# Treating retail employees like dirt as a proxy for the corporation
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [June 2, 2014, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845 "2014-06-02T16:41:19Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@F.Pu-du-he-pa-as](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.Pu-du-he-pa-as)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/61 "2014-06-03T00:18:02Z")
Thanks for sharing your story, **Calatin** – it’s good to know that good deeds like this actually do produce concrete results. I’ll remember this the next time I’m considering doing something like this!
---
### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/62 "2014-06-03T00:18:36Z")
> [@F.Pu-du-he-pa-as](#):
>
> I think what you’re proposing is absolutely inexcusable. These low-level employees you’re dealing with probably have no real power, and I doubt that the powers that be within the corporation care about their suffering, even if they came to know about it. In the end, you’re just treating another human being like dirt, and that’s not OK.
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Those people are already treated like dirt, by the same companies you’re despising. If the company treating them like dirt isn’t leading to an improvement of the company’s practices, then yours certainly won’t. All you’re doing is making a few innocent victims even more miserable.
I don’t necessarily disagree. However, at what point are scumbag companies out to screw us of every dollar they can get using these pawns as human shields? At what point do we let Bank of America, Comcast, AT&T, Target, Wal\*Mart etc. get their way because we don’t want to be mean to their front-line troops?
---
### Author:  [@Calatin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calatin)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/63 "2014-06-03T00:29:30Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#):
>
> I don’t necessarily disagree. However, at what point are scumbag companies out to screw us of every dollar they can get using these pawns as human shields? At what point do we let Bank of America, Comcast, AT&T, Target, Wal\*Mart etc. get their way because we don’t want to be mean to their front-line troops?
I just don’t see how being an asshole to some checkout clerk at Wal-Mart is going to lead to some sort of revolution of their corporate culture.
Ok, so, I’m rude to “Bobby Bagboy”, and enough people follow suit to the point where he quits. “Sam Stocker” is going to be right there to fill the gap. Meanwhile, you’ve contributed to Bobby having a bad day / week / month / etc., and odds are, he’s paying it forward by treating others with contempt.
If you want to be an ass, that’s fine, I can’t stop you. But, don’t use the idea that you are doing it so as to improve / change the company as justification.
(For the record, **AB** , I’m not saying this about you in particular; I’m just saying that there seem to be several gaps in the logical progression of OP’s action to his desired result.)
---
### Author:  [@Mr.Accident](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Accident)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/64 "2014-06-03T01:02:14Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#):
>
> At what point do we let Bank of America, Comcast, AT&T, Target, Wal\*Mart etc. get their way because we don’t want to be mean to their front-line troops?
(Note: all references to you in this post are in reference to the public at large, not the specific poster I’m quoting.) It’s been said before in this thread, but I’ll say it again. It doesn’t matter how mean, rude, disrespectful you are to us lowly wage slaves. Once we’re through with you, we’re going to bad mouth you to one another, make fun of you, and move on to the next jerk. Unless you’re really outrageous, or you find someone who’s new to the job, we’re not even going to remember you an hour down the road.
What we won’t do is tell our bosses about it. As long as the law doesn’t get involved, they don’t care. Their bosses bosses don’t care. There’s always a single mom, a single dad, teenagers, and college kids chomping at the bit to get a job to make ends meat, even if it’s just minimum wage.
You want change? Use the surveys. Email the customer complaint department. Post honest reviews on Facebook, Twitter, and review websites. Be concise, be polite, be to the point, and most importantly, be honest. Don’t post a 5 word sentence and leave it at that. Do a well written report. Most importantly, stop spending your money at places where you don’t agree with their business practices, then urge others to do the same, and let the companies know why they’re losing that revenue.
If you complain and spend your money with those companies anyway, they’re going to see it as a win, since they got your money. They way they see it, if you complain and they still get the money, then your complaints don’t hold much weight.
Back when I was in support for one of the larger mobile credit card merchant services, we had a 93% success rate when it came to tech support, but only a 53% customer satisfaction score.
We had customers leaving constantly, all because they felt that we didn’t care what their issue was, even if we solved it. The complaints had been going on for months, because we were still getting the money.
When the money started drying up, the surveys started getting paid more attention to, and it almost always boiled down to the same thing. We didn’t care.
Changes were made. Our Risk department wasn’t allowed to be assholes to customers anymore. Us lowly tier one agents had to start asking the customer how they were doing, using the word we instead of you (IE What we’re going to have to do to fix this is, instead of what I’m going to have to do or what you’re going to have to do) showing empathy, and so on. Call times got longer, wait times got longer, success rates went down slightly, but satisfaction scores rocketed to the low 80% range.
---
### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/65 "2014-06-03T01:29:10Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#):
>
> A social activist, one who sees something in Jesus’s [treatment of the money changers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleansing_of_the_Temple). None of us are actually planning to vandalize a bank in the criminal sense, but there’s a sense that if enough bank clerks go home crying every day, we will see an end to profiteering $39.95 credit card late fees and such.
Congratulations. You have succeeding in getting the entire Straight Dope Pitizen community to agree that you and a Man of God (not sure which God…I’m going to go with Ba’al for now…) are scumbags. Even the \*rapist \*couldn’t do that. Well done. 10 Internet Points for Team Douchebag.
> [@Calatin](#):
>
> I actually instituted a personal policy that was inspired by my grandmother, years ago. If I ever make a complaint or contact management with a complaint about service or a product, I make a point to give three compliments to other businesses when I have an unusually good experience. (I try to always make note of good service anyway, but this helps reinforce that behavior)
>
> People are always so quick to complain, yet hesitant to compliment.
Took me several hours of searching and 3 wrong email addresses before I could figure out how to deliver a COMPLIMENT about Enterprise rental car’s service. I finally just used the online complaint form. Within 24 hours, my email had been forwarded to every single store in the Region. Or State. Or something. The guy I wrote it about admitted so the next day when I went to return my car, grinning like an idiot. “They’re totally going to make fun of you at the Christmas party,” I told him. “You know that, right?” “Worth it,” he said. 😃
---
### Author:  [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/66 "2014-06-03T01:44:18Z")
Yes, the best way to teach a company a lesson is to keep handing them your hard earned cash while being rude to a bunch of entry level employees that nobody in management gives a fuck about.
---
### Author:  [@The\_Man\_In\_Black](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Man_In_Black)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/67 "2014-06-03T01:52:37Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#):
>
> I have, at times, been known to treat retail and customer service employees of scummy “Corporate America” type companies rather rudely, treating the person as the physical embodiment of the company’s attitude toward the public.
>
> We are talking about speaking rudely, perhaps crudely, not about threatening acts of violence or actually committing them.
>
> I talked with the pastor of my church about this, and he actually said that he approved of what I was doing, because if more people do this (treat customer service like dirt), then the companies will come to terms with their antisocial tendencies and _change_. One person telling off a CSR isn’t likely to do anything, but if we get a movement started, eventually it will get to the point where CSR’s are telling their managers that, “What did I accomplish last week? I got yelled at by a lot of people and didn’t sell anything”. At that point, the company has to change if it wants to survive.
>
> What do you think of the idea, either as a way to effectuate real social change, or as an exhaust vent for anger against Corporate America? At some level, telling a CSR that I wish that the CSR’s mother was there with us right now because I’m sure she’d cry when she found out what her child was doing for a living seems a bit rude, but then I know that people are what make corporations into _what they are_, and by choosing to work for a company, a person states, at least in a limited way, that they approve of what the company is doing enough to be willing to assist it. At that point, one _becomes_ part of the problem and is fair game.
I’d say that you are a fucking asshole for doing that.
---
### Author:  [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/68 "2014-06-03T02:15:30Z")
What is it that you Group W types don’t get? The OP presents pretty straight forward, rational, and coherent case for effecting change. He didn’t say he _alone_ was effecting this change. No. Rather:
> [@](#):
>
> \*f more people do this (treat customer service like dirt), then the companies will come to terms with their antisocial tendencies and change. One person telling off a CSR isn’t likely to do anything, but if we get a movement started…
Well, if you weren’t such a bunch of mother stabbers and father rapers, you’d a-see his point. That it’s not just him–if it were just him, people would think he’s really sick and they won’t serve him. And if two people–just two people do it (in harmony), well, then they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t serve either of them. And three people do it, three–can you imagine–three people walking in and being a complete dick and hanging up. They may think it’s an organization. And can you, can you imagine _fifty people a day,_ calling in and being a total asshole? Then they’d call it the Robert\_Columbia Anti-Service Movement.
Remember, you can get anything you want if you’re a big pissant!
---
### Author:  [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/69 "2014-06-03T02:20:58Z")
**robert\_columbia** , as far as I’m concerned, you can shove a hot curling iron up your ass. The same goes for your pastor.
I don’t know what denomination you belong to, but it’s an evil one, that’s for sure, and I’m grateful that the nuns taught me the complete opposite when I was in school. If you’re really a Christian, as you say, remember Jesus also spoke that whatever you did to the least of those, you did to him? So when you treat the peons like shit, that’s basically treating Jesus like shit, according to the teachings you follow.
---
### Author:  [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/70 "2014-06-03T02:27:41Z")
I think it would be somewhat ironic if all the (justified!) abuse hurled **robert\_columbia** ’s way in this thread convinced him to change his ways.
---
### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/71 "2014-06-03T02:30:07Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#):
>
> **robert\_columbia** , as far as I’m concerned, you can shove a hot curling iron up your ass. The same goes for your pastor.
>
> I don’t know what denomination you belong to, but it’s an evil one, that’s for sure, and I’m grateful that the nuns taught me the complete opposite when I was in school. If you’re really a Christian, as you say, remember Jesus also spoke that whatever you did to the least of those, you did to him? So when you treat the peons like shit, that’s basically treating Jesus like shit, according to the teachings you follow.
If you think about it, Jesus is like a CS rep. God(the CEO) wants Jesus to go advertise for the company, explain away all the failings and then get tortured and crucified by the angry customers.
---
### Author:  [@flatlined](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flatlined)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/72 "2014-06-03T03:05:27Z")
> [@Calatin](#):
>
> I actually instituted a personal policy that was inspired by my grandmother, years ago. If I ever make a complaint or contact management with a complaint about service or a product, I make a point to give three compliments to other businesses when I have an unusually good experience. (I try to always make note of good service anyway, but this helps reinforce that behavior)
>
> **People are always so quick to complain, yet hesitant to compliment.**
This.
I’m very willing to complain, but I’m also very willing to compliment. If (generic) you gives me exceptional service, I will make a point to get your name and then contact your boss and corp. about it.
I realized what a difference it made way back when I was about 25 and working at a library. A patron was telling me how helpful another person had been and I told her that she was talking to the wrong person, that she should be talking to the head librarian. She agreed that I was right, asked for some paper, sat down and wrote a very nice letter and then delivered it to the head librarian.
The very next day, Norma made a point to thank me (there was chocolate involved) and told me that she had had a wonderful meeting with the head librarian and got many pats on the back. I don’t know if she got more money out of it, but I sure do know that it didn’t just make her day, it made her month.
To the OP, please don’t be mean to people. The world is already mean enough without people abusing powerless low level retail folks. If you don’t like the company’s policies, ask the clerk how you can contact someone who can make a difference. And has been mentioned many times, don’t spend your money there.
---
### Author:  [@DataX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DataX)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/73 "2014-06-03T03:43:48Z")
I actually agree with the OP - I plan on going down and being rude to the military when I see them in the mall - as I am sure this will get back to Obama and he will change his policies in that I disagree with.
Oh wait - no I don’t agree and I can’t believe I read this. I am heartened to see virtually no one agrees with him.
I can’t understand why you bother going to church. To make yourself feel better?
This is the saddest thing I’ve read all day.
The fact that you think it is a good idea to encourage anyone to do this is beyond sick.
On top of being totally futile as others have pointed out - that isn’t how retail works.
If enough people complain/write letters/stop doing business - a store or whatever will change their policies, but being mean to cashiers and what not DOES NOTHING.
The chain of command in retail is designed to protect those at the top from having to listen to minor complaints - sure - I might say something to my manager if someone had been as big of a dick as you are (cause it would be rare to be THAT big of an ass). You think that my manager is going to run off and tell HIS/HER manager that someone (or some people) were a giant dick? Of course not.
Hey if you got a problem with election fairness - why not be rude to a poll worker?
I’m sure that will get stuff change.
Have issues with safety of the nations blood supply?
Tell that Red Cross worker where she can shove her cookie.
Don’t like how education money is being spent?
Just wait for the bus of fourth grader to get of and yell at them from your car. Then they can tell their parents, who will tell the school, and so on.
---
### Author:  [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/74 "2014-06-03T04:20:41Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#):
>
> Assuming your pastor is a minister of a Christian church, he’s full of shit and is not giving even lip service to what the Carpenter taught. Christians are supposed to do unto others as they would have the others do unto them; they are supposed to act with lovingkindness.
>
> Discounting automobile sales and banking, I haven’t worked in retail in 14 years or so, and of course I’m not a Christian. But I remember what it was like, and I’m a human being, and it is not ethical to take your ire at a corporation out on its employees, particularly front-line cashiers, who aren’t getting paid much and have little power. Doing so is petty, childish, and venal.
Skald, I was counting on you to come up with some hypothetical in which the OP’s idea wouldn’t be totally asinine! Like, you know the company tithes to the Klan and only hires skinheads and elderly members of the SS hiding out from Israeli Nazi hunters.
C’mon man, you can do it!
---
### Author:  [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/75 "2014-06-03T04:29:32Z")
I would like permission to treat all clergy like dirt. I am hoping this will get clergy to stop treating people who don’t share their religion like dirt.
---
### Author:  [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/76 "2014-06-03T05:31:54Z")
Other than casting my vote for the OP and his pastor being asses, there’s nothing I can really add to this thread.
---
### Author:  [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/77 "2014-06-03T05:33:17Z")
> [@Raygun99](#):
>
> I think it would be somewhat ironic if all the (justified!) abuse hurled **robert\_columbia** ’s way in this thread convinced him to change his ways.
It would be surprising, too. He’s either:
1. Trolling us, or
2. Too chickenshit to return to the thread.
---
### Author:  [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/78 "2014-06-03T05:55:27Z")
As a piece of performance art, this OP is way up there and should get 1st place in “creative/innovative trolling.” It hits so many buttons so perfectly, and yet seems stunningly genuine. Insulting to just about everyone? Check. Insulting to Christians specifically? Check. Insulting to anyone who has worked retail in their lives? Check.
Definitely one of my favorite posts on The Dope so far.
That being said, I don’t think **robert\_columbia** will ever top himself, so feel free to just go out on a high note and never post here again. Thanks.
---
### Author:  [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/79 "2014-06-03T06:17:45Z")
What a load of bollocks.
😛
---
### Author:  [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)
#### Post date: [June 3, 2014, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/80 "2014-06-03T09:07:40Z")
I work for a company that used to be truly horrible to its employees and customers, now we’re just a company. Lots of customers were/are jerks in email and phone conversations as a result of the earlier situation, sometimes it was justified. The only time we remember them later is if they were a special combination of completely horribly wrong and completely horribly rude.
Why’d the company get better? Because sane customers left as soon as they could, so the old owner had to sell all of the company’s assets, and the staff moved along with them. The new owner luckily just happened to not be an idiot that’s going to be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes, and put money into building the company into one that could deliver on its contracts. The company certainly didn’t get better because of the doofus customers who stuck around and got abusive.
There’s one customer from back then who still sometimes responds to “Thank you for calling technical support” with “You fuckers have been screwing me around for years!”, even though it’s technically not even the same company. What’s the net result of his efforts? Well, his rate increases every time his contract is renewed, and he is told why. Sales has heard how he treats support, and they are trying to encourage him to leave.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845.md?page=3)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845.md?page=5)