# 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:** 6
### Author:  [@Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disgruntled_Penguin)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2014, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/101 "2014-06-04T06:46:51Z")
> [@scabpicker](#):
>
> 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.
Reminds me of the time I was handling an escalation and the customer had gone off the rails. She had started with a point ( and her issue resolved I might add ) but had long abandoned it for a healthy rant. While she’s venting she says “You people are idiots. I’ve been with you for 8 years and every day, you’ve screwed this up.”
So I said “let’s clarify. You’ve been with us for 8 years?”
Right.
“And we have screwed up your account handling every day for those 8 years?”
Right.
“And you’re still with us.”
Uh yeah.
“And we’re the idiots.”
Silence.
No ones rates needed to be changed and no, we didn’t lose the customer. 😃
---
### Author:  [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2014, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/102 "2014-06-04T16:43:23Z")
I’m a manager. I care about my people. Abuse my people and I will tell you to take your business elsewhere.
You can yell at me if you wish, but I won’t allow you to abuse my minions.
Just yesterday my boss got a complaint about me as being rude because I stood up for my peeps.
My boss’s reaction? I would have done the same thing.
I work for a great company.
---
### Author:  [@Neo-Calredic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neo-Calredic)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2014, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/103 "2014-06-04T17:21:49Z")
> [@oft\_wears\_hats](#):
>
> I agree with **F.Pu-du** , this is not appropriate behavior. Your job does not make you better than other people, just like their job doesn’t make them any worse than you (in most cases, and certainly as pertains to customer service reps). Even if you’re somehow empirically “better” than someone else, that still doesn’t give you the right to put them down.
Agreed. If you were empirically better than someone else, you wouldn’t **want** to put them down. How well a person treats those whom society deems it acceptable to act shitty towards says volumes about that person’s true character.
---
### Author:  [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2014, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/104 "2014-06-04T18:12:08Z")
> [@Disgruntled\_Penguin](#):
>
> Reminds me of the time I was handling an escalation and the customer had gone off the rails. She had started with a point ( and her issue resolved I might add ) but had long abandoned it for a healthy rant. While she’s venting she says “You people are idiots. I’ve been with you for 8 years and every day, you’ve screwed this up.”
>
> So I said “let’s clarify. You’ve been with us for 8 years?”
>
> Right.
>
> “And we have screwed up your account handling every day for those 8 years?”
>
> Right.
>
> “And you’re still with us.”
>
> Uh yeah.
>
> “And we’re the idiots.”
>
> Silence.
>
> No ones rates needed to be changed and no, we didn’t lose the customer. 😃
I am so going to use this.
---
### Author:  [@SmellMyWort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmellMyWort)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2014, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/105 "2014-06-04T18:36:31Z")
Proof that assholes just like to find excuses to be assholes.
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [June 4, 2014, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/106 "2014-06-04T18:52:33Z")
The OP is a **cowardly** asshole as well, since he’s not been back to defend himself.
---
### Author:  [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)
#### Post date: [June 5, 2014, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/107 "2014-06-05T22:50:35Z")
As a guy who sits in a chair all day essentially taking complaints about the massive, dickish corporation that signs my checks, I honestly don’t disapprove. If all my callers were happy, kind people, I’d like my job a bunch more. And maybe I’d want to keep working there.
But I don’t. And that’s partly because of the assholes I deal with daily. And my company’s policies are making more people angry and more assholes, so now I know to get out of Dodge. And when I leave, well, I’m taking a lot of talent with me that a better company could have retained.
It’s stupid and unpleasant on every level, but this kind of behavior…well, it probably is necessary on a certain level.
That said, don’t make it personal, don’t waste too much time on it, and don’t assume I’m just repeating a party line if I try to tell you something is better than you think.
---
### Author:  [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2014, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/108 "2014-06-12T12:17:04Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#):
>
> Deliberately treating people poorly is unacceptable.
>
> And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Matthew 25:40
>
> Perpetuating misery is not a conception of Christianity that I can understand.
Certainly doesn’t match anything I’m familiar with.
I find myself wondering whether OP or the “pastor” have bothered to even OPEN a Bible lately, much less read the content thereof. There certainly isn’t any comprehension of Christ’s teaching going on here.
---
### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2014, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/109 "2014-06-12T12:51:28Z")
> [@Kelevra](#):
>
> Who Would Jesus Cockpunch is a bumper sticker I would buy!
I would wreck my car laughing if I saw that! Nearly wrecked my pants just reading that post.
---
### Author:  [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)
#### Post date: [June 12, 2014, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/110 "2014-06-12T13:59:45Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#):
>
> If you don’t like the $39.95 late fee, don’t sign up for their card. It’s disclosed in black and white in the cardholder’s agreement.
Amen. Better yet, pay your bill on time. Still better yet, don’t run up debts that you can’t afford to pay on time and then bitch out a hapless CSR because his/her employer won’t give you free stuff. What a total shit-for-brains.
---
### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2014, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/111 "2014-06-13T08:38:09Z")
> [@74westy](#):
>
> A true Christian would know that the [very next verse](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+25%3A41&version=NIV) is possibly the greatest endorsement of perpetuating misery in any sacred text.
Only if they are the type who like to take single verses out of context. There’s no previous misery that’s being perpetuated, and there’s no endorsement of the behavior for the general public. God himself is the only one authorized to judge, a consistent theme throughout the Bible, especially the New Testament.
Still, a better troll than the OP. I can’t even get up enough to respond to that nonsense. I disagree that the performance art is all that good if no one gets upset by it.
The only value is that it was totally not what I expected seeing a pit thread entitled “Treating retail employees like dirt as a proxy for the corporation.”
---
### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2014, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/112 "2014-06-13T12:38:06Z")
> [@Rick](#):
>
> I won’t allow you to abuse my minions.
I think I need a new keyboard. 😃
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### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2014, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/113 "2014-06-13T12:50:46Z")
> [@Rick](#):
>
> I won’t allow you to abuse my minions.
Would you allow a podiatrist to amuse your bunions?
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2014, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/114 "2014-06-13T13:02:37Z")
> [@Kelevra](#):
>
> Who Would Jesus Cockpunch is a bumper sticker I would buy!
There’s a priceless scene in the movie _Freejack_, where a future-nun played by Amanda Plummer delivers almost exactly that line - the bad guy bitch-slaps her hard and she says, “The good Lord says to turn the other cheek, but then…” (kicks the guy’s balls up through the roof of his mouth) “…he never had to deal with dickwads like you.”
> [@Omar\_Little](#):
>
> If you don’t like the $39.95 late fee, don’t sign up for their card. It’s disclosed in black and white in the cardholder’s agreement.
I’d agree if it weren’t that far too many card companies rigged the game to make payments late despite the best efforts of the cardholders - delaying payment processing, moving payment dates around, generally gaming the process to collect fees they were only technically entitled to by the rules they wrote. The cleanup of a few years back helped but there are still predatory companies out there pushing the new rules to the limits. “Don’t let the bully beat you up” is sanctimonious bullshit.
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### Author:  [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2014, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/115 "2014-06-13T15:28:01Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#):
>
> There’s a priceless scene in the movie _Freejack_
All those words _appear_ to be English…
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### Author:  [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2014, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/116 "2014-06-13T15:40:48Z")
> [@andros](#):
>
> All those words _appear_ to be English…
Well, it is \*one \*scene. Even turds occasionally contain diamonds.
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### Author:  [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2014, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/117 "2014-06-13T15:48:30Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#):
>
> Very well then, the OP is either a troll or a deacon at the First Church of Assholes.
I vote for troll.
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### Author:  [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2014, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/118 "2014-06-13T18:25:31Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#):
>
> Well, it is \*one \*scene. Even turds occasionally contain diamonds.
Yeah, you’re right. The only diamond in that turd was Amanda Plummer.
---
### Author:  [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)
#### Post date: [June 13, 2014, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/119 "2014-06-13T18:54:27Z")
> [@andros](#):
>
> Yeah, you’re right. The only diamond in that turd was Amanda Plummer.
Hey! A buddy of mine was the track announcer in the opening scene. He did a great job. 🙂
---
### Author:  [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2014, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/treating-retail-employees-like-dirt-as-a-proxy-for-the-corporation/689845/120 "2014-06-18T02:03:38Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#):
>
> Pastor does not exist. OP is yanking our collective chain.
+1. This is the stupidest shit I’ve read in a long, long time.
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