Bad Customer Bad Customer Service Catch 22

Well the stuff is hitting the fan where I live.

Restaurants absolutely can’t find workers, so they have dug deep, deep, so deep at the bottom of the barrel.
The few people working these jobs now have negative customer service skills, look scary, and do not put up with any bull crap from people.
To be honest many of them look like ex cons.

The Karens in my area, and there’s a lot of them, are losing their crap. Every single day there is a new rant. There was a lady ranting that she had to wait too long on the phone for a togo order and when she went to the restaurant to complain, the worker was “rude” for saying call corporate they were operating with only TWO workers!

I find it hilarious. These people are the reason why teenagers (and adults) don’t want to work fast food. Who wants to deal with these entitled rotten customers? I did my time in my early years, and honestly I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I actually think customers are much worse now. I would seriously slap a Karen or Ken now.

I’m going out of my way to be extra nice to anyone in customer service these days. I am also leery of restaurants these days. There are not enough workers, so where are they cutting corners? Makes me wonder about food safety!

In my neck of the woods one checkout chick yells at people over masks.

She yelled at one poor block and it took me by surprise. I was shocked at the tone of her commanding voice.

If she does again to anyone in my hearing she will get some words directed back at her.

Covid really has brought out the totalitarian abusive nature of some people.

Time to yell back I think.

P

Bad customer? Lol how about bad service?

In my neck of the woods, probably not to far from yours (I’m in central PA) we got idiots working at places that will try and sell you still frozen in the center burgers and fries so cold and soggy you know they have been sitting for hours on hours, that when called out on the employees team together to tell you that it’s your problem. It’s happened to me in the past 3 months 2 times so I just don’t go there anymore.

Prior to covid insanity (I work the night shift) I used to be able to go to 24 hour grocery stores during my available time and just cook at home like a normal man but with stores shut down my options get more restricted going to stores on their time limits me time for sleep, care and up keep of my house (seeing my neighbors would be pissed if I’m weed whacking and mowing my lawn at 3am) that now I have to work longer hours at night, I have to deal with retard lines at stores when I should be asleep, and try to fist # my schedule to get my job done ok with all the added crap and stress.

Fast food was not ever intended to be a 5 star meal it was supposed to fast and that equals convenience when both convenient and fast no longer applies and the quality drops to half frozen and 5 hours old. I do blame those assholes so I just don’t pay them anymore and I hope they go bankrupt, I’d be more then happy to buy their kitchen equipment when it goes on auction.

I simply can't work Customer Service or Retail any longer because of this.

My last job was as a Barista in a Southern Family Cafe and my register was under by $15 ( I paid out of my own pocket to sover the error) because I swear the computerized system was ringing up different prices for different customers for the same drink, the POS system was impossible to back out of in case a customer changed their mind on an order (and you had to wait for a manager to override the sale and restart the process) and I could literally feel the impatience of drink customers as they waited in line and the demands to make their drink faster than humanly and mechanically possible during a rush.

I lasted three days before I cracked from the stress and it took three months to get an $80 paycheck.

I just can't do it anymore, which sucks because I loved being a Barista in a small Cafe back in the Before Times.

I don't blame people for not wanting to work these type of jobs and for little pay.

I don't think its a generation of spoiled millennials, but rather a generation that sees no value in spending a majority of their time and a chunk of their life doing something they hate.

Who can blame them? People are starting to see the folly of being cogs in the machine, earning pennies to make otherrs rich.

originally posted by: CptGreenTea
I don't blame people for not wanting to work these type of jobs and for little pay.

Little pay? Where are you at? Restaurants around my area are starting people out at $14 - $17 an hour.

originally posted by: JIMC5499
Little pay? Where are you at? Restaurants around my area are starting people out at $14 - $17 an hour.

$14-17 is little pay. Even if you're a 19 year old kid working nights and weekends during school, you'd barely cover rent, let alone expenses, tuition, etc.

Ahhh, my favorite end result of the last nearly 2 years -- KARMA. See, it's very permissible to participate in experiencing Schadenfreude when viewing the Karens & Kens/Kevins get their dues, when you saw it coming beforehand, AND pointed out the high odds of the inevitability to deaf ears and blind eyes for so long.

The ultimate Told Ya So, with extra residual sting from the surprise slap. Well, it was a surprise to the oblivious recipient, anyway.

originally posted by: JAGStorm
Well the stuff is hitting the fan where I live.

Restaurants absolutely can’t find workers, so they have dug deep, deep, so deep at the bottom of the barrel.
The few people working these jobs now have negative customer service skills, look scary, and do not put up with any bull crap from people.
To be honest many of them look like ex cons.

I'm starting to notice similar -- and it's not a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with having a visually intimidating staff no one wants to run risk of #ing with, it could be a major benefit to reducing customer abuses toward employees, and crimes aimed at businesses. I'm serious, it's a big potential silver lining and they should not waste it. The time of Uber-Polite Eggshell Walking is about dead, plan & hire accordingly.

The Karens in my area, and there’s a lot of them, are losing their crap. Every single day there is a new rant. There was a lady ranting that she had to wait too long on the phone for a togo order and when she went to the restaurant to complain, the worker was “rude” for saying call corporate they were operating with only TWO workers!

Patience has gone the way of the dodo bird. I mentioned in another thread about waiting in a long check-out line in the evening last week, and my hubs grumbling about it. I'd mentioned (to paraphrase & sum it up here) that waiting and DIY is now the New Normal, because everyone's sick of catering to Karens. It ruffled the feathers of a Karen behind us, made an offended mouth noise, but to her credit (I guess) kept anything further to herself.

I find it hilarious. These people are the reason why teenagers (and adults) don’t want to work fast food. Who wants to deal with these entitled rotten customers? I did my time in my early years, and honestly I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. I actually think customers are much worse now. I would seriously slap a Karen or Ken now.

Ditto, I did housekeeping and front desk for a hotel. It was a good paying, fun job. I really wouldn't mind doing it again, but the staff-guest culture is on Eggshells anymore, and I refuse to perpetrate it. I don't think I'd be able to adapt to not being able to tell some unruly guest to GTFO before the police insist so with a trespass order. I'd end up sued by some whine-ass crying about emotional damage and needing "compensation" for getting thrown out.

Customers have turned into unapologetic lawyer-suckling grifters. Ambulance Chaser lawyers are actually morally and ethically higher on the totem pole now. WTF.

I’m going out of my way to be extra nice to anyone in customer service these days. I am also leery of restaurants these days. There are not enough workers, so where are they cutting corners? Makes me wonder about food safety!

I always do, since my objective is to get in, get out and be as little of a pest as possible in businesses, they have more to do than just punch the register anymore, short-staffed begets it. I destest window shopping for that reason, I feel like I'm wasting their time and stringing them along or something.

"You will have Bad Customer Service, and you will be Happy" Klaus Schwab - The World Economic Forum

You can't have Communism and good customer relations at the same time.
Long lines waiting on empty shelves is the coming way of life.
The factual Klaus Schwab quote, "You will own nothing because there will be nothing to own, individual happiness be damned!"

originally posted by: joejack1949
$14-17 is little pay. Even if you're a 19 year old kid working nights and weekends during school, you'd barely cover rent, let alone expenses, tuition, etc.

I'd be curious to hear what you call good pay?

a reply to: JAGStorm

Please don't use the word Karen/Ken which implies only white people. I find that very offensive. I know of real life, very nice women named Karen who have been actually treated badly once a clerk/waitress hears their name.

Please use the words "entitled" people, or overly-entitled people. That isn't racist or sexist, or put real people in danger of being abused because of the name their parents gave them.

I agree with your OP. There is a two edged sword to customer service, bad employees and rude customers.

I am so flummoxed how once Biden became President all of a sudden there was a lack of employees for all businesses, not that many people died to cause this to happen, only 0.2% of the population died of COVID and of those half or more were retired or chronically ill and not in the workforce. It has to be the Democrats are making sure that people make more not working with your and my money they took from us in taxes, to say home and not work. So that we will accept massive unchecked immigration and even beg for it to return to the life that the Democrats won't ever let us return to if they have their way. It seems they love us poorer each day with inflation, and are thrilled that crime 30% higher than it was before they ran the nation - because they desperately want to fire as many police as possible.

a reply to: Nyiah

Patience has gone the way of the dodo bird. I mentioned in another thread about waiting in a long check-out line in the evening last week, and my hubs grumbling about it. I'd mentioned (to paraphrase & sum it up here) that waiting and DIY is now the New Normal, because everyone's sick of catering to Karens. It ruffled the feathers of a Karen behind us, made an offended mouth noise, but to her credit (I guess) kept anything further to herself.

Polite society is gone in most cases. People are rude, not patient, and sometimes downright ugly.
The way people treat service workers is unbelieveable.

My husband and I were at a restaurant. We witnessed a lady spill something, wipe herself, and then just throw the napkin on the floor for the waiter to pick up. It wasn't an accident, it was intentional. At the hotel we were staying at, someone left pizza boxes next to the elevators. We say many many incidents like this over a short weekend. People think service folks are slaves to clean up everything after them. It's getting crazy.

I think we need to bring manners and some form of punishment back.

It is real simple...You have three items but can only pick two.

1) Good Food
2) Great Service
3) Cheap Prices

The biggest issue I see is the entire economics of retail / restaurants has been messed up. These industries already had razor thin profit margins and the shortage of workers and increase in cost of goods (COGS) is making it difficult to keep doors open. Most of the places cannot find people to work and when they do, they have to pay a serious premium for the labor. The problem is customers are not willing to pay what it cost to run these businesses now. Everyone is stretched thin.

It was already hard enough to find good reliable help before the plandemic, but practically impossible now.

a reply to: Edumakated

The problem is customers are not willing to pay what it cost to run these businesses now.

I don't want to pay high prices for crap food, with crap service and high prices, which is happening now.

Growing up in Europe I got used to high quality food, high price and crap service, so that's what I think would be the two I'd pick.

a reply to: JIMC5499

IKR. $14-17 an hour. Where I live, your average CNA makes less than that. New LPNs make a little more than that but not by much. These are people that are taking care of your elderly relatives. Are we really in a world where fast food workers make as much as or more than people that have to maintain a certification or license?

a reply to: Khaleesi

Yes.... wages don't correlate with overall value of service. Never have...

It is simple supply and demand.

CNAs are needed but what people are willing to pay and the supply of them is what drives wages.

Double-edged sword? Get ready for the triple edged trench knife…

As the cost of living expands due to overpaying for workers, those retired or legitimately disabled are going to need a MAJOR boost to benefits. Guess who is going to pay for that? The alternative is of course to not increase benefits accordingly. But then you have desperate and hungry people that are not going to give a second thought to killing you and yours for 20 bucks and the last bite of a hotdog.

Mmmmm…so why do people think socialism works again?

originally posted by: Khaleesi
a reply to: JIMC5499

IKR. $14-17 an hour. Where I live, your average CNA makes less than that. New LPNs make a little more than that but not by much. These are people that are taking care of your elderly relatives. Are we really in a world where fast food workers make as much as or more than people that have to maintain a certification or license?

We all know everything is connected, so things aren't simple.

CNA should probably be making a lot more.
After dealing with a whole nursing home fiasko with my parents, and can honestly say I think it is one of the biggest scams of the century!

God bless the few workers that actually care. For everyone else, it is a very evil system. I could go on all day about it, but similar to food service, they exploit the workers, charge the customers a fortune and then cry when nobody wants to do it.

a reply to: Khaleesi
$14 - $17 an hour is pretty good money where I live. Joejack1949 was the one who said that it wasn't enough.