I work in the service department in an auto dealership. I do not perform any repair work. All I do is drive the customers’ cars to them from the back parking lot, basically what a valet parking attendant does. Yet I get people constantly asking me to decipher their (admittedly inexplicable) bills, after walking right by their service advisor to hand me their keys. Let me say it one time loud: “I DO NOT know what was done to your car or why it costs so much, and furthermore I DO NOT care. What I’m concerned about is that you get your car in a timely fashion, as that’s the only part of the process I’m involved with personally.”
Whew. I must’ve been bottling that up for a long time, because that felt really good.
Here is the scene of my proudest moment in the customer service areana (and probably the reason why I am no longer in the customer service areana).
I was an assistant manager at a small convenience store in New England. It was my last day before starting a new shiny job in corporate America. I was spending my last half hour on the job fronting the beer coolers. The local Queen of the Rednecks stands beside me staring into the cooler.
“Can I help you, ma’am”, I ask her.
“I don’t see no Naraghansett,” she sputters through about four teeth, “I always get Naraghansett on Friday.”
Smiling, I say, “I’ll look in the walk-in for you maam.”
I look in the walk-in. No Naraghansett.
I walk back to the Queen, “I’m sorry ma’am, we seem to be out of Naraghansett at the moment. We’re expecting a delivery later this afternoon.”
“But I always get Naraghansett on Friday.”
I take a deep breath.
“I realize that ma’am, but we haven’t recieved our delivery yet, and as a result, we are currently out of Naraghansett.”
“But I always get Naraghansett on Friday.”
“Ma’am, as you can plainly see, there is no Naraghansett beer stocked in the cooler. I have searched exhaustively in the walk-in, and I can assure you there is no Naraghansett there either. However, I can tell you with all confidence then when the delivery truck arrives, he will supply us with all the Naraghansett you may want. In short, my dear lady, we are currently out of Naraghansett.”
“But I always get Naraghansett on Friday.”
At this point I realized that in 15 minutes I would never have to deal with any of these people again, and I snapped …
“Look, you fat lush, I told three fucking times we don’t have any Naraghansett, buy some Old Milwaukee and get the fuck out of my face!!”
I like to think she appreciated my candor.
First day I ever walked away from that job smiling.
And people ask me why I never want to work in the service industry again…
I used to bartend, and so many times I would have to argue and hassle over providing ID, get called an f***in bitch repeatedly, just to find out (when ID is finally produced) that the person in question has been legal for less than a month.
Gee. You look so much older than you did a month ago…