Very often I hear stories how about being in retail or even -any- job dealing with the general public. Almost without exception, these are about inconsiderate asshats, mindless morons or entities with entitlement issues.
Nevertheless, is there any job that includes dealing with people that is -not- soulcrushing or perpetually annoying?
No.
Just… no.
I like working with customers at my wife’s store. They are mostly women, almost all nice, and occasionally hot.
None that I’ve ever encountered.
[ETA]: I meant there’s no customer service job that I’ve worked in that isn’t a soul-crushing pit of despair. I’m sure there’s someone out there happy doing it though.
It’s not customer service per se, but I work in research at a hospital/medical center, and I really like dealing with the vast majority of our patients. (IANAD/N, I’m a research coordinator.) Most are at least pleasant to deal with, and some are people I even really look forward to seeing. For their parts, the patients seem to enjoy dealing with me, and some compliment my work abilities and tell my bosses what a good job I do/pleasure I am to deal with.
That’s not always the case, though. I’ve dealt with a few who after repeated experiences of dealing with someone who just can never be happy with anything, I start cringing when I hear that person on the phone or see that an appointment is coming up. I don’t let it affect how I treat the “difficult” people, other than being even more professional in behavior.
I did have one person lately who after spending less than 5 minutes of interaction with him, I left the room on a supposed errand to ask my coworker, who’d dealt with him for over a year, to ask her if he was always a passive-aggressive jerk. Her immediate reply was that he’s an asshole.
I’ve worked with customer’s for about ten years now and I enjoy my job. It’s a proper sales environment but I we don’t do ‘hard sell’.
I think my expectations of people have changed since I started and if someone does get irrational or abusive I can shrug it off much easier. I do bitch sometimes about work, but everyone gets off days. And if someone does wrongly critisise my store I do get worked up for an hour or two. (I have no problem with correct critisism)
After ten years in one place I’ve built some excellent relationships with people and the customers that give me a genuine ‘Thank You’ make it all worth while.
In a word: Yes.
I found that much to my surprise most customers are okay. Or at least they are to me. I’ve heard all the horror stories, but I’ve never had any really ghastly encounters. Mildly, yes, but not like some I’ve heard about and seen.
So I guess I’m a weirdo who kind of likes customer service. I had no idea I would when I started working retail.
I used to work in a local yarn store, and I really enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun helping people pick out, or work on, their projects.
But after all, the customers and I had something in common (knitting, spinning, or weaving). We’d talk about patterns, and stitches, and making adjustments, and what colors look good on them, and what’s a good sett for this yarn … People rarely came in when they were in a hurry, and most of the time it was rather social.
Another thing, I was never focussed on selling. The owner did not believe in the hard sell. We were only supposed to be helpful, and offer suggestions when asked.
If I ever work retail again, I hope it’s in a specialty shop.
I owned a UPS Store and manned the counter as much as I could. I loved dealing with my customers. Both the regulars and the one-shots. Sure there were some unpleasant ones but those I crushed with a smiling and unbending recitation of the regulations. My store grew 17% year-to-year for the 3 years I owned it and customers wouldn’t stop raving about me to the area office, their friends and myself. Some resented it when I sold, but that was not something I could prevent.
I would love to have that back.
Also depends on what level if it’s sales. I think the OP is talking about retail. I’ve been in sales for years, but it’s at a corporate/national/multinational level. The stuff I sell can enable someone like Catepillar (not my customer) gain market share, reduce costs, improve their supply chain, and directly be worth tens of millions of dollars. Catepillar *wants * to talk to me. They may be unpleasant because I’m a seller and they’re a buyer, but at the end of the day I’m doing something of huge strategic value to them.
Actually the cool part is gaining their trust, understanding pretty deeply their business, and then seeing if what I sell might be a good fit. It’s not a hard sell. It’s not talking someone into a used car. I won’t throw out the rest of the beatitudes, but at the right level it can be great.
a different example. You can be in a boiler room smile and dial brokerage environment selling stocks to people with $5k by phone. Or you can help a giant corporation, retirement fund or the Singapore government invest a billion dollars. One is retail sales, and one is a big partner. Totally different buy-sell relationships.
At the right level, sales is pretty dang interesting. Also at the right level, you make a helluva lot more money.
I have lower-case “c” customers and I like them just fine. I enjoy working with people. Always have. And customers enjoy working with me. I am an outgoing, optimistic and happy person. I don’t drag a suitcase full o’ woe into my transactions and I genuinely want to help. I’m pretty good at turning the evil customer into a happy customer.
I’d rather scrub toilets than work retail again…but I did enjoy it at times. When I worked at McDonald’s, I had a lot of regular customers who loved me (in fact, one hired me away from there). When I went in to the hospital to have my son, two or three customers who hadn’t even known my name asked for it at the restaurant and then called the hospital to congratulate me.
When I worked at a drugstore, I always asked people who were buying cat or dog food what their pet’s name was, and that often sparked a very pleasant interaction. If there wasn’t a line behind them, people would sometimes stay and tell me about their animals for a while!
I worked there, too (back in prehistoric times when the earth was still cooling). I really liked the customer interaction.
Tell you what…I rocked the back drive-thru. 
I work retail, in a small bookstore where there’s no pressure to sell. I’ve had a few horrible customers, but I like my job very much. I like talking about books with people, I like being helpful, and the small company I work for is really nice. I’ve got a fair number of customers that I really like.
So, I like doing my job, including the customer part. It’s about half doing cash and half unpacking/invoice annotation/shelving, so there’s a nice balance.
Same here, although I’ve witnessed a fair number of ghastly encounters. Thankfully I’ve never been involved in such.
I think a lot of it depends on attitude. If you go in there with a “customers suck” attitude, it’s going to show. The customer will pick up on it, so anything the customer says/does is more liable to make you into The Cashier/Salesperson Most Liable To Mass Execute.
However, if you go in there with a noncommital attitude – meaning “I’m going to help these people as much as I can and smile” – you’ll find that you’ll have very few ghastly encounters. The ones you have will reflect more on the customer than on you.
I have worked plenty of customer service in my day and I can tell you the reason you hear stories about the horrid people reps have to deal with is because it is rare. If my job was dealing with nothing but bitching I wouldn’t go back in every day, but every couple of days I get to deal with someone who feels the best way to deal with the fact that they did not call to see if it would be more expensive to insure a jaguar than a tempo before they upgraded cars is by screaming. That is the one that makes for a story when I leave, not the 60 sweet people who called because they wanted to make a payment or let us know they sold their car.
I worked in food service, car rental, and hotel desk clerk jobs all through high school, university, and into law school. I liked it at the time; I liked working with customers, being able to provide them with a service and hopefully an enjoyable or at least efficient experience. And I was really good at it, and I think it reinforces self-esteem to work a job you’re good at.
But I always knew these were “money-maker” jobs, not career jobs. As far as the big picture was concerned, I was always mentally on the road to someplace else. If I thought they were jobs I was doing for the rest of my life, I’d probably have thought they sucked.
I sincerely don’t mind it. I’m a freak because I like stress, so when a customer comes in fuming and they want blood, I happily take these encounters because it doesn’t bother me.
The thing is, my ghastly encounters account to probably less than 2% of the rest… but they are the ones that stick in your head and burn you.
I had a guy once when I was doing phone customer service and I messed up on an order get three other people on different phone lines, including his boss, and all yell at me. That was the only time I ever actually went into the bathroom and cried.
Now it’s been…more than 5 years since I’ve even been in that job. Probably around 6 since that call. But while it’s dimmed, I haven’t forgotten that guy nor the call. I have forgotten a lot of the “good” stuff (though how I loved dealing with Vermonters, no sarcasm, they were the nicest people!) but I won’t forget that one easy.