I have, at times, been known to treat retail and customer service employees of scummy “Corporate America” type companies rather rudely, treating the person as the physical embodiment of the company’s attitude toward the public.
We are talking about speaking rudely, perhaps crudely, not about threatening acts of violence or actually committing them.
I talked with the pastor of my church about this, and he actually said that he approved of what I was doing, because if more people do this (treat customer service like dirt), then the companies will come to terms with their antisocial tendencies and change. One person telling off a CSR isn’t likely to do anything, but if we get a movement started, eventually it will get to the point where CSR’s are telling their managers that, “What did I accomplish last week? I got yelled at by a lot of people and didn’t sell anything”. At that point, the company has to change if it wants to survive.
What do you think of the idea, either as a way to effectuate real social change, or as an exhaust vent for anger against Corporate America? At some level, telling a CSR that I wish that the CSR’s mother was there with us right now because I’m sure she’d cry when she found out what her child was doing for a living seems a bit rude, but then I know that people are what make corporations into what they are, and by choosing to work for a company, a person states, at least in a limited way, that they approve of what the company is doing enough to be willing to assist it. At that point, one becomes part of the problem and is fair game.
I think what you’re proposing is absolutely inexcusable. These low-level employees you’re dealing with probably have no real power, and I doubt that the powers that be within the corporation care about their suffering, even if they came to know about it. In the end, you’re just treating another human being like dirt, and that’s not OK.
Edited to add: Your pastor agrees with this? What kind of a Christian is he?
Those people are already treated like dirt, by the same companies you’re despising. If the company treating them like dirt isn’t leading to an improvement of the company’s practices, then yours certainly won’t. All you’re doing is making a few innocent victims even more miserable.
Horrible Horrible thing to do to poor people who don’t deserve it.
To put this in the best context that I can. I currently work for a retail tea store. I do not, will not, and have never, liked tea. I’ll say this to customers who ask me about how much of it I drink (usually garners a laugh) and they say “Why are you working here then?” I always say “Short answer is…they were hiring”.
I worked at a retail job previous to this one too and it’s the same deal. The last one (at least) was a place I shopped at, but still had no real ties to.
I venture to say 99% of people working retail have zero ties to the company, it’s just the job they have because they’re young/a student/can’t find anything better/myriad of other reasons. Treating them badly because they work for something that you don’t agree with is just plain mean.
Who are you that’s better than them? How much of an impact do you REALLY think you’re making? All you’re doing is just being an asshole to a person who works in an industry full of assholes. You’re being the reason people hate working jobs like that.
If you (and ANYONE who reads this) does that. Please stop. Please please stop. We are doing the best we can with what we have and you’re not helping us.
I agree with F.Pu-du, this is not appropriate behavior. Your job does not make you better than other people, just like their job doesn’t make them any worse than you (in most cases, and certainly as pertains to customer service reps). Even if you’re somehow empirically “better” than someone else, that still doesn’t give you the right to put them down.
You go to church, do you? Remember the parts where Jesus was hanging out with the tax collectors and other hated people? Remember (paraphrased) “that which you do onto the least of my followers, that you do onto me?”
It’s a free country, so you’re certainly free to behave like this if you want, but don’t be surprised if most people write you off as a jerk for doing it.
I think you are acting like a total asshole and your rationale is pathetic. The company not only doesn’t care if you direct your rudeness at employees, they prefer if you focus your ire on low level staff who had nothing to do with setting policy, instead of anyone who did.
Also your pastor is a dickbag ignoramus too. I’m glad in not Christian so I don’t have to embarrassed a clergyman would say such a stupid thing.
I think it’s an awful Idea and I can’t believe either you or your pastor hasn’t thought this through. The way to show your disapproval for a company is to take your business elsewhere, and the way to get a movement started is to get a lot of other people to take their business elsewhere.
I’m really doubting the veracity of the story here, what with the pastor also advocating making people miserable - the exact opposite of what the church teaches.
A social activist, one who sees something in Jesus’s treatment of the money changers. None of us are actually planning to vandalize a bank in the criminal sense, but there’s a sense that if enough bank clerks go home crying every day, we will see an end to profiteering $39.95 credit card late fees and such.
By what mechanism? Teller goes home crying. Quits the next day because the customers are so awful and she doesn’t need that shit. The bank cares… Not at all. They are literally thrilled that you abused someone and they kept you as a customer. You changed nothing and increased the human misery in the world. Nice job.
If your job is to be a buffer so that the company you work for cannot be reached by the customers, to get them to be satisfied with crappy service, to get them to eventually give up on getting anything done with the problems they’ve got with your product, and you know that that is what your job is, then you’ve got nothing to complain about when people get pissed off at the only person they are allowed to get pissed off at.
People like your pastor are why I thank my gods I’m not a Christian. I mean, what the hell? Treat people like dirt? Is that what your messiah did? Is that how Jesus told Christians to act?
No, what will happen is those CSR’s will be fired for not meeting quota and a new load of peons will be hired, rinse and repeat. Upper management in such companies do not care, they don’t have to deal with the abuse. Given how many people there are looking for jobs vs. actual jobs out there (even shitty ones) there will be an endless supply of victims for this.
I’m quite happy that in my current job management has explicitly stated that if any customer gets abusive, including verbally abusive, we are to call middle management and let them deal with telling the abusive customer to leave. There are plenty of non-abusive people willing to shop with us, and since the worst offenders regarding verbal harassment of employees tend not to buy much anyway the loss of your business is, well, a small loss.
I think it’s verbal harassment, bullying (especially since many of those CSR’s are not permitted to express anything but polite cheerfulness even if you accuse his/her parent(s) of unnatural sexual practices involving squirrels and doorknobs), and a little on the sadistic side. Anyone who professes to be Christian (such as your pastor) AND advocates such mistreatment of people is a hyprocrite and should be ashamed of his/herself.
That’s leaving aside that I believe it would be completely ineffective.
Right, because a lot of those CSR’s, after long-term unemployment or being downsized elsewhere had a “choice” of either a low-level flunky job or unemployment + eventual homelessness. It’s just another way to shit on the working poor. Not everyone has the luxury of choosing an ideal job, sometimes you pick a shitty one because it’s the least shitty of your alternatives. But hey, just heap more misery on the people at the bottom because, well, they’re on the bottom so they’re somehow “acceptable” targets, being largely powerless and unable to flee from your “attentions”.
Really, your attitude disgusts me. That’s my opinion.
You do realize that was from a time where corporations were a bit smaller, don’t you? If Jesus was tossing money changers out of the temple, he was directly rebuking the people who were exploiting others. He was also removing them in order to cleanse the temple; he didn’t just show up at their houses and beat the crap out of them. Tell me, are the CSRs in your life always hanging out at church, trying to sell you an extended warranty for your stereo?
You screaming at a customer service rep, who is near the bottom of the corporate ladder, and is notably **not **engaging in business at your place of worship, just makes an innocent person miserable. The actual equivalent of your above citation would be going after high level management or the board of directors.
