I was once standing first in line when another person tried that on me. I said “I am here first,” which led to a torrent of foul language. The sales clerk rang me up, and I refused to pay until “The bitch behind me shuts her mouth.” Finally, everyone behind me was screaming “Shut up,” and the manager came out and took her away.
I am willing to take a fair amount of abuse from customers because I realize that they may be having a crappy day or that their wife won’t give them a bj whenever hubby wants one, or the boss is a drunk who keeps hitting on them…whatever.
Hey, some of my fellow employees aren’t a barrel of laughs to be around either, but I deal and I do not take it out on other retail personnel.
I just don’t.
Some customers cross the line and she did. If it hadn’t been the Saturday before Christmas, if instead it had been the middle of March, I probably wouldn’t have been quite as much of a smart-ass as I was.
However, the incident with The line is too long woman occured less then 3 weeks after another incident involving another less then charming customer, so my both my patience level and my sarcasm fuse were fairly short.
In the other incident, an older, (read 55-70) year old man came up to the front registers and wanted to return something and get his money back.
Fine.
Except B&N had instituted a new returns policy to keep the company from being ripped off quite so much.
Basically the new policy said that you couldn’t get cash back unless you had a store reciept.
The new policy had been in effect for about 6 months and the cashiers had been instructed to inform the customers of said policy.
ANYway…this guy didn’t have a receipt but was demanding that he get cash back anyway, instead of store credit. I very calmly kept repeating that we couldn’t do that, that we could only give him store credit.
It got to the point where he started shouting when I started talking, simply so that he could drown me out. I half expected him to stick his fingers in his ears and start jumping up and down saying in a sing-song voice, “I can’t hear you, I’m not listening, etc…”
Then he started in with the profanity, specifically directed towards me, at which point Robert, the manager on duty arrived and when he asked how he could help the customer, the man screamed/shouted: You can start by firing this RETARDED FUCKING ASSHOLE!!! while pointing at me.
There was more pleasent obsceneities directed towards me, my family, you get the picture.
Keep in mind that all the while there are at least 15-20 customers around us, as well as other store employees.
The guy finally left and Robert turned to me and seeing how upset I was, said, “You have to let stuff like that roll off your back.”
???!!!?!?!
Anyway, as to what I said over the intercom: (said in a calm, very pleasant tone of voice) *"Attention Barnes & Noble customers. Apparently the woman standing in front of me at the front registers believes that she is too important to have to wait in line like the rest of you have been so patiently doing. She seems to think she is *better *then the rest of us. If *better means having no class and ven fewer manners, then I suppose she is correct. But that sort of behavior isn’t what the holiday season is all about, is it?" At this point the store was very quiet and some customers, in response to my semi-rhetorical question, shouted out “No!!” and variations there-of. One woman’s voice rang out as she very distinctively said, "Stop being such an ass, and go to the end of the line, but first apologize to everyone that you cut in front of."
I put the phone back on the hook, but there was still silence in the store as everyone kind of held their breath. EVERYONE up at cash wrap was staring at the woman.
She tried to walk away, leaving the books she had brought with here piled around my cash register, but a woman said, "*Hey, pick up those books and if you aren’t going to buy them then at the *VERY least, take them over to the information counter."
Which is what the woman did, after which she slunk out of the store, with all eyes still on her.
Now, do I think what I did was too cruel?
No.
Did I cross the line with the customer?
Perhaps, but she crossed way over it with the people tha tshe cut in front of.
Would I do it again?
Under the same circumstances–yes, though I might use different, but no more abusive/cutting words.
/Peter Cook (The Impressive Clergyman from The Princess Bride/
Mawwiage??
/Peter Cook/
Ummm, for right now I kinda think just the shrine will have to do, but give me some time to think…
All it takes is one person to stand up to the idiots.
My girlfriend works in a tax-free shop at Schiphol Airport (Amsterdam). She’s worked in a restaurant and in a coffeeshop (not your typical ‘Dutch Coffeeshop’ I’d like to point out!) before that, so she’s quite used to dealing with people.
I am therefore realiably informed that Americans rank amongst the most unpleasant customers to deal with, ranking just below the Chinese and Israeli’s. (The Japanese are the nicest, though mostly their vocabulary is restricted to the words ‘yes’ and ‘please’. Pretty hard to pick a fight with someone who only knows those two words and is genetically programmed to bow and smile.)
Ofcourse, I would not be repeating anything that could even vaguely be construed as slander, but for the fact that I am amazed at this, because most Americans I’ve ever met (alas, toof few) are quite nice. So… how come?
Apparently, expected standards of service are very high in the USA. Dutch staff often hears the quite annoying advice to ‘smile, you’re paid for it’ from American visitors.
(Excuses my English, by the way. No spellchecker handy, you see.)
Excuse your English for what Warnas? I’m not seeing anything in your post that doesn’t look like the typos we all make from time to time, and frankly your grammar is better than that of many native speakers.
No, the standards of service are not terribly high here in the US. It’s just that we have an awful lot of folks who pride themselves on being difficult, and an even larger contingent who just can’t resist telling others how to do their jobs or live their lives. In other words, we’re a nation of busybodies, and your girlfriend should feel free to mutter any vulgar or insulting things she wants after one of us leaves. That’s what service workers here do.
yesterday while working at my reddi-mart job, an old lady ordered me to “hurry the hell up, I’m going to miss my show” when I was ringing up 58 dollars worht of junk food and ice cream. Its not my fault that It takes a whole 30 seconds to make a cone of maple soft ice cream. of course, the fact that it took me a minute and half to do it because the first 1 was crooked(even though it was in a cup) and then she desided to upgrade from a small to a 8 oz cup, and the I had to give you sprinkles, and then bag up the 14 chocolate bars and the 20 bags of chips… please lady, I’m helping you to support your gluttony, don’t rush me. I’m very proud to say that I didn’t tell her off as I wanted to(boss was there) and instead gave ehr a look and over charged her 5 bucks. I understand where you’re coming from, WSLer, and If I was in your situation, I would SO do the same thing.
Because in the U.S. most customers are convinced that we, the wage-slave masses, like nothing more than serving their every whim and get very testy if we do things like not bow and smile like it’s a birthday present to deal with picky idiots.
Hi Crazycatlady, perhaps some examples are in order to illustrate some differences between levels of service in the USA and, at least, The Netherlands (and the rest of Europe is worse, as far as I know):
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An American gentleman asked for a new cup of coffee because he sneezed in his (half-emptied) cup. He did not get one, mostly because of his tone but also because this is simply considered your own bad luck.
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Refunds are only given if you can produce a receipt. On that receipt, it says how many days you have to return the item (from 3 to 7 days is considered normal, slightly longer for items such as building materials that you tend to buy well in advance). Most items will only be accepted in the original packaging. Lost the box? No refund. (This can be quite annoying when something comes in a blister-pack.) Store-credit is the norm, thought you may insist on a cash refund.
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Refunds are usually only given in the store where you bought the item, not in a different branch.
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The ‘refills are free’ concept is virtually unknown here. A second cup of coffee is the most you’re going to get, but you’ll have to get up and pour it for yourself. (As a side notr: I never understood stand-up jokes about ‘supersizing’ until McDonalds introduced the concept in The Netherlands about 2 years ago. It took quite a bit of explaining for the general public to get the idea! “Why the heck would I want a LARGE burger for extra money when I just ordered a MEDIUM burger? Didn’t you hear me?”)
I mention this because I would understand it if it were ‘cultural differences’ like this that would cause arguments. Apparently, Schiphol-staff just isn’t ‘humble’ enough for a lot of American travellers. They’ve obviously never ordered coffee in Paris…
Thanks for the compliment, by the way.
As I’m re-reading this post before pressing submit, I get the idea I’m getting completely off-topic. But as I’ve spent over 15 minutes writing it, I’m going to post it anyway
I think the United States needs to start some kind of National Service requirement. I think everyone should have to spend a year in a crummy, minimum wage retail job, including a good chunk during Christmas, which is the most worsterful time of the year. And then they should have to spend a year working at a house-cleaning service, so they can learn how nasty it is to deal with other people’s inability to clean up after themselves.
I managed a video store for two years, and I got just about every contempibly rude customer you can imagine coming in my store. People who freaked out about having to pay late fees- these were my favorite. They always seemed to think that as manager, I should just ignore the fact that they decided to keep a video out for an extra week. As though the rules did not apply to them. As though somehow they were born free of the social rules to which all other humans are bound. You just would not believe how incredibly rude people could be. I’ve had video cards thrown at me, videos thrown at me, personal threats, threats of being sued, etc. I even had one guy tell me to watch myself when I left work that night. Over a $2.80 late fee!!!
Through it all, I had to remain calm. I had to keep smiling no matter how much shit these people poured out on me. Because you just don’t provoke the insane.
But I never let a customer get away with anything by being rude. I was the manager for a small, local non-chain store. I could do whatever I wanted. If someone was just exceptionally nice and friendly, and was a good customer, I would bend over backwards for them. But if you behaved like a barbarous pig to me or my employees, you were not getting any special service from us. And if you got loud or abusive, or harassed the other customers, I would ask you to leave the store and not come back. I would then, you if you did not comply, call the police. Which I had to do on more than one occasion. As manager, I was being paid to deal with the scum of the earth, but my employees were not, and I was not about to let anyone abuse them. If an employee was genuinely in the wrong, I would of course apologize, fix their mistake, and then privately tell the employee what they did wrong. If a customer was being abusive and crazy, I’d ask them to leave and not come back, and the owners of the store supported me on this. People who continualy make trouble in the store, refuse to comply with store rules, and are just generally big ugly assholes were nt welcome- their business just wasn’t worth the trouble.
Warnas, I hear what you’re saying about Americans. I think we in the States do expect a pretty high level of customer service, and we expect to be coddled and allowed special treatment. Which quite frankly bothers the hell out of me. Nobody gets special treatment unless you really, really deserve it- like, as the OP said, your water has just broken, or you’ve just been shot. But I was raised to always be polite to service personnel- if there’s a problem, explain calmly and in a friendly way, and work with the staff to fix the trouble. But in a store, I was taught to never, EVER make a big fuss or be rude to people. It’s just hideous behavior, it embarasses and angers everyone in the store, and makes you look like a fool. People are much happier and more willing to help you if you treat them like you’d want to be treated in that situation. I also don’t understand people freaking about about no free refills- if a business provides it, that’s great. If they don’t, they don’t. Why should they give you anything for free? They’re a business after all. We all have to pay for coffee.
Okay, maybe I wasn’t terribly clear before. The level of service Americans expect is usally pretty damn high, but the level of service you often actually get can be pretty damn low. Read the belt-shopping thread here in the Pit if you’d like an example.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you are polite and courteous to me, I will bend over backwards to help you out. Ladies with babies? I tell em to go sit down while I get what they want. People who don’t know what they want? I’ll talk til they turn blue. Your order’s been screwed up? I’ll do what little I can to remedy it.
If you’re nice.
When I start getting attitude, I deliver the minimum standard we require.
Now, I also agree that some pretty bad employees work retail. Heck, in my store, we have some really just plain awful people. We have a guy who’ll start yelling at you if you make him do any kind of work. And you have every right to complain. The thread in the Pit? The guy has every right to complain.
However, if you’re going to start complaining about lack of service, please compliment when you get good service. We do appreciate it!
That’s probably an accurate assessment. I remember reading about a survey where it was determined that, in Great Britain, the average number of people that needed to be present at a counter before they would form a line was 2, while in the U.S., I can’t remember exactly, but it was something like 6 or 8.
The funny thing is, though, that standards of service here are actually pretty low. I’ll give you an example: I recently called the service department at the dealer where I bought my car. I was put on hold for several minutes, then disconnected (dial tone). I called back twice, and to my amazement, had the same thing happen 2 more times. I called back a third time, and immediately asked to speak to the manager. I was told the manager was not there. When I asked “who is in charge right now?”, I was told “nobody”. I do not consider this to be good service. As a result, I was practically forced to become very forceful in my tone, and to demand to be put on the phone with a live person in the service department, which was then done without delay. And I’d be willing to wager that most Americans reading this have had many experiences similar to mine at one time or another.
I’m not excusing rude behavior, but I wonder if some people just become so weary of being treated poorly their whole lives, that they just turn into rude people? [And then, some people like the one in the OP’s story are just natural-born a-holes].
Okay, again maybe I’m not making myself real clear here. By and large, customer service here is outstandingly…average. Somewhere between unprovoked hostility and someone bending over backwards for you. Nothing to write home about one way or the other. Warnas made a comment about the level of service here in the States, and I was just trying to point out that the actual level of service received is often not significantly higher. We just have a whole lot of folks who like to bitch (loudly) and who think they deserve special treatment. I think that dealing with people like that on a regular basis may give someone a somewhat skewed perception of our customer service.
And the people behind her were also customers.
What about them?
If I owned my own business, I would have what I called, “Good Customer Rewards”.
These would not be for repeat business, or people who spent a lot of money. They would be for people who are a pleasure to wait on, who are pleasant, friendly and patient.
I never minded going the extra mile for nice people. I remember taking one guy all over the store to help him find something that was on sale during the Christmas rush. He was a REALLY nice guy, and very friendly and understanding. And it was nice to get away from the register. I didn’t mind that at all.
But if someone’s nasty, I’ll do the minimum required and get them out as fast as I can.
The other day, I called Borders, because I had just bought a new SW paperback, but all the pages were falling out, just from opening the damn thing! Now, normally I keep my receipts, but I wrote a note for my mother on this one, and she threw it away. I called Borders and asked their return policy (30 days, have receipt.) I was prepared to forget it, but the guy asked me the problem, and I explained. He said I could bring the book in and exchange it-which is exactly what I want to do. BUT, if they couldn’t do it-or if they can’t, I won’t throw a fit. I’ll simply smile and thank them. It’s my own misfortune, and it’s not the end of the world.
Read www.thecomplaintstation.com or planetfeedback.com sometime. Threads like, “WALMART RUINED CHRISTMAS FOR MY KIDS!” (gee, you buy all your stuff the day before Christmas Eve, and they can’t take a 300 dollar check at 10 pm without ID-how is that THEIR fault?) Or whatever. It’s insane!
Hopefully, the next one won’t fall apart.
Oooooooo, can we hear/read the full story behind this?
A new Ralph Wiggumism!!!
Yay, sleep, that’s where I’m a Viking!