this might be a bold statement but I think one of the best character designs to exist in television is salem saberhagen, a warlock punished for trying to take over the world & forced to live as a cat for a 100 years, who spends his penance being a bitchy little drama queen who causes constant trouble and cries a lot
Things I have explained to my parents when they start getting mad over small things as customers.
- the cashier scanning your groceries is not being careless or bad at her job, this store times the cashiers so she is clearly trying to stay on time and not get in trouble. This blew their minds that someone would be timed at a "no skill" job (their words not mine)
- the drive thru employee is not trying to be rude or annoying by greeting you too soon: they are required to greet you within a few seconds of your car setting off the sensor.
- the employees at this retail store are not trying to be pushy: they are required to greet you within a few seconds of you entering the store
- the cashier is required to ask you every single question they ask. And they hate it more than you do.
- the cashier is not dumb or "doesn't know how to X" because they had to call a manager for it. Every place I've worked for the past 5 years has been rolling back what employees are authorized to do, and they HAVE to call a manager. They know exactly how to do the thing, they are not allowed to and the computer likely will require a managers code to unlock that function. This confused them.
- the cashier knows the line is long, you don't need to tell them that. If they could call up another cashier they would have already.
- and a more work/life balance related one: my dad scheduled a family thing and assumed i could get the time off. What shocked him was that 1. It wasn't paid time off, and 2. It was denied, so I couldn't come til after work and thus was late. He has worked a job with generous PTO and accrued vacation days that schedules 6 months ahead for the past nearly 30 years. He absolutely was horrified to find out that I have to ask permission for unpaid time off and still couldn't be approved.
- funny followup to my dad's shock: I had been at my most recent job nearly a year and he was asking why they haven't promoted me yet. I was thrown off because why would they. He apparently assumed that since i 1. Showed up on time/early to every shift. 2. Had received positive verbal feedback wrt my performance from managers. And 3. Hadn't quit. That they would automatically start to move me up the ladder. It hurt my heart to shatter his wholesome view of how workplaces work now.
I feel like much of this is common knowledge for all of us, and yet my parents and many customers who haven't worked in the service industry in the past 10-20 years have no idea how this stuff works now.
On the positive side, my parents have slowly been becoming more patient with service workers, and complain to managers or anecdotally much less often. Baby steps!
When you are feeling impatient about this stuff, or want to complain, here is how to do it effectively.
Blame the management. Loudly in reviews and complaints. Make it the management’s fault when you have a bad experience.
Fast food place takes forever to fill you order, or there are long checkout lines at a store? “Management at (place) doesn’t hire enough staff to properly serve their customers.”
Employee screws up your order, or doesnt know where stuff is in the store? “Management is clearly not properly training their employees and giving them the knowledge and support needed to give good customer service.”
Wait forever for a manager to authorize something on the register? “Had to wait for a Manager to show up and authorize (thing). If they let their employees handle small things like this I wouldn’t have had to wait for a manager.”
Hell, get creative.
“The few employees I encountered all did their absolute best to provide me with great customer service, but it was clear they were overworked and stretched thin because Managment is understaffing (place). Having to go find one of the few employees working, then wait because they are already helping someone else was frustrating. Management needs to hire more people, and not overwork them so they can keep doing their jobs well.”
You get the idea, all issues and screwups by employees are due to bad management or poor training. All delays and lines are due to managment not hiring enough people. Even a rude employee is likely rude because they are being overworked at a job with shitty pay/benefits/hours, all of which are management’s fault.
And if you do this, *never* mention an employee by name unless you are praising them. The employees are treated as faceless drones by the company, so don’t single out one when complaining so the company can fire or punish them to “fix” the problem.
I’ve done this for a few years now and it is very satisfying. It is even more fun when the company follows up. One of them, the person kept asking leading questions that were clearly intended to convince me it was actually just a bad employee and get me to name the person I had a bad interaction with. I ended up asking for their manager and telling that guy off (politely) about how his management skills were lacking and how annoyed I was that managers in the customer service department were training their employees to lay blame instead of find solutions, and that it was clear the company had a management problem from top to bottom. He was dumbstruck at being blamed instead of me complaining to him about his employee.
Anonymous
