste IT IS NOT TOO HOT TO HOLD! Oh yeah, and thanks for waiting until I have both of my hands full to ask.

Thanks for treating me like a child every single day. It makes it that much easier for me to keep up my fake smile and enjoy the reek of old milk and sugar syrup that has become my signature fragrance because I decided to serve assholes like you. Thank you.

lizzymahoney · Joined: 13 Apr 2004 Posts: 804

Love these stories. I know I posted this back on the old glitter, but I want to work just one day at a retail job where I can tell the rude customers where to put it. Just today one of my classmates told me where I can do that. He works as needed for a leather merchant. The guy deals in leather products and as raw material. A lot of bikers buy from him. He says I can absolutely tell the customer where to put it, that they do it all the time.

Some lady asked him why her chaps were so expensive and he told her it's because they had to kill three f'ing cows to cover her huge ass.

lol

Armande · Joined: 24 Apr 2004 Posts: 35 Location: The Netherlands

WHAHAHA that is a good one! My boyfriend is like that too, that is why he sucked at sales. LOL
I work as a secretary and that has its lows as well. One of colleagues had a problem with her boss (this was years ago) because she was of the opinion that cutting his nasal hairs was not part of her job description.
_________________
Witch of many trades: gemstone jewelry, photography and tarotreadings ;-)

twilight · Joined: 14 Apr 2004 Posts: 330 Location: New Mexico

I do kinky phone sex and get all sorts of pranks. Here's a few choice ones:

-when guys try to haggle on the price. Like I'm a flea market item or something!

-when guys try to use credit cards in their wives or fiances names

-when they get pissed it costs so much and then press the number keys to make a loud noise in my ear

Here's some that happen when I'm on a paid call

-the guy puts the phone down so he can answer his cell and proceeds to chat with his wife for several minutes

-the guy who bitches incessently about how expensive it is to talk during the paid call, why spend the money to bitch about spending the money??
_________________
Craft Revolution-one purl at a time.
My blog:
Crafting Chaos
My podcast show:
The Twilight and Thebes Show

sewing stars · Joined: 27 Apr 2004 Posts: 112 Location: Little Rhody

I was in retail for way to long...

At the Bookstore I worked at people would get upset when:

we didn't have their 50 year old out-of-print book,
the book jacket was shelf worn and a little scuffed, "S'cuse me do you have another in the back?",
or the best, I had on more than one occasion had a customer ask if they could photocopy the page they needed (Go to the Library!).

At the Art Store I worked at people were just down right rude, Here are some of the fun things they would do:

throw their credit card/cash at me across the counter,
at closing when I was at the door letting the last customers out I have had people from outside yank the door out of my hand and rush me to get in after we were already closed,
i have watched/caught shop lifters try to steal all sorts of things,
half empty/half eaten food left on shelves,
i could go on and on...

I was so happy when I quit that job!

As a secretary I run into rude people sometimes, but mostly it is those people who don't listen, and then get irriated with me because they weren't listening and I give them the condensed version.

That phone sex thing must be a strange job, especially with those guys talking to their wives/g-friends on their cell phones.
_________________
never forget how to fly...