Customer service jobs: it's not in the contract to pretend to give a s*^t about your life.

a reply to: OpinionatedB

You're reading far too much into my OP. I don't work in retail, nor am I frustrated with people in general. I'm not advocating that people aren't kind to each other. Being kind, friendly, and professional, does not involve sympathizing with strangers emotional issues. Privacy has its place.

a reply to: Atsbhct

Well... I have always taken the time a customer needed.. even if that meant listening to someone who was simply lonely.. when I needed out of any conversation my co-workers watched for cue's and bailed me out when I needed..(was always a mutual thing we watch out for one another)

but never ever did a customer leave my presence feeling as if I didn't care.. about anything they said.. even if it was some woman going on about a recent divorce, or a guy complaining about how difficult dating is in this day and age..

Some people don't need that.. but some people do.. it really IS part of any job where you work with the public.. its just like being a bartender.. sometimes its easier for people to talk to strangers..

Now, if you are shopping and someone is just talking, it is rude for you to be ignored if you are in line.. but you getting mad that people talk to someone in a retail position? That is not right.. and shows at least some level of disgust with people in general..

originally posted by: Atsbhct
a reply to: OpinionatedB
Being kind, friendly, and professional, does not involve sympathizing with strangers emotional issues. Privacy has its place.

Which in modern life is everywhere and nowhere. Be heartfelt and conscientious but not about yourself. Be kind but please don't tell me who you are. Ever. Take a selfie but remember you're a product and no one needs to hear your # only your sales pitch. Entire life on face book but it's all a performance. You get the idea.

I don't disagree that its inconsiderate to carry on unwelcome conversations at someone's work but the world is really running out of places to be yourself.

a reply to: Atsbhct

I see you feel the same way.

In reply to atsbhct

I cannot imagine venting about my life to a minimum wage earning total stranger. 

Would you vent about your crappy life to a stranger that made more than minimum wage?
You kind of make it sound like someone making minimum wage couldn't understand your big problems. Or do you go to the bank and vent to the CEO that makes more in bonus than most do in years?

a reply to: Atsbhct

Working retail put me in the nut house!

The customer IS NOT always right!

On one hand your company is breathing down your back to make money, and on the other hand they tell you to bend over to take an ungreased shagging from a customer who is doing nothing more than being an A hole!

Kinda saps the morality and doing the right thing right out of ya?

a reply to: Atsbhct
I've encountered this situation several times recently. I feel for the poor clerks. They haven't been trained as personal counselors. They can't help with legal problems. I've heard the most embarrassing things come out of people's mouths at the local Dollar Store!
It is mostly the younger clerks that get that deer in the headlights look when the line builds behind the talker/complainer. The more experienced people can move them along with a bit of kindness or humor but the younger ones are simply pitiful to behold when people start telling about their personal issues, especially reproductive issues.

working in customer service made me want to declare war on humanity. longest month of my life.

Everyone's a little sad and pathetic sometimes.

It's just that min wage slaves see that large demographic of quiet (or loud) desperation more often.

The roulette wheel of humanity can sometimes offer up ... interesting samples.

Thus why intoxicants were made... if one isn't a Buddha, that is.

a reply to: Atsbhct

I used to work in a frozen food retail environment. The company for which I was working at the time, were (and still are) famed for offering frozen meat at rock bottom prices, and as a result, the store was next to always rammed to the rafters with customers.

Although I was tasked with many different duties during my time with the company, I was most often to be found operating a checkout station. I had the fastest scan rate of any of our till operators, and was the only employee in the history of that particular store, to have received a tip for service! I would regularly have regular customers stop to chat after their transactions had been completed, and so I would be dealing with customers in the midst of the conversation.

However, because the customers with whom I had extended conversations, understood that I had a job to do, they would be respectful of that fact, and wait until I had an ear free to listen with, before continuing the conversation. I no longer work in that area of retail, and have become a locksmith. However, I still work at the counter of a shop, and I still like to talk with my customers, should they be in the mood for a discussion. Of course, our little store is not in the centre of town, but on the outskirts, where the train line ends! So naturally, our customer base is smaller, and we have more regular customers than passers by, if you catch my drift.

As a result, I find myself drawn into conversation about a great many things, with a great many people every week. My mother and I are both equally happy to converse with our customers, and as it happens, this has been beneficial to our business. Through being prepared to engage with our customers, not just as sources of revenue, but as members of a unified community, we have gained a reputation which goes beyond our mere technical competency, and quality of customer service. People value our store and the folks who work in it, because they see us as being people who will always make time for others, and although I am proud of the quality of the work we do and the services we provide, it is the fact that our store and its employees are considered a vital part of our local community, which really warms my insides.

We are not a hugely successful business, we do not make vast sums of money, and we do not have it easy. But in the ways that matter, we are operating in a way which pleases our customers and our community, and that, to me at least, is bloody beautiful.

In summary then, its true that no one has a contract of employment which states that they have to give a God damn about anything that happens beyond the nose on their face. However, in order to feel good about the work one does, one must learn to embrace the community in which one lives and works, to care about what happens in it, and the people it happens to.

a reply to: Atsbhct

Unless really lucky, the vast majority of each nations population work because they have to rather than they want to. Very few people are lucky enough to do something they love. For everyone else, it is simply about the paying the bills and earning enough to have a decent life - This is generally how i view work and working people. As such, i very rarely have particularly high expectations because i recognise that people don't really want to be there serving me (in whatever capacity). As such, i am rarely offended or bothered by poor cutomer service.

That said, if it is significantly obscenely expensive (or what i consider to be) then it is a different matter and i do expect at least an effort at decent service.

If i could somehow role this attitude out globally, there would be a lot less stressed people about......

a reply to: JHumm

Lmao. That's absolutely not what I meant. People earning minimum wage aren't making nearly enough money to listen to people's problems all day.

Wonderful Rant.

Stars and Flags.
Can this thread teach future costumers to be nice and cordial?
I only worked in actual face to face retail for a short period but it was Hell, well perhaps just purgutory.

I became so over loaded with personal information that I almost had to vomit.
Since then I only reply with " I am good Thank You, How are you"

I call them emotional abusers, they tell the same story over and over again, emotional self-gratification.
Don't these people have Friends? Family?
As the person on the recieving side of the counter you are obliged to listen, you can't just say "Leave Me Alone".

I found it so abusive I would never take a retail job again.
It did teach me to NEVER relate my own problems to strangers.
They deserve better.

Dear Customer, I wish you knew how your revelation or negative state of mind makes me feel, sick, darn right sick. It is emotional rape because I can't say NO. I have to smile and express, what, compassion?

Great Rant, that felt so good.
WIS