That is such an american thing for some reason… My grandma was literally terrified when we once visited the US together and saw an adult man throw a tantrum for not being able to get barbecue sauce In McDonald’s
In Japan, they won’t say much to your face, but they will say you’re impolite, useless and should get fired in the internet reviews, if you didn’t treat them like royalty from beginning to end.
That’s honestly even more annoying.
I enjoy seeing google reviews where someone is making a huge fuss about their poor restaurant experience, and then the manager responds like “You did not raise any issues during your visit, including when asked by staff. If you had told us of any problem we would have done our best to make it right”
Like how much of a clown did that customer just show themselves to be. Couldn’t raise the problem in person, but quite happy to go kick off about it online where they feel anonymous.
Look, another deeply troubling toxic relationship with retail.
I will actively confront any asshole I see behaving this way in a retail or food service line. I did my time, and I know. All it takes for evil to succeed are for good people to stand by and do nothing.
I wonder what would happen if someone else threw a similar tantrum with the topic “people who throw tantrums (like that other guy) shouldn’t get what they want”.
I mean, I know what would happen, you’d get permanently trespassed and the other guy would get a comped meal, but you know, it’d be funny for five minutes.
I’ve been waiting for someone to go off on a service employee in front of me so I can kinda do that, although I plan on saying something similar to, “who the fuck do you think you are? That’s a human being, and they have no control over [issue].”
I can get away with it because I’m a large, imposing dude with a deep booming voice. As long as my wife isn’t with me, because she gets mad at me for getting involved.
I was waiting on a pickup order for food once and a lady walks in and started going off because it was 8:07, she didn’t have her food, and her order was supposed to be ready at 8:05. There’s like 10 people waiting, they are obviously overwhelmed and doing the best they can.
Me, being a bigger guy as well, chimed in with: “It’s obviously busy in here, they’re doing their best. I’ve been waiting patiently for about 10 minutes, and some people have been here longer than me.” Another guy chimed in “My order was due at 7:45, calm down lady!” She huffed and walked away from the counter glaring at us.
A few minutes later the worker came out and says “Order for Karen?” Lady grabs her bag and leaves… Other guy and I share a look and both started laughing.
I got a $10 gift card for my “inconvenience”.
Honestly, most people aren’t that bad. But the ones who are are tend to be REALLY bad and they’re the ones who are remembered.
Eh, it depends on the job. It’s not retail, but waiters are always taken aback when my wife and I are understanding about any delays or them being out of something. You can always see them bracing for the abuse when they tell us the issue.
We’ve both worked in retail and food service, so we get it.
When I worked retail, we would get shitty customers all the time, but one of my super powers was being able to diffuse the situation without having to get management involved.
You can always see them bracing for the abuse when they tell us the issue.
What morons don’t even operate on the “you don’t fuck with people handling your food” basic rule, let alone just have basic common decency.
tell me you haven’t worked in food service without saying it.
Americans really fucking suck.
There are so many of them.
Also, anyone applying for a driving licence should have to have spent a given number of hours cycling on public roads.
Love it. Anyone designing public transit in any capacity has to use it to the exclusion of all else for half a year, and they must travel the longest distance within the system at least twice a week.
I used to have a line in my dating app profile about not contacting me if you’re rude to service workers. You can guess what jobs I’ve worked in the past.
Escort?
Not me, officer.
Anyone who’s truly worked retail knows it ain’t the customers that are the worst, but the middle managers and certain coworkers.
So… the comparison to the military still holds.
I remember the lady who started talking to me (while i was working) and wouldn’t shut up. It was my first day at work.
“north americans”
Does the author really have knowledge of Mexican retail? I’m doubtful about their Canada knowledge, too, but that’s at least somewhat believable.
North America is just the Continental United States, now.
Canada and Mexico have gone into witness protection to avoid getting wrapped up in our bullshit.
Yeah… I don’t think this would work. I worked customer service for 5 years and, if anything, now I have less patience with the reps because I know exactly how they’re fucking up and how to fix it.
Man, war stories from Christmas in retail.
My first time around wasn’t too bad. I was part of a team managing the back room inventory and, essentially, trying to force out merchandise that otherwise wouldn’t fit on the shelves to keep the back room as clear as possible. That black Friday, I was assigned to guard a pallet of shit. It was blacked out so people wouldn’t crowd highly desired items - TVs and such.
The next year, I was in the electronics department, as in, that was my post as I had transferred to the sales floor.
That year, oh that year, the Wii dropped. We’d get a pallet in, and we’d just wheel it out to the register to sell. Of course, it didn’t start out that way. They were all locked in “the cage” and we had to get a manager to get them, one by one. That didn’t last too long as the management team was pretty much just running Wiis back and forth.
To top it off, my former inventory control role and limited register training, I had to train an incoming store manager (who would make FAR more per day than I would, after taxes I made about 70 a day for an 8 hour shift) to use the register. And he was… well, slow to learn. Which meant lines and issues - which would require a lower level of management to come handle - their response time, for a variety of reasons (busy season and sheer
idiocylaziness"level of business" slowed down.Having only one register back in electronics, well… this sucked.
Why would you train someone at the BUSIEST TIME OF THE YEAR? I get it now though, after 10 years of retail and 11 in IT, the one thing I’ve been able to determine is that approximately 1% of management, anywhere, is competent.
That doesn’t beat out the day I was asked to “help coverage.”
Yeah, I worked my full shift, then was asked to stay on for four more hours, then four more. And I didn’t take a second lunch. Now, the state I lived in didn’t give a fuck. Its the kind of state that says “Oh its 100+ degrees out? Better pass legislation to make water breaks legal to ignore.” Yeah, a lot of people died of dehydration and heat stroke in the construction industry after that. As far as I know, employers eased up on water breaks, but the legislation is still in effect. I digress, I got written up for not taking a second meal break. I was not released to do so, AFTER asking about it, and still written up.
After all of that, I moved to the automotive technician department.
It sucked, but for most of the time I had a decent boss. My first week I was struggling. Working outside in the summer, heavy uniform, covered in oil, and otherwise being out of shape.
That boss sent me inside, to sit in his office, and drink some cold water my first week. Knowing the company I worked for, I said I wasn’t ready to take a break yet (I was a smoker at the time, and wanted to time out smoke breaks fairly steady) and he said it isn’t a break. You’re bright red and you stopped sweating 10 minutes ago. If you know, you know. So I did, and I remember that to this day. I remember good managers.
Thankfully, my black Friday/Christmas duties were mostly rescinded (I technically was still register trained, so I got called up to the front to kill lines) which was nice.
The point of this?
Retail is hell. Period.
Mandatory retail service might be more important to our continued culture (USA) than anything else, as hyper capitalist as we are.
Shit, my mom was a college graduate, taught for a little while (not her thing) before working for the government, which I’m not going to go into. She took an early retirement package, cause she could. Good for her. She got bored, went to work at a chain craft store. She realized, and had a long discussion with me, about how much of a CUNT she was to retail/service folks. Her words. It was nice to hear, because I was still neck deep in retail hell at the time.
There was that one lady who was sentences to serve at a fast food restaurant where she through a fit and assaulted someone or something like that. Why not make Walmart floor worker a judicial punishment?
Bezos wants Amazon work to be some kind of national service.
Interesting to see that echoed here.
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Wait, what’s the dichotomy here?
