To the customer who yelled at me on Monday:
Dear sir,
I have absolutely NO control over where the price stickers go on our books. If I am told to put them in the top right hand corner of the front cover,directly OVER the title,that’s where they are going. I am a drone.I do exactly as I am told and they pay me for it.I am not payed to ‘think outside the box’ as you put it. Please…I understand that being able to see the full title of the book is important to you and that the stickers come off easily.If I put the sticker somewhere ELSE somebody might complain I am covering up cover art or the author’s name or something else equally inane.Please don’t yell at the drones such as myself. If you don’t like our policy,then yell at HQ.Not at us. Thank you.
IDBB, I feel your pain–I’ve been in customer service myself. But while I in no way condone this behaviour, the Irate Asshole Customer™ who yells at you for something beyond your control is (obviously) frustrated and feels his/her voice needs to be heard. As the visible representative of “Da Man,” you are automatically the target of IAC™’s rantings.
Now, to the Irate Asshole Customer–chill out, man…take a valium or a bong hit or something. It’s a sticker! You can remove it! If you can’t figure out the title of the friggin’ book, look on the spine! Or did Underpaid, Overworked Drone put a sticker on the spine, too–just to thwart your plans?
Apotheosis–in this case it was a 30% off sticker on the new Micheal Crichton book “Prey” and the customer was ranting about how it covered up a portion of the title.I also was very cheerful about explaining WHY the sticker was there and how we,as drones,couldn’t do anything about it.This was the coversation(to my best knowledge™):
Me:Hello,did you find everything you needed today?(scans gun magazine)
IAC:NO!And why are there stickers over the top of this title?Isn’t there someplace else you could put it?
Me:That’s where we’re told to put it.Do you have a Reader’s Advantage card,sir?
IAC:No.Don’t they let you guys use your brains and think outside the box a little around here?
Me:Uh…no sir.I put the stickers there because I was told to,sir.
IAC:I wanna talk to the manager then!
At which point,another drone comes up a nd the guy yells at him for the same thing,which drone2 explains just as I did that we do as we’re told and that’s where the stickers are supposed to go.The IAC pays for his gun mag and leaves,steam coming out of his ears.I guess me being cheerful didn’t help any either.shrug
Oh, well that makes perfect sense…I can see how PRE$7.99
might leave too much to the imagination.
I can possibly understand the complaint if it was a hard-cover book, but a paperback? It’ll get read once, maybe twice, and end its life on a Rainy Day shelf. Not exactly a keepsake item.
Well, on something as pricey as a hardcover, yes, it might make a difference. Depending on what kind of label it was, whether it was that obnoxious adhesive that leaves residue that collects fuzz and other crap over time, etc.
But even if it explained his pissyness, it doesn’t forgive taking it out on you.
Why was he concerned about this? He thought the sticker would leave marks coming off? Or did he think that with the sticker over part of the title then he wouldn’t know what book it was? It’s not like the front cover is the ONLY place on the book that the title’s wriitten. Sounds like a jerk. Loser. (Him, not you.)
My mom is terrible about this, usually with tech support people. As soon as she gets to talk to them she’s off and ranting about how long she’s been on hold and how she can’t stand their company, etc. Yeah, that’s going to encourage them to help her. :rolleyes:
I find that customer service people (sometimes folks forget that they are, in fact, people) are much more likely to help you out if you’re rational and offer a little empathy. When I’m steamed about being on hold for 9 years, and I simply must express it to someone, I pull something like this-
Service Guy: Hello, this is ______, how are you doing today?
Me: I’ve been on hold FOREVER! Man, I can’t imagine having to deal with people who have just been holding for an hour and a half all day long. They’ve gotta do something!
Service Guy: Man, you’re telling me…
After that I usually get a lot better results than my Mom does. So there
'Scuse me? I still reread paperbacks I bought in 1971. Of course, I’m peculiar.
The stickers are annoying, sometimes. Especially when you have several of them, and they don’t peel off properly. I don’t see how shouting at the shop workers materially helps anyone, though.
If he’s reading a book called “Prey” and buying a gun magazine, it might pay to be relatively nice to him.
Mild hijack - my favorite “customer service” response of the year, if not decade, involved our electric power utility, which had an outage due to a storm. When the “customer service” rep was asked if there was any indication when power might be restored, she repeated the following gem: “An estimate for restoration of service cannot be estimated”. That was it.
“<<nod sympathetically>> Why sir, I see you point and I agree it’s a terrible thing. I will report it to management and next time you come in the store I’ll let you know their response. Now, did you find everything you needed?”
Problem is, that’s what you’re there for. The people who make the dumb decisions put at least one layer of hapless, to-be-yelled-at drones betwixt themselves and the angry customers. If only we could get through to the management… The only way is to ask up at each opportunity. “Get me your manager’s manager” etc. Doesn’t often work. Alternatively, my approach is “I know it’s completely beyond your control, but I’m really bloody angry about (whatever) - can you make a note of this and pass it up your management”. I leave which part of the management to pass it up to their imagination.
The man was out of line. But this had me thinking…
Ah yes the infamous SS (Sticker Stickers) of the third Reich, inventors of the irremovable glue gobbets and other scouges of humanity.
Cheers, Keithy
P.S. are you allowed to return a product as damaged if the stickers that were on it cause damage to the product when they are removed, or leave a nasty mark behind?
As one who deals with the general public, let me take a run at this. The problem is that this continues to take all responsibility for acting like a reasonable human being and engaging in civilized discourse away from someone who just happens to be in the customer role at the moment. This in particular rings in my ears:
Because an easily removable sticker on the cover of some pulp book is not a terrible thing. Also, demanding to see a manager over a triviality such as this? Please! You should be allowed to slap people like that so hard that it hurts their mother!
So what? Treat even the assholes in a civilized manner, and once in a while the asshole will become an apologetic asshole. Do this enough times and you will reduce the total number of assholes in your sphere of influence.
