I worked for a federal politician for a while and used to get a lot of angry people calling. I remember one in particular, she was snarking at me as soon as I finished saying hello. She was definitely looking for an argument, or at least to make someone cower. She ranted for a while and when she was done I said, “I understand that you’re frustrated. What can I do to help you?” And that set her off again, telling me all her gripes all over again. I had to ask her three times what she would like me to do to help her solve this. Finally she finished blustering and said, “Well, I’d like this.” I said, “Great, I can do that.” She never apologized, but at least she thanked me.
A few years ago I was absolutely livid with my cable company and the ineptness of the service techs they kept sending to try to find out why everything depending on our cable (phone, TV, and internet) kept conking out every 10 minutes or so. This was about my 7th or 8th call to the cable company and the first thing I said to the CSR was “I want you to know that I am very, very frustrated right now. And I know it’s not your fault, and I’m not taking it out on you. I just want a solution to this problem.” The CSR seemed even more cheery when she realized that I wasn’t going to blame her for everything. She listened politely and was very professional and competent. I gave her a high rating on their website after the call. And it finally got fixed. Yay.
To those of you working in customer service, you have my sympathies and my respect. You must get some real winners some days!
You’ve never worked a cash register, have you? Try working one. Especially in a convenience store.
I used to work in a combo convenience/deli/liquor store in Las Vegas. We sold hard liquor 24 hours a day, that being Las Vegas and all. Let me tell you, we had some customers who did not live in the same universe as the rest of us.
And a hammer?
I pity your wife. It must be terrible to be married to a man who thinks women are mindless automatons and any expression of emotion from them must be because they are bleeding from their crotches.
How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
That’s not funny!
Read (or better yet, listen to the book on tape) David Sedaris’s “The Santaland Diaries” sometime. It’s about when he worked as a Macy’s Department Store elf. By the time the madness of the Christmas shopping season reaches its peak, he and his fellow elves are all going insane under the pressure and the constant barrage of rude, demanding customers. By the time one of his coworkers hears (for the Nth time) someone say, “I’m going to have you fired!”, he leans in close and hisses, “I’m going to have you killed!”
The funny thing is that that could be read in a very sarcastic tone of voice. I’m sure that’s not how you said it, but you can imagine it that way, right?
I used to go to a food coop where one of the cashiers always ended the transaction with “Have a nice day.” I’m sure he was sincere or at least neutral. But the way he said it sounded like he wanted to add the word “asshole” at the end.
It goes both ways. My sister was at a grocery store late at night and was behind a little old lady. She was slow, as little old ladies tend to be. As he finished her order, the checkout guy said to her “I hope you’re killed in a car accident on your way home!”
My sister got him fired.
StG
How many Harvard girls does it take to change a lightbulb?
That’s Radcliffe, that’s women, and that’s not funny!
Customer Lady was absolutely correct on this point!
I don’t agree with that statement as written, but it’s pretty widely acknowledged that irrational and extreme displays of emotion on the part of some women bear some correlation with their menstrual cycle.
My favorites are the ones whose hard drives have crashed, they have their entire lives on their hard drives, and NOTHING backed up anywhere. More than 90% of the time, they are female.
They rant about how their computer should never break down. N.E.V.E.R.
They demand that I fix it over the phone. :rolleyes:
When I set up a repair appointment, they demand that it be done TODAY, while they wait, and that we’d better recover 100% of everything from their non-functional hard drive. :mad: I can’t make promises for service providers and we don’t do data recovery. That costs big $$$.
They swear that they’ll never buy our product again.
They verbally abuse me.
They slam down the phone.
If I’m stupid enough not to ensure that they don’t get a customer satisfaction survey, then they repeat the entire ball of STUPID on the survey.
But then, I’ll take them over the typical “can’t follow instructions to save my life and actively refuse to see what’s right in front of my face” old person any day.
Sometimes it’s very difficult to express an idea or thought in a way that can’t possibly be misinterpreted. Especially if the recipient is predisposed to believe that anyone she interacts with is arrogant.
When the woman in the OP’s post initially accused him of sounding arrogant, what would be a diplomatic response that would be (nearly) impossible to misinterpret as perpetuating the OP’s arrogant tone?
That time of the month, huh?
d&r
No, flipping out on a supermarket cashier because a woman is bleeding from her crotch is terrible. I have many other things that my wife must tolerate and she will be sainted for it later, my sense of humor is not one of them.
SSG Schwartz
You must be on your period, too! You’re all on your periods! Women are crazy and controlled by the moon!
Oh why won’t any of them go out with me?
As for the OP, he or she did the right thing, but frankly it could have come across as dickish and passive aggressive even in the nicest tone. There really was no right thing to say once the customer decided she was annoyed.
Sure. But some asshole men belittle any assertiveness or negative emotion from a woman as being the product of her being on her period. There is no consideration that the woman might be (a) justified in being upset or (b) just mean 365 days a year. It’s just another way to say that if a woman isn’t being people-pleasing sweetness and light she is either not properly socialized (i.e., probably a dyke) or hormonal.
Hijack back on the menstrual references being made:
While I was attending the American Institute of Baking(AIB) we had a series of seminars on differing issues in the baking industry. Out of about sixty-five students eleven of us were female.
One disscussion was on the position of women in the wholesale baking industry. Traditionally women had been scarce in management postions.(Mid-80’s) During a question and answer session one guy in our class made a statement to the discussion leader, something like “I don’t know if women should be in management positions with a lot of responsibilty. They can get too worked up, there’s this…thing… that happens to them every month.”
We women sucked in our breath, bared our teeth, unsheathed our claws and prepared to spring on him. But the discussion leader defused the situation neatly. He leaned forward towards the guy who had spoken, opened his eyes really wide and said “Are you talking about their raging hormones?”
The whole class dissolved in laughter, including us women, and the guy who’d made the statement melted low in his chair, face bright red.