Okay, I see. I’ve heard so many stories lately about idiot parents leaving their kids in cars or leaving their kids alone in the house and I just bristled when I read your post. Thanks for clearing that up.
A few years ago a friend and I were at a popular eatery that takes its name from a particular variety of pepper. It was the dinner rush and the place was pretty full. What a great time for a random bratchild to start screaming at a level between the upper limit of human hearing and dog whistles! It was so bad it gave me a migraine. I went outside to keep my brain from leaking out my ears while my friend complained to the management. A few minutes later, he stalked out and we left because the manager “didn’t want to make the parents angry” by telling them to shut their kid up or take it out. Haven’t been back since. Told all my friends about the experience as well. They don’t go to that restaurant anymore either.
Fuck spineless managers.
I have a complaint - with a great ending.
We used to have a PR person working here; his name was Charles. Charles brought in his 3 YO granddaughter one day and basically let her run loose with no supervision. I am not ready to babysit a 3 YO, I don’t get paid enough and they don’t listen anyway. 3 YO’s need supervision.
To make matters worse, the reason why she was here at the office instead of at the daycare was that she was sick. I overheard her say, “Why are we here?” and him saying “The doctor said you were contagious, so we had to go home.” So why the fuck aren’t you home?
He brought DVDs but a 3 YO is really too young - or this one was anyway - to sit quietly and watch. And she was everywhere, and he just sat in his office working.
Our direct supervisor is a spineless twat and his manager was not there. When she returned, we complained to her, and rightfully so, that we had had a hard time working and that we resented being exposed to this child’s sickness. Wouldja believe she wrote an e-mail to the guy & his supervisor (he wasn’t part of our staff) requesting for him to only bring the kid in when it was fully supervised and not sick, complaining about the disruption, and it actually worked?
She’s great. I wish she was still my boss.
I truly don’t get this. You have real paying customers complaining and you’d rather offend and anger them than the irresponsible parents???
I hope you wrote a letter to spineless manager’s boss. If it’s a case of which customer do I want to risk losing I’d go with the one with the screaming kid.
A buddy at work was telling me about an incident at another store he worked at.
A lady had paid for two months worth of guitar lessons for her chaild and the child attended two months worth of lessons. Then *the child *decided she didn’t like guitar and didn’t want any more lessons. The lady wanted a refund on the lessons she had taken. I’m not sure how she justified this in her mind. The kid hadn’t learned to play or something. Doesn’t make sense to me. I guess she just felt like that money was thrown away and she wanted the store to take the loss rather than her.
Perhaps she was a customer who thought “If I complain enough I’ll get my way”
My buddy asked; “Was there anything wrong with the teacher or the lessons in any way? Was something done incorrectly”
“No. nothing like that. She just decided she didn’t want to play guitar and I’d like a refund”
“Well since she actually took the lessons you paid for I’m afraid I can’t refund your money”
Then the lady asked " Do you have any kids?" Oh oh now she opened the door.
My buddy " Well I don’t think that’s relevant but yes I do. At my house the rule is once you decide you want to do something you see it through and you don’t quit. I see that as teaching my kids to be responsible and my obligation as a parent."
The lady shut and obviously pissed. Later she called the manager to complain and try one more time to get her money back on the lessons. The manager was as dumbfounded as my friend.
“So your daughter took the lessons you paid for?”
“Yes!”
“Tell me again why we’re talking about this”
No, sadly I didn’t. I regret that.
I was (and still am) a poor college student. The people with the kid were not. Despite the fact that this town wouldn’t exist without the college, proprietors are more likely to chase us out than anyone else (except maybe crackheads).
Ahhhhhh I see. The manager saw the family as more profit than college students.
He’s still wrong. Sometimes it shouldn’t be about the money. We have guys come in to try guitars and amps. Of course we let them play for a while but in time, if they’re loud, they are politely asked to stop out of consideration for the other customers. Some get pissed but that’s life.
Post #50 (bottom of first page). Sapo wrote “As for taking my business elsewhere, not such luck here on the island. (snip) As for leaving Sprint, you know how contracts go. Between their incompetence costing me $200 and costing them 20 cents, I will take their 20 cents any time.” I didn’t remember that correctly and misinterpreted the first sentence as an implication that there was no other service available. Mea culpa.
As for the lines, I see no mention of lines in the OP, nor in Sapo’s first post, although I shouldn’t speak for either of them. If I misinterpreted, I’m sure they’ll let me know 
I understand that. Hopefully, you understand my point, too. The decision makers don’t know that you’re upset with their policies. They don’t know that you performed any misdeeds because of those policies. The workers in the local office have no idea why you’ve intentionally disrupted things. You’re not changing anything.
Who is really taking the brunt of your displeasure here? The other poor people that have to stand in that line with you. And they’re not getting paid for it.
Wouldn’t writing a letter or calling the corporate offices be a heck of a lot more effective?
When you or your children act poorly in public, you come off as the jerk, not the staff who have to deal with you. I don’t think that the staff have the time to sit down and really think, “Hmm… Our company’s policies need changing. Otherwise, this person would be more polite. I should write a memo to our CEO.” They’re far more likely to be thinking, “What an ass - I can’t wait to go to home! I don’t get paid enough to deal with this shit.”
In fact, I imagine that allowing your children to misbehave somewhere to make a point means that you and all the patrons around you get even poorer service, whether it’s because the staff is trying to mitigate damage your children are causing, are distracted because of your children or are trying to calm pissed-off patrons, thereby ignoring others.
All you get out of it is whatever satisfaction you feel for “sticking it to the Man” and the added agitation of poorly-performing staff who can’t do their jobs because they’re trying to control your kids or calm you or other angry patrons down. It seems like a lose-lose situation to me.
However, your experience may be different - have any of these tactics worked for you so far? (I’m not asking to be a smartass - I really want to know.)
Although I have not written letters to Sprint since I got to PR or to the cable company, I used to write extensive, detailed and polite letters to management. Nothing ever seem to come out of those. Polite form letters thanking me for writing, offers for free stuff I didn’t care for, or (my favourites) letters asking for more details (I don’t work for you, buster). I have kind of given up on the whole letters to management thing. I still do from time to time, but I no longer make a habit of it.
Will TPTB ever learn of my antics? not directly, I am sure. My hope is that someday some “line drone” will figure that their lives are wasting away taking care of upset customers who could be taken care of by internet without anyone losing any hair. If enough of them figure this out and pass their ideas to management.
The “line drones” with less initiative, will simply get sick and tired of putting off with this crap and seek work elsewhere. That costs the company in training and all that.
Ditto for the other customers in the line. They will wonder “why do I have to put up with this crap instead of doing this at home?” or “There is always upset people here, I wonder if I can find something better”. They will either do pressure of their own (helping my cause) or take their business elsewhere (hurting the company).
Once again, I do realize this is all a sucky bit. It is a big loss for a chance of a meager win. It is just my frustration safety valve. I have done it only a couple of times when all previous attempts at solving my problem have met only dickish responses from the company.
The saddest part is that my kids are just a drop in the bucket in the chaos that normally reigns in those places.
I think it all starts with please and thank you. I watched a 4 year old today (I now work in same day surgery). She was in for a tonsillectomy*. Cute as a button, with a doting grandpa and mommy with her.
This kid could teach Donald Trump lessons. She ordered Mommy around like the Godfather. “Do this now.”; “don’t.”; “I said NO.”; “Turn it on.” No please, no thank you, no waiting, no nothing. What a lil bitch!
I heard from the nurses in recovery room that she tried this on them-“take this out, now.”; “I don’t want THAT(that being oxygen)”. She didn’t get far. And mommy was there the whole time, catering to her mini-martinet. Grandpa was practically drooling over his cutie pie. :rolleyes:
It starts there. (actually it starts at an even earlier age, but you get the idea).
- not really, but I’m changing details for privacy.
in light of the last post, and FTR, my daughter’s second word (after “dad”) was “thanks”.
And thank you,** Sapo,** for instilling that in her!
True story from earlier today at work:
Setting: Me as a mall security guard walking around the main part of the mall. I see a girl approximately 4 years old rolling around on those damn Heely shoes while her father (now refered to as dumb-ass) blissfully ignores his daughter almost falling over multiple times.
Me: “Excuse me hon, we don’t allow skating in the mall. You need to stop.”
Dumb-ass, giving me the evil eye: “You don’t talk to my daughter like that!”
Me: “I’m sorry sir, I’ve found it is generally more effective in situations to speak to whomever is more likely to have some common sense.”
Dumb-ass: “I want to talk to your boss!!”
Five minutes later, Dumb-ass to Boss “Your employee insulted me and said I have less common sense than my daughter.”
My boss: “I trust the judgement of my employees. If you cannot control your child, you need to leave.”
The guy left in a big huff. I love my boss some days. And for the record, the girl stopped skating when I asked. I kind of feel sorry for her, having a parent like that.
Good Story
I kinda understand why parents knee jerk reaction is to not have other people correct their children but as long as it’s done politely I can’t really see a problem.
It takes a village and all that. Often when kids are misbehaving you can’t be sure who the parent is.
I try to make it a point to always say please and thank you to kids when I’m asking them to not touch or be careful. If I clearly see who the parent is and realize they are aware of what the kids are doing and ignoring it then I speak to the parents. They usually don’t thank me. 
That is sad. She’ll get a bit of an education when she goes to school and realizes the other kids and teachers aren’t as easy to manipulate.
I stood and watched a pretty large man be totally manipulated by his 4 or 5 year old son. He spent 10 minutes pleading with the kid to put something back because it was time to go. He eventually gave in and bought it so they could leave. I bit my tongue, but I wanted so much to say “You just guaranteed that he will do that again”
You’re a grown man, he’s 4. You’re supposed to be in charge. Sheesh. Parents like that don’t realize that they are harming their kids rather than loving them.
Seeing stuff like that always kills me. That’s one of the reasons parents are bigger than kids in the first place - to lift them bodily so they can leave after they’ve refused to listen to their parents.
And the refusal of so many people to use the simple words “please” and “thank you” is enough to drive me batshit. My 15-month-old kid says it, for God’s sake (well, he doesn’t say please, but he does say thank you)!
Sometimes I think that one of the many factors of the U.S.'s high divorce rate might be lack of basic courtesy in the household. If my husband told me, “Make dinner while I put our son to sleep,” or, “Clean a cup for me” instead of, “Would you mind making dinner while I put the rugrat to bed?” or “Could you clean a cup for me? We’re out of clean ones and our son needs some water,” our relationship would never have lasted as long as it has. Courtesy and lack thereof seem to have some far-reaching impacts.
It drives me nuts too. My 3.5 year old can remember to say thank you with some regularity (he does need prompting from time to time, but not always) it’s not THAT hard to teach them!
Amen to all three paragraphs.
Especially that last one. All our friends wonder how my wife and I (both with very strong characters) manage to live together without ever having a fight. P’s and Q’s, people. That is half the battle won. Never saying a rude word to each other is also a big part of it. Our kids picked on it very quickly. Please, Thank You and Excuse Me have been part of their vocabulary since the beginning. Both at home and outside. Kids don’t do what you tell them to do, they do what they see you do.
I’ve never understood this point of view. If you have the right to talk to Dad that way (which you obviously do, being the security guard), then you have the right to talk to the kid that way, too. It’s your job to politely deal with safety issues, and you do that by talking to people.
sheesh
At least you have a great boss.