Customer Service: Rants, Raves, Back Pats, and Appreciation

[inexorabletruth]

**Warning... this thread is probably going to be American centric, but worldview opinions and facts are welcome here.**

The service industry made up over 80% of the American labor industry in 2016, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm) and remains the fastest growing industry in America currently.

That means, if you're American, you've probably had to say something like, "Hello, welcome to [name of business]! My name is [your name]! How are you today?" with a great big smile and an eager attitude, even if your life may be falling apart because you work unpredictable hours for unsustainable pay in a uniform you would never have selected unless someone were paying you to wear it or pointing a weapon at you.

I want you to know, I feel for you.

I was in the service industry for 20 years before finally bowing out. And honestly, I can't remember a time where I worked in the industry where I was actually happy. Of course, I'm an introvert with at least some level of social anxiety. Talking to people without the buffer of a text format (like the one on the Playground) causes my heart to race and my chest to tighten. Yet, due to a lack of options, I worked my way through it into management so that I could help others who were like me get through their lives in service with at least some dignity and quality of life. I fought the unpopular fight for decent wages and predictable schedules, relaxed uniform guidelines, and stricter behavioral expectation standards from our customers (I will reject service to any customer who dares to insult, belittle, denigrate, objectify, or harass my staff). I feel like the difference I made was so microcosmic, it might as well have been insignificant, but it was the only thing that gave my job meaning. Finally, seeing my abject misery at my life outside of the home, my wife gave me a break. We switched roles in the family, and I became a homemaker, and she went back to work. I used my connections to help her get a job as a manager, and between her own awesomeness, coupled with the advice of my experience, she's become a rising star in her industry and is now running the most successful store in her region, with the highest cleanliness and service rating in her region as well. I couldn't be more proud of her. She's my hero, and I do my best to be worthy of the gift she's given me every day.

Today, I was at a grocery store, and a tired looking cashier who had just gotten reamed over the prices of eggs from a previous customer gave me a dead-eyed look and a forced smile and said. "Hi! How are you today?" as cheerily as if he hadn't just been abused by someone literally 10 seconds ago. I knew what he was going through. I know what it's like to be a punching bag for every customer who's had a bad day and needs someone to take it out on. I know what it's like to be blamed for a corporate policy that doesn't make a lot of sense but I'm powerless to change it. And I know what it's like to be cursed at, belittled, insulted, and mocked because bad behavior is usually rewarded with comped goods or services. If I'd made it to the check out line sooner, I'd have stopped the bitter old antagonist and told her she didn't need to be so rude. I'm not afraid to do it, and I've done it many times before. I just didn't get to say anything before she shuffled off angrily, threatening to call corporate and sue the store.

This thread is for people like that cashier. People who try their best for not enough pay. People who put up with more abuse than an employee should have to. People who put their uniforms on every day they're scheduled and give it their best, because they have to; because that's how bills get paid. I want to here your success stories. The times you overcame adversity; the times you were recognized for being awesome; the times your boss had your back, or you were a boss and had an employee's back. And if you can't think of times like that, then I want to be here to have your back. Tell me your story and have a drink on me. You deserve it.

And if you aren't in the service industry, and you see a server/representative getting abused, please remember to remind that rude customer that they are speaking to a person who should be treated like one.

[Khedrac]

As someone who has never had to edure any of that, all I can say is that I do feel sympathy for your (plural) woes and I do try to always treat the people I am dealing with as fellow humans.

And if you are the unhappy customer, some points to remember:
1. The person you are dealing with is almost certainly completely unconnected to your original problem.
2. Most of them cannot do very much about it either, except for passing your comments along.
3. If they are able to help you, then they are far more likely to do so if you are polite and understanding with them.

Basically, treat the people you interact with with respect and cheer and they are far more likely to be what help they can.

[inexorabletruth]

It's true. In all my years in service, I never saw an employee who just always wanted to work in service. It's not their dream job. For the most part the job is hard, demeaning, low paying, and thankless. Most employees just want to get through their shift without becoming the target of someone's wrath. And therefore, within the confines of policy, I've found that most employees will do what they can to serve a customer quickly and politely, if for no better reason than to avoid the inevitable melt down when something goes wrong.

[Seerow]

It's true. In all my years in service, I never saw an employee who just always wanted to work in service. It's not their dream job. For the most part the job is hard, demeaning, low paying, and thankless. Most employees just want to get through their shift without becoming the target of someone's wrath. And therefore, within the confines of policy, I've found that most employees will do what they can to serve a customer quickly and politely, if for no better reason than to avoid the inevitable melt down when something goes wrong.

As someone currently in a service role, this is the thing that gets me. You're 100% right, every person you talk to wants to help you if for no other reason than to get you to move on so they can get on to the next person. Nobody in a role like this wants a fight.

Which is why it drives me batty every time someone doesn't like a policy, the go-to response is "Well you're just being lazy and don't want to help me. Cut the crap and do it already", as though if that were an option I would not have already done it. Sorry, my company may be amazingly flexible in a lot of ways, bending over backwards to keep customers happy, but there are some lines that we just can't cross and have to be firm on.

[Starwulf]

I've never understood the attitude of being rude to the person behind the counter either. Anytime I have had something go wrong, I always make sure I'm sure super polite and re-assure them that I'm not blaming them at all, that I understand mistakes happen. Probably why I end up with free food fairly often when stuff does go wrong, like if I'm at a fast food joint they'll hand me back the food that was wrong and tell me to keep it on top of the corrected product, or if I'm at a restaurant they'll comp the meal, or give X amount off. Of course that's not why I do it, but it is a nice side effect of being a friendly/polite person.

It helps that my wife was a waitress for 7-8 years, so we both understand how hard the job can be and how unthankful most people are. Honestly, I think everyone should have to do a 1 year stint as a service worker of some sort, maybe a lot of the rudeness would go away when they understand what the other side has to deal with.

[2D8HP]

:furious:
I'm biting my tongue (thumbs?) to keep myself from an extended rant referencing the 1946 Oakland, California General Strike, and the year of College that my brother spent overseas in Amsterdam, and how angry and disgusted I am that so many Americans are desperate enough to sell their dignity and their smiles for a pittance, and that customers and especially employers need to be brought down a peg or two hundred!

[Recherché]

Yesterday I had to kick a woman who just had surgery for a brain tumor out of her test. I didn't want to but she'd gone over the allowed time on the test and as the newest employee I'm the lowest person on the totem pole. (I work for the testing center of my university.) It still haunts me.

I don't think I'm really a mean person but I feel awful for having to do that. And having to do so much else to students. The professors are in charge and I can't change the rules to help students even when I feel the rules are unfair and hurt students. I still get called on to be the person who enforces them through and I feel like students still blame me for them.

Other times the rules are the way they are because someone abused them at some point and now management isn't willing to make any accommodations no matter what the problem is. As such I'd like to point a big screw you to everyone who cheat on tests. You make the testing center worse for everyone else. You make me have to be paranoid and you make me have to tell people no on normally reasonable requests involving water bottles and mechanical pencils. I'd like to be helpful. I'd like for my students to excel. It's because of people cheating that I can't do that. Screw you cheaters.

[Fiery Diamond]

I have a few stories.

1. The woman who thought only she mattered.

I was bagging this woman's groceries and asked if she wanted her milk in a bag. This is a question I ask all customers buying milk, as some do and some do not. "Of course I do," she snaps. "Why would you even ask?" "Well, some people do and some don't," I say. "Well, who cares what other people want?" I wanted to say, "Me, because I have to serve them too, not just you." But of course I just silently smiled like a moron.

2. The woman who thought I should be psychic.

We sell soda. 2L bottles of brand name, 3L bottles of store brand. The default way to bag is one 3L bottle per bag, two 2L bottles per bag. This older woman has two 3L, two 2L, a bunch of cans, and other stuff. The 3L bottles come down first. One in a bag, bag in the cart. One in a bag, bag in the cart. Then the 2L bottles. One in a bag, second in a bag...

Woman leans across the counter. "One in a bag!" She snaps. "One in a bag!"
Ooookay. Take one out, put bag in cart. Bag second bottle, bag in the cart. Then the cans come down.
Well, I figure, if she freaked out like that about the bottles, I should ask how many cans she wants per bag, right?

"And how many of these would you like in a bag?" I ask politely, gesturing to the cans.
"What?!"
"And how many of these would you like in a bag?"
Furiously - "Well I'll just do it myself!" She starts grabbing the cans and throwing them into the bag.
Ooookay. I'll just bag the other stuff then.

Can't assume, can't ask. Must just read her mind, apparently.

3. The man who couldn't count to five and blamed me.

I also work fast food. This man orders to burgers, two small ham&cheeses, and one big ham&cheese for his family. The kitchen fixes them and gives them to me, the cashier. Two burgers in black boxes, two small sandwiches wrapped, one big sandwich in a yellow box, all marked. I put them in the bag and give them to the customer. Out he goes. A minute later, in he comes, pissed off.

"You didn't give me my big ham&cheese!"
Uh, yes I did.
"The big ham&cheese is the one in the yellow box."
That was the wrong thing to say; now he's furious.
"I've never had a place argue with me! It's not my fault you're too stupid to do your jobs properly!" To the outside: "Kids, bring back all the food!"
Continues to complain bitterly and insult us while his family brings the food back. I pick up the box with the big ham&cheese.
"This is the big ham&cheese," I say in a neutral tone.
"Then where's my [burgers]?!"
I point to the bottom of the bag, where the two black boxes sit underneath the two wrapped sandwiches. "On the bottom."
Man shuts up and takes his food, leaving. No apology, of course.

4. Man doesn't know the difference between a road and a parking lot, other man stands up for me.

I'm walking to the shopping cart corral, wearing my vest that shows I'm collecting carts. Somebody comes up behind me and honks his horn. I reach the corral and move toward it. He pulls up beside me.

"Don't walk in the middle of the road!" he shouts angrily.
"Don't be hateful!" shouts another man who is putting his groceries in his car.

I wanted to point out the difference between a road and a parking lot, which the first man apparently never learned, but a) he drove off and b) that would have gotten me in trouble. I thanked the second man for standing up for me.

[WarKitty]

Current job: the biggest one is people who somehow have the idea that I can teleport cars. Look, cars come from garages. We have garages in certain cities. There is only so quickly I can get a car from point A to point B.

[inexorabletruth]

@Recherché
Wow, that sounds like a tough job. I've had "bad cop" jobs before. They're soul draining and depressing. I used to drink myself to sleep every night when I did jobs like that. I hate making a living out of ruining lives, but to save the patient, you have to have someone willing to cut the cancer. Cheating on tests hurt those who worked hard to earn their opportunities. As if college wasn't hard enough, overcoming those who sidestep the policies just adds more to the pile of problems in the current education system. Have a drink on me, Recherché.
*slides a frosty drink your way*

@Fiery Diamond
It sounds like you face hoards of this every day. I feel for you. And on behalf of the customers that didn't at least apologize for their behavior, I'm sorry. Have a drink, and let's make it a double.
*slides a particularly strong drink down the bar*

@WarKitty
Funny how even though people in service are frequently condescended to like they are stupid are also expected to be clever enough to know how to warp time and space. Have a fizzy non-alcoholic drink on me... since you're driving.
*slides a delicious and refreshing beverage your way*

[Peelee]

Being white in the South is apparently code for "I share your bigotry." I was able to shut it down once when i worked at the theater though. We'd get t-shirts for movies coming out soon sometimes, and could wear them in place of our uniforms, and we'd always wear them because they were more comfortable. Was helping out in concessions between starts (so not even directly dealing with customers, just running for those on the registers) when a woman came up between the lines, looked right at me wearing the Brokeback Mountain shirts we all had at the time, and said something along the lines of "it's terrible they make you wear those things, what does your father think about it?" To which I just replied, "my dad doesn't mind too much, but my boyfriend hates it." I virtually never got written up, so I could take the hit. Screw you, lady.


1. The woman who thought only she mattered.

I was bagging this woman's groceries and asked if she wanted her milk in a bag. This is a question I ask all customers buying milk, as some do and some do not. "Of course I do," she snaps. "Why would you even ask?"

People like this are why I have to freaking tell the cashiers to not bag up the fried chicken at Publix. I'm buying a single item and it already had a handle, stop trying to give me more trash!

ETA: I loved bad-copping. Either the person deserved it, so I had fun, or the person didn't deserve it, and I could try to soften the blow as best I could.

[Comrade]

Used to work as a cashier in a hardware store, and, well, like any retail job, we got our share of entitled, rude jerks. The one that most stands out for me is a mild one, but it was pretty much the point at which I realised I didn't want to work any job where I had to be spoken to this way-- I'd just rung up a customer and done the typical post-checkout routine: receipt, smile, 'have a nice day'. Halfway through 'have a nice day', the guy interjected with 'you don't thank your customers anymore?' I was kind of dumbfounded, so he repeated, this time yelling, 'You don't thank your customers anymore? It's just nice to make the customer feel appreciated. I hope the next guy doesn't have to remind you to do your job.' Naturally, he wouldn't either leave or stop yelling until I did say 'thank you', whereupon he growled 'you're welcome', took his stuff, and made tracks.

All I wanted was to say... really? Is this the hill you're going to die on? This is the thing that's pushed you over the edge? Boy, your life must be nice if the worst thing on your mind is the cashier who didn't thank you for shopping. But of course, you can't say that, and they know you can't say it, they know they're pretty much at liberty to treat you as poorly as they like because you risk getting fired for doing anything but smiling and apologising. Wasn't the first or the worst time some customer decided to act like I existed solely to serve them, but it was the point that I decided I'd take any job over the one that has me coming into work at 5:30AM so I can get yelled at for not thanking the guy I just helped.

[razorback]

I have spent years in various forms of customer service, mostly because I think that if you have to interface with a customer at any level, whether your an engineer, a CSR or a manager, that is part of your role.
When I was in college I ran a local pizza place. I would get in trouble with two of the three owners on a regular basis because during coed baseball season we'd get these teams coming in every Tuesday to drink and have pizza. We'd close at 11 and I'd do last call at 10:30. Almost without fail we'd get people harrassing the bartender at 10:35 for one more round with the warning of 'I know the owner'. Well, I know the owners and even spent Christmas with them. I could give a rats rear. Our jobs were to make the best pizza and serve it to you, not to take your drunken abuse while you try to relive your glory days. In the 2-1/2 years I was there I almost got into a fight probably at least a dozen times.

I think that a lot of the problems stem from a sense of entitlement. I think the thought 'since I'm giving you money, I'm entitled to express my opinion and if I don't like your response, I'm entitled to berate you." Even though these people know that the person on the other side fo the counter has no control over policy, as has been stated before. I've stepped in plenty of times over the years as some customer service person is being abused, but the problem is these people will continue to do these things because they feeled they are owed something. Unfortunately, there are few businesses that are willing to step up and say "I don't want your business". I've been fortunate enough to work for a couple of people who held the same philosophy and when I co-owned a business my partner and I agreed on this, telling people 'here's your money back, leave and don't come back.' Until businesses are willing to step up and say we value our employees and will not tolerate this kind of behavior, it's not going to go away. Which is unfortunate because this just further feeds into the problem instead of taking a small step towards correcting it.

[Algeh]

I feel like a lot of this is that so many businesses are structured in such a way that it's impossible to complain to someone with the power to actually change policy or who had any role in creating it.

One of our local bars (briefly) decided to no longer serve single shot mixed drinks in pint glasses, just in smaller ones or double shots in larger ones. I objected because what I like to do on really hot days is get a single shot of whiskey in a pint of carbonated water, and then order two or three of those over the course of the evening (this bar is within walking distance and serves a decent dinner) so that I make sure I'm getting enough liquid to not get dehydrated along with my booze. Because this was a local bar, I was able to actually talk to the decision-maker (owner) at a time he wasn't busy, and get him to change his mind (probably because he recognized me and my family as several-times-a-week regulars, and we apparently weren't causing whatever problem he was trying to solve with the policy - I suspect the issue was people ordering a single rum and coke and then getting free coke refills all night or something). At a chain place, my choices would have been complain to someone with no power to make decisions or leave (I generally choose that second one, sometimes with a side of also writing on a comment card explaining why I left). (I also would have been fine with him keeping the policy and me switching bars to one willing to accommodate my summer drinking patterns, but they make a good grilled cheese sandwich there and I wanted to give him a second chance rather than just disappear with no explanation once the weather got too warm for me to drink stout.)

That doesn't make it ok to complain at length to the service worker, and certainly doesn't make it ok to yell at or otherwise abuse them, but I think it's important to recognize that this is happening because the decision-makers have carefully constructed the system in such a way as to be shielded from dealing with the complaints resulting from their decisions.

(I work as a public school teacher, so it's similar to a customer service job in some ways but different in others, in that the students are legally required to be there and we're legally required to teach them, so neither side really has the luxury of not making this thing work out somehow and leaving/kicking someone out instead.)

[Cozzer]

God, I'm really happy I can't remember ever witnessing something as disgusting as the arrogance, self-centeredness and plain denial of the customers you describe here. I've seen a few crappy things, of course, but this is on a whole other level. And of course I'm even happier I don't work in customer service.

Well, call center operators are the exception, sadly. I've seen (well, heard) them being abused a lot of times. I try convincing as many people as I can to stop doing it - my mantra is rage must only flow upwards, never downwards -, but it's really hard. It's incredible how many people don't realize you can be firm, you can even firmly refuse something, without being an abusive jerkass. It's like for a lot of people it's either doormat or schoolyard bully, no third option.

My best wishes to everyone on the receiving end of this crazyness.

[inexorabletruth]

@Peelee
I'm not entirely sure what you meant in your post, but it sounds like you had to deal with a bigot, and those are rough. Being caught between your values and the desperate need to maintain what little income you have is a tough choice, and I'm ashamed to admit I haven't always made the right ones in the past. I learned from those mistakes, and as a manager, I always taught my staff to never tolerate bigotry from a customer or other staff member. Their immediate response to any form of hate speech is, "Excuse me," and then come get me. I'll handle the ugly business of explaining to the customer that type of language is intolerable, and they can either correct their behavior, leave, or be escorted out by security.
*slams a flaming shot down on the bar for your fiery spirit*

@Comrade
Yeesh. Sounds like your customer was on some kind of mission. I used to get those kinds of customers all the time, and it seems there is no cure for them. It sounds like you handled yourself like a pro. I only wish the customer could've displayed half the patience you displayed.
*pours a tall, smooth glass of aged cognac for your patience and elegance under fire*

@razorback
Name droppers and power players. Yeesh. They're not the worst in customer service, but they're so darn plentiful, unyielding, and infinitely repetitive... like a zombie hoard. They can really wear you down over time and make you just want to run and hide. I'm sorry you had to deal with that, friend.
*hands you an energy drink in a tall glass of ice, so you can keep up your stamina, and stay cool when the name droppers try to make steam come out of your ears*

[Peelee]

@Peelee
I'm not entirely sure what you meant in your post, but it sounds like you had to deal with a bigot, and those are rough.

Customer sees me. They think, "ah, he will surely share my beliefs!" I do not share their beliefs.

You would be surprised at how many people are openly racist if they think they're around people who would agree.

I just realized I'd left out which movie shirt we were wearing at the time, which is kind of important to the story. I'm like that lame uncle who stops in the middle of a joke and says, "oh, wait, the cowboy rode in on a BLUE horse."

[WarKitty]

@WarKitty
Funny how even though people in service are frequently condescended to like they are stupid are also expected to be clever enough to know how to warp time and space. Have a fizzy non-alcoholic drink on me... since you're driving.
*slides a delicious and refreshing beverage your way*

Screw that, gimmie the alcohol. I just answer the phone.

My favorite is when people try to argue us out of higher charges for pickups far away from our garages. Someone complained she shouldn't be charged because "it's not her fault that we don't have a garage out there."

It's a business, not a charity. And I can assure you that none of our services are essential to anyone's life or health.

Name dropping is fun too. I actually handle a lot of big players fairly regularly - I'm in one of our specialty groups, which means they trust me to take care of pretty much anyone. We really do get some pretty major names, but my system will tell me how important the name is.

[Starwulf]

God, I'm really happy I can't remember ever witnessing something as disgusting as the arrogance, self-centeredness and plain denial of the customers you describe here. I've seen a few crappy things, of course, but this is on a whole other level. And of course I'm even happier I don't work in customer service.

Well, call center operators are the exception, sadly. I've seen (well, heard) them being abused a lot of times. I try convincing as many people as I can to stop doing it - my mantra is rage must only flow upwards, never downwards -, but it's really hard. It's incredible how many people don't realize you can be firm, you can even firmly refuse something, without being an abusive jerkass. It's like for a lot of people it's either doormat or schoolyard bully, no third option.

My best wishes to everyone on the receiving end of this crazyness.

This works both ways though when it comes to call center operators. Maybe not as much nowadays, what with the Do Not Call list(In the U.S.), but it does still happen once in a while. And by "It happens", I mean the call operators harassing the person they called. I've had several times where I've given a terse "not interested, don't call back" and hung up, and then would get multiple call-backs right in a row, and I will freely admit I've lost my temper during those times and let loose with a barrage of curse words and insults. So it seems pretty apparent that sometimes those people forget that the people they are calling are people as well.

[inexorabletruth]

Screw that, gimmie the alcohol. I just answer the phone.

*Slides a bottle of whiskey your way*

[Seerow]

This works both ways though when it comes to call center operators. Maybe not as much nowadays, what with the Do Not Call list(In the U.S.), but it does still happen once in a while. And by "It happens", I mean the call operators harassing the person they called. I've had several times where I've given a terse "not interested, don't call back" and hung up, and then would get multiple call-backs right in a row, and I will freely admit I've lost my temper during those times and let loose with a barrage of curse words and insults. So it seems pretty apparent that sometimes those people forget that the people they are calling are people as well.

Having worked in an outbound center before, typically it's on an auto dialer where there's no control over who gets called next. Especially when the person in question hangs up immediately before there's a chance to go through whatever the procedure is to remove the person called from the list (That said if it happens more than twice in a row the person in the call center is probably not doing something right, even if it's just not using ACW). Though I suspect this would vary a lot based on the company in question. Some outbound centers are little more than quasi-legal scams, while others are pretty strictly regulated.

I will admit to having fun with the scam ones. I won't shout at them or anything, but I've kept an alleged Microsoft Tech Support Agent on the line for a couple of hours playing the role of technical incompetent as he tried to walk me through how to download a load of spyware on my computer.


In either case, I am grateful to be in a role where I only answer phones 3 days a week now, and none of that is outbound. The worst role I had was tech support for AT&T, because people get very touchy when their phones don't work, and don't like it when you can't find a resolution in under 5 minutes. Or the most haunting calls were the ones coming in at 2am from worried parents wanting us to track their suicidal children's phones (for the record: If you are ever in this situation, do not call your phone company, call the police. The front line reps at the phone company can't track your phone for privacy and legal reasons. The police are able to put in requests through the correct channels when it is deemed necessary). Those sorts of experiences are why I never looked into working as a 911 operator.

[Xyril]

**Warning... this thread is probably going to be American centric, but worldview opinions and facts are welcome here.**

The service industry made up over 80% of the American labor industry in 2016, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm) and remains the fastest growing industry in America currently.

That means, if you're American, you've probably had to say something like, "Hello, welcome to [name of business]! My name is [your name]! How are you today?" with a great big smile and an eager attitude, even if your life may be falling apart because you work unpredictable hours for unsustainable pay in a uniform you would never have selected unless someone were paying you to wear it or pointing a weapon at you.


Forgive the minor nitpick, since it doesn't change the rest of this interesting discussion at all, but if I'm reading your cited statistics right, your definition of "the service industry" doesn't match what the 81% represents. Even though it says "Services-providing excluding special industries," it also clearly delineates subcategories that include a lot of fields that don't strictly mean customer service. For example, 12% is listed under service sector, state and local government. I can't imagine this number being plausible unless it counts pretty much anyone working for the local government: police, teachers, firefighters, building inspectors, etc. It also includes "Information," "Financial Services," and "Professional and Business Services," which strongly implies to me that the 81% also includes people like an analyst at a hedge fund, an attorney, or a consultant for a company like McKinsey, all jobs that often aren't customer-facing at all. These are all strictly speaking service industries because they aren't associated with agriculture, extraction, or manufacturing, but generally only a fraction of employees are involved in finding and servicing customers.

[inexorabletruth]

Forgive the minor nitpick, since it doesn't change the rest of this interesting discussion at all, but if I'm reading your cited statistics right, your definition of "the service industry" doesn't match what the 81% represents. Even though it says "Services-providing excluding special industries," it also clearly delineates subcategories that include a lot of fields that don't strictly mean customer service. For example, 12% is listed under service sector, state and local government. I can't imagine this number being plausible unless it counts pretty much anyone working for the local government: police, teachers, firefighters, building inspectors, etc. It also includes "Information," "Financial Services," and "Professional and Business Services," which strongly implies to me that the 81% also includes people like an analyst at a hedge fund, an attorney, or a consultant for a company like McKinsey, all jobs that often aren't customer-facing at all. These are all strictly speaking service industries because they aren't associated with agriculture, extraction, or manufacturing, but generally only a fraction of employees are involved in finding and servicing customers.

Well, my post didn't specifically cover a definition of service industry. There are all kinds of jobs in sales and service, as you mentioned, at all different tiers, and I never attempted to contest that. I stated that fact to point out just how many of Americans are currently in service jobs. It helps insinuate a point that we are mostly in the same boat, and the divide between server and customer (in whatever capacity that may be defined) doesn't entitle the purchaser of service to disrespect or abuse the one providing the service.

Of course, this thread is mostly for the underpaid-and-overworked section of service, which still covers a large percent of the service and sales workforce, and therefore that is what is being emphasized. It's an attempt to show my appreciation for those in the service industry who don't get the pay they deserve, the dignity they deserve, or the thanks they deserve (or any combination/all of the above).

And lastly, and don't take this harshly, because I'm asking nicely. Please don't make me "legalese" an appreciation thread. I'm here to offer thanks and internet drinks, because I know there are people out there who need it, and deserve it. and it's basically the best I can do right now.

[comicshorse]

I work in a charity shop and so have been pretty lucky with customers being rude. The one real exception being the guy who accused me of following him around the shop 'cause I thought he was a shoplifter. I hadn't been but you can be sure I get a very careful eye on him from then on
However my pet peeve is the people who walk into the shop seconds before it shuts, walk around the shop for 15 minutes, touch everything in the shop and then leave without buying anything !

[Cozzer]

This works both ways though when it comes to call center operators. Maybe not as much nowadays, what with the Do Not Call list(In the U.S.), but it does still happen once in a while. And by "It happens", I mean the call operators harassing the person they called. I've had several times where I've given a terse "not interested, don't call back" and hung up, and then would get multiple call-backs right in a row, and I will freely admit I've lost my temper during those times and let loose with a barrage of curse words and insults. So it seems pretty apparent that sometimes those people forget that the people they are calling are people as well.

Problem is, there's an extremely high chance the person who's calling has zero control over that issue. Even if the calls aren't automatic, it's likely that the repeated calls are part of a procedure they can't not follow to the letter. It is extremely annoying, sure, but it's a system devised by the higher ups to reach peak annoyingness while leaving you an easy punching bag in the form of a desperate, underpaid employee. It's really screwed up. :smallfrown:

I would advise blocking the number after any unwanted call, it should prevent at least part of the issue.

[WarKitty]

Problem is, there's an extremely high chance the person who's calling has zero control over that issue. Even if the calls aren't automatic, it's likely that the repeated calls are part of a procedure they can't not follow to the letter. It is extremely annoying, sure, but it's a system devised by the higher ups to reach peak annoyingness while leaving you an easy punching bag in the form of a desperate, underpaid employee. It's really screwed up. :smallfrown:

I would advise blocking the number after any unwanted call, it should prevent at least part of the issue.

Yeah that's one thing with most call centers. You follow the rules or get fired. A lot of times the rules include things that annoy the customers.

It's not that bad where I work. I have to do a very small amount of upselling, but most of the "annoying" rules are just to make sure the customer can't come back and complain that they were never told of the thing they didn't want to hear. (Think "well, no one told me the cancellation policy was 12h, so I shouldn't have to pay!")

[ve4grm]

Having worked in an outbound center before, typically it's on an auto dialer where there's no control over who gets called next. Especially when the person in question hangs up immediately before there's a chance to go through whatever the procedure is to remove the person called from the list (That said if it happens more than twice in a row the person in the call center is probably not doing something right, even if it's just not using ACW).

Yeah, for a legit telemarketing call, if you say you aren't interested and want to be taken off the list, pause for a moment to let them acknowledge it before you hang up. If you don't, they won't have time to hit the "pause after this call" button so they can remove you, and the phone will likely go right into the next call. They may try again to convince you to hear them out, just say "no thanks" and then you can hang up (as they've likely already hit the pause button the first time you said it, they just have to ask). It will always work out better if you spend the 5 seconds.


Though I suspect this would vary a lot based on the company in question. Some outbound centers are little more than quasi-legal scams, while others are pretty strictly regulated.

I will admit to having fun with the scam ones. I won't shout at them or anything, but I've kept an alleged Microsoft Tech Support Agent on the line for a couple of hours playing the role of technical incompetent as he tried to walk me through how to download a load of spyware on my computer.

I once got one of the Microsoft scam guys to curse me out multiple times before hanging up on me. To be fair, it might be because I damaged his eardrums...

.

I've been pretty lucky with customers during my time in the service industry. I'd like to think it's my charming personality, but it might have something to do with public rudeness being less acceptable in Canada. (Not to say we don't have these people, but it seems to be less than the states.)

I also at one point worked for FedEx american telephone customer service. While understandable, since you generally only call telephone CS lines when you're upset, I have never dealt with as much consistent abuse as in that job. I started just before Christmas, and the main FedEx processing center had a freak ice storm that (since it's in... Tennessee?) grounded everything for 2 days.

Jerk: "Are you going to tell my kids why there's no presents this Christmas?"
Me, thinking: "Sure, I'd be happy to tell them their dad ordered their presents 2 days before Christmas, as he apparently forgot it was coming up."

We also were graded on call times. We had to keep our average call times under (I think) 2 minutes, or we risked our jobs. Do you know how hard it is to even diagnose what the problem is, let alone solve it, in 2 minutes? So when you're hemming and hawing about things while talking with these folks, just know that they are literally counting the seconds, afraid for their livelihood if too many of their calls take too long.

Those calls that get put through to us, and then immediately hang up? Because of the stupid call time requirements, they were our favourite calls.

At the end of training, we got put on the phones for a bit with a supervisor beside us to make sure we knew what we were doing before setting us loose. One guy in my class, in the hour he was on the phones that day, had one entire call. That lasted. The entire! Hour! Some lonely old lady in a hotel room, we're pretty sure she just wanted to talk with someone. She spent an entire hour getting quotes for different sizes of packages, from random locations to other random locations. I honestly felt sorry for her. But those people happen, and you might think they're a nice break from the anger. They aren't.

Personally I said f*** it to the call time thing, and just tried to help people properly. At one point, I spent about 90 minutes on a call with one guy. He was furious when he called in, basically wanted heads to roll. By the time I was done, he asked if there was a way to formally reward me for it. I forwarded him on to my supervisor, where he gave me a formal compliment!

(Note for all who want to reward the good people in phone service roles! Just as we all have a formal complaint system, we also generally are able to submit formal compliments! If someone goes above and beyond for you, please do so!)

Two days later, I quit.
I had been there for only two weeks.
Of my 15-20 person training class, I was the second-last one to quit. The remaining guy was gone before 2 months.
Phone CS is hell.

.

These days, I've graduated university and become an engineer. I'm very glad to be out of the service industry, but I'll never forget the lessons learned there. It made me far better at dealing with aggressive contractors than I otherwise would be.

It doesn't take much to make a service industry person's day just a bit better. Politeness, a smile, trying to not waste time, being clean. And if they help you out more than they needed to? Speak to the manager and tell them that. If nothing else, that's how they get raises.

[Seerow]

We also were graded on call times. We had to keep our average call times under (I think) 2 minutes, or we risked our jobs. Do you know how hard it is to even diagnose what the problem is, let alone solve it, in 2 minutes? So when you're hemming and hawing about things while talking with these folks, just know that they are literally counting the seconds, afraid for their livelihood if too many of their calls take too long.


Wow that is insane. I have never worked for a call center that had an AHT expectation of less than 600 seconds (10 minutes). [For context most of the work I have done in my adult life has been in one call center or another. I have been through 5 or 6 different call centers, 2 with outbound calls, 4 with inbound]. The last two centers I have worked at complain I don't spend enough time giving the customer personalized service because I am faster than their average (closer to 450 seconds average).


Two days later, I quit.
I had been there for only two weeks.
Of my 15-20 person training class, I was the second-last one to quit. The remaining guy was gone before 2 months.
Phone CS is hell.

So, phone CS as a general rule has a ridiculously high turnover rate. But that is, as with the AHT thing, a pretty extreme example. Clearly they have some management issues there. My experience is typically that level of turnover within 6-12 months, with the occasional person who will stick around forever (so you'll usually have a hard core of people who have been with the company for 10+ years forming about 30% of the crew, with the remaining work force rotating through constantly)

[ve4grm]

Wow that is insane. I have never worked for a call center that had an AHT expectation of less than 600 seconds (10 minutes). [For context most of the work I have done in my adult life has been in one call center or another. I have been through 5 or 6 different call centers, 2 with outbound calls, 4 with inbound]. The last two centers I have worked at complain I don't spend enough time giving the customer personalized service because I am faster than their average (closer to 450 seconds average).

Depends on the place. If you're doing tech support, it's longer. And many of our calls were just people asking us to come pick stuff up, or get a shipping quote, which are really short. But yeah, it was bull.

It may have been 3 or 4 minutes and my brain is making it worse than it was? But I don't think it was over 3.


So, phone CS as a general rule has a ridiculously high turnover rate. But that is, as with the AHT thing, a pretty extreme example. Clearly they have some management issues there. My experience is typically that level of turnover within 6-12 months, with the occasional person who will stick around forever (so you'll usually have a hard core of people who have been with the company for 10+ years forming about 30% of the crew, with the remaining work force rotating through constantly)

Yeah, it was kind of hilarious. This was a training class that was brought on a week before Christmas, the MOST stressful time of the year for a shipping company.

The company underwent a management change within a couple years. They ended up calling me (and probably a lot of other ex-employees) to try and figure out what went wrong with the old management, and maybe offer me a job back. I didn't even bother responding.

[Starwulf]

Problem is, there's an extremely high chance the person who's calling has zero control over that issue. Even if the calls aren't automatic, it's likely that the repeated calls are part of a procedure they can't not follow to the letter. It is extremely annoying, sure, but it's a system devised by the higher ups to reach peak annoyingness while leaving you an easy punching bag in the form of a desperate, underpaid employee. It's really screwed up. :smallfrown:

I would advise blocking the number after any unwanted call, it should prevent at least part of the issue.

Hmm, I was not aware of that. I have to say I feel kinda bad now for the times I've gone off on people over the last few years. I always thought it was a deliberate thing, especially after I say "Not interested, don't call back". Why the hell would their employers make them keep calling people back like that? It's insanity. Even worse for the systems where it's totally automated, you would think the higher ups would see that that particular system doesn't work, it just gets their employees yelled at.

[Seerow]

Hmm, I was not aware of that. I have to say I feel kinda bad now for the times I've gone off on people over the last few years. I always thought it was a deliberate thing, especially after I say "Not interested, don't call back". Why the hell would their employers make them keep calling people back like that? It's insanity. Even worse for the systems where it's totally automated, you would think the higher ups would see that that particular system doesn't work, it just gets their employees yelled at.

Because while it does just get the employees yelled at 95% of the time, 5% of the time they may reach someone more amenable on the callback attempt, or hit someone who accidentally hung up without intending to, or whatever other reason. And if the 5% chance of scoring a sale makes more than it costs to pay the guy at the phone to make 20 phone calls, the higher ups are going to tell them to make that call every time.

It sucks, and it is a soul crushing experience on both sides, but it all ultimately boils down to a numbers game.

[2D8HP]

...you would think the higher ups would see that that particular system doesn't work, it just gets their employees yelled at.


The theroy is that "the power of positive thinking" is supposed to make it so that "motivated" employees magically convince others to want to be hassled to buy stuff they didn't want, and if the employees don't have magic powers, then they have "attitude problems".

Usually immediate"higher-ups" are also under'the-gun for results as well, with each level in the hierarchy being chewed out by the level above and dumping on the level below, the owners typically being faceless shareholders, unless it's a small business, which in my experience means the owner is either a relatively normal person desperately trying to make payroll, or a psychopathic Ayn Rand reading "How dare you duck when I throw things at you!" boss (about 3/5th of them I've found).

See the play/movie Glengarry Glen Ross for a fictional accounting of some details.

For a non-fictional example, see the pressures upon low-level Wells Fargo employees to create new accounts, which resulted in massive fraud.

[inexorabletruth]

@comicshorse
Tell me about it. You know people who show up 5 minutes before closing know exactly what they're doing.
*slides a shot of something small but strong your way, so you can slug it down fast and get it over with*

@ve4grm
That's no coincidence, either. No matter what job I've worked, tensions are always high during the holidays and customers snap a lot quicker. I used to get the most abuse between Black Friday and New Years. Here's hoping this takes the edge off.
*fills your mug with a bitter spirit*

And to all of you in call services and telemarketing: yeesh. The worst job I ever had was in telemarketing. I hated it so much and drank about a fifth of southern comfort each night just to forget the pain of the day. This isn't good advice, but it did help. Still, my liver was grateful when I finally found a different job to get me out of that hell. So for you guys, we'll ration that out.
*pours each of you a shot of soco*

[Recherché]

This is a public service announcement for all students. In the event that you need to take an exam with your local testing center please try and remember what exam it is that you need to take. If you do not remember or forget to write it down a poor testing center employee will be forced to play 20 questions with you for the next 15 minutes trying to figure out this information. Not only will this delay the line and everyone else who's testing today but there is a chance I will still get it wrong and I will hand you the wrong test. This situation will result in me getting yelled at and you paying a $40 for an exam you don't actually need to take. So for Eris's sake please just know what test you need to take beforehand.

[WarKitty]

Honestly my job's not so bad as all that, for call center. Our turnover is lower for the industry. It's going to be high in most though because there's not a lot of opportunity for advancement. Lots of people here are working while they're in school, or until their kids get older, or until they have the work history to move on, or something. Nothing wrong with the job, just most people figure they can do better eventually. Move on to a 9-5 with a better paycheck if they can.

One big thing here is that we're an inbound sales department. People call us because they want to buy something from us. There's no cold calling. Complaints happen and things do go wrong sometimes, and sometimes you do get people who are really upset. I get a higher proportion because I'm a specialist and part of my job is to take reports when something goes wrong and let the customer know. I'm also paid more than a general agent to do that (among other things). Were also not

We also work with corporate types a lot. It's actually real fun between thanksgiving and new years, our lines are so dead. Most of our customers are using us for business travel, and they don't want to travel during the holiday season.

[Wraith]

Although I am not a citizen of the USA, I live and work in the UK and our culture and attitude towards customer service has long since caught up to that of our stateside cousins. As such, after 15 years in "front-line" retail I have a menagerie of stories about horrible people treating other people horribly in a variety of roles.

My first job, aged 16, was in a small-scale equivalent to Wallmart - we sold everything from food and clothes to furniture and mid-sized electrical items like portable TV's and DVD players.
Memorable story from that job: The guy in his 30's who took a scooter (like a skateboard but with handle-bars - they were huge in the early 2000's) off of display and got it up to full speed on an aisle; had I been 6" to the left when he went by me, he would have definitely bowled me over and possibly broken some of my bones. When I confronted him and told him to stop riding the children's toy around the shop he - in the act of putting it back onto the shelf - told me that he had brought it in with him and to go away. He then followed me down an aisle with a shopping trolley, waited until my back was turned, and deliberately rammed me face-first into the display... because he "didn't see me there".

Eventually I moved to a supermarket, at the time the biggest chain in the country, counting stock and removing perishable goods at the end of the night while studying at university. The biggest task was a process call "Potential Reductions" - every night we'd go around and find all the stock that was going out of date on the next night and take a small amount of money off, just to try and shift it before having to lose money by reducing it to nearly nothing and ultimately throwing it away.
I have lost count of the number of insults, threats, demands, tears and outright lies told to me over the equivalent of about 10 cents. I know that times can be hard, but if you have ever wrestled a loaf of break out of a shop-worker's hands in order to stop two other people from trying to do the same, you should probably re-evaluate your life.
And if you're getting banned from a supermarket on Christmas Eve for elbowing another customer in the head because you were trampling over them in order to get hold of a pack of cheap sausages... God help you.

From there I went to the store's Fishmonger, my first full-time job after graduating. I will never forget the guy who came up to me, pink in the face with anger and demanding both a full refund and to speak to my manager, because the frozen squid that I had sold him the previous week had ice in it.
Not ice in the bag, that I had dropped in to make it weigh more and thus cost more; the frozen squid that he specifically requested be frozen had ice in them which then melted so he had a net-loss in weigh when they were cooked.

I moved away from food after that and got a job as.... Well, it was called "Technical Support", but with the benefit of hindsight we were actually a sales team who were expected to troubleshoot faulty products, and offer user advice and information, without the benefit of being paid commission.
Ye Gods, where do I begin?
The guy who demanded a refund and replacement on a faulty TV, and refused to accept that we weren't going to give him either... Because he had bought the TV from a rival supermarket. Not even that the receipt said "<Rival Company>" on the header, but that the actual brand of the TV was their own, and not sold by any other company on the planet.
Being threatened with physical harm because a warranty had expired, or had never been in place to begin with.
DVDs and set-top boxes hurled across two-dozen feet and into a wall above a colleague's head.
The guy who bought a $40 refurbished laptop, brought it back 11 months later as faulty, and demanded that we either upgrade him to a brand new $500 laptop or give him a full refund for everything he had with him - including for the carry case and mouse which he had bought from ebay, and the replacement laptop casing he had bought and had installed (he wanted us to refund him for that labour cost too, by the way) because the old one was scratched.
When that was refused and told that we would only refund him for the cost of the laptop which he had originally paid to us (a process which took 40 minutes of arguing back and forth) he insisted on being allowed to return the laptop "as it was sold" and gouged at the new case with his keys and a screwdriver, apparently so that we would not be able to take "his" new laptop case and sell it ourselves.
Needless to say, we did not, never had, and never would, sell laptop components - let alone unpackaged, off-brand, used ones - and had never suggested otherwise. He was just that determined to "win" I guess.

....To be honest, I will stop there now for fear of being here all day. I've worked in retail since Tech Support and now work in a Call Centre because it's as far removed from a supermarket as can possibly be, but the tales I could tell of that job could run into the thousands of words....

"The customer is always right". I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that that statement is the motto for Selfridges Department Store in London, England. It's not law, and it's absolutely not policy of every other store in the world; it's their stupid gimmick that has gotten monstrously over-exposed. :smallsigh:

[Khedrac]

Although I am not a citizen of the USA, I live and work in the UK and our culture and attitude towards customer service has long since caught up to that of our stateside cousins. As such, after 15 years in "front-line" retail I have a menagerie of stories about horrible people treating other people horribly in a variety of roles.

My first job, aged 16, was in a small-scale equivalent to Wallmart - we sold everything from food and clothes to furniture and mid-sized electrical items like portable TV's and DVD players.
Memorable story from that job: The guy in his 30's who took a scooter (like a skateboard but with handle-bars - they were huge in the early 2000's) off of display and got it up to full speed on an aisle; had I been 6" to the left when he went by me, he would have definitely bowled me over and possibly broken some of my bones. When I confronted him and told him to stop riding the children's toy around the shop he - in the act of putting it back onto the shelf - told me that he had brought it in with him and to go away. He then followed me down an aisle with a shopping trolley, waited until my back was turned, and deliberately rammed me face-first into the display... because he "didn't see me there".
...
I would like to think that with modern attitudes of "we don't tolerate abuse of staff" that in today's supermarkets that would have resulted in the police being called and a charge of assualt being placed using the in-store cctv to back it up. At least I hope that is what would happen today (it should have happened whenever this took place).

It shocks me how much petty theft there is from UK supermarkets by otherwise "respectable" citizens (made much worse by self-checkout and scan-as-you-shop initiatives) so I suppose the abuse of staff by customers follows a pattern, albeit a horrible one.

The other day I was shopping in a supermarket when it was otherwise nearly dead so I took longer than normal chatting with the girl on the checkout (I actually mentioned this thread and the complaint about the sales clerk not saying 'thank-you' when I think it is the customer who should say 'thank-you'); what is sad is that it appeared to make her day Now I don't mind her day being boring (virtually no one in store, it is going to be boring) but a single customer being friendly and nice to her should not make anyone's day - something is badly wrong with our society and appears to be gettign worse.

I think we need to make a stand - we need to go out there and be nice to those serving us - spread some joy in the world.

[inexorabletruth]

....To be honest, I will stop there now for fear of being here all day. I've worked in retail since Tech Support and now work in a Call Centre because it's as far removed from a supermarket as can possibly be, but the tales I could tell of that job could run into the thousands of words....

Good grief! That is quite an unfortunate story. If it helps, physically abusive customers are rare... you just beat the odds. Apparently more than once. I can relate. I've been charged at, punched at, threatened with physical violence, and had things thrown at me before. One of my employees even had a gun pointed at him. But that is still spread over the span of 20 years in the industry. For you to experience that much in such a short time. Here's hoping cases like yours remain rare, or fade out of existence. Here, try this... it's rare, like you.
*pours you a chilled glass of cachaça*

[Wraith]

I would like to think that with modern attitudes of "we don't tolerate abuse of staff" that in today's supermarkets that would have resulted in the police being called and a charge of assualt being placed using the in-store cctv to back it up. At least I hope that is what would happen today (it should have happened whenever this took place).

Knowing what I know now, that was an assault and I should have had something done about it. At the time (16 years ago) I was 16 years old and working 12 hours a week at weekends, and didn't think it worth the hassle raise a complaint over something that was insulting, but not actually harmful. As I'm sure most 16 year olds feel in their first job when confronted by something they'd like to speak out about but are too worried for what little job security they have.

If I'm going to be downright honest, I was a scrawny white kid and he was a tall black guy accompanied by his wife and children, and I was too afraid that any complaint that I made would be turned against me by his "witnesses". That sort of thing was not uncommon where I grew up, as sorry as I am to say it, and the company that I worked for did not have the robust HR system and procedures that are required nowadays.

Instead, after it happened I went and asked the security guard to keep an eye on me in case it happened again, and he said that if I had told him when it happened he could have thrown the guy out. The irony was not lost on me even then.


For you to experience that much in such a short time. Here's hoping cases like yours remain rare, or fade out of existence. Here, try this... it's rare, like you.
*pours you a chilled glass of cachaça*

Thanks for saying so, 'truth - You're a sweetheart. :smallsmile:
I must confess, such encounters were realistically few and far between, and probably heat-of-the-moment things that would not even be remotely followed up on if the issue were pressed, but... well, I suppose that telling a guy that the break in his $600 plasma TV is obviously 'fist' shaped and that thrown Wii-remotes aren't covered by his warranty, put me in the firing line more often than the guy who swept the floors.
There's only so many ways to be tactful when saying "you're out £600 and it's your own fault" and you're bound to run out sooner or later. *shrug*

[JeenLeen]

I worked at a cheap theater (like the 2 bucks a ticket, movies there a few months to year after in the main theaters). We were told the attitude was the customer is generally wrong & if they don't like it, they can go somewhere else. They're paying 1.50 a ticket; they shouldn't expect good service.

Besides the lousy pay and hours, I somewhat like the service jobs I've had (mainly because we were allowed to snack when weren't busy, and I liked making people happy by serving them food. I was sad when the Mexican place I worked at closed down. Probably didn't help that some days I ate more food than I sold (technically allowed, and we had some real slow days), and some employees made dinner & took it home to their families (not allowed, but the boss was away and they had seniority, so I kept quiet.))

But I'm glad to be out of it now. The management style of that theater was stifling, though. For example:
"Soda. No ice, please."
"I'm sorry, ma'am. We're not allowed to do no ice. Would you like light ice?"
That was seriously part of the policy. I was told it was because, if we have no ice, the soda foams too much. And I tested that & it actually is true, but I think the main reason was to save money on soda syrup by using ice as a filler. Of course, it led to some people opting not to buy soda, which probably hurt revenue a lot more than wasting some syrup would have.

To the manager's credit, he did smile and was polite to customers, at least most of the time. But he'd put his foot down on anything he found an extra request (like no ice.) All in all, I enjoyed working there and was glad for what I learned and experienced.

I didn't much like working at the hardware section in a store. Not terrible, but it had plenty of annoying "let me check the back" to placate people when I was pretty sure we didn't have it in stock. And I was generally too ignorant of the merchandise to really help sell it, so I'd have to send customers to someone else. (My job was restocking & ordering stock, not sales/helping customers, but I'd be asked questions about stuff as I was stocking.)

[Fiery Diamond]

I worked at a cheap theater (like the 2 bucks a ticket, movies there a few months to year after in the main theaters). We were told the attitude was the customer is generally wrong & if they don't like it, they can go somewhere else. They're paying 1.50 a ticket; they shouldn't expect good service.

Besides the lousy pay and hours, I somewhat like the service jobs I've had (mainly because we were allowed to snack when weren't busy, and I liked making people happy by serving them food. I was sad when the Mexican place I worked at closed down. Probably didn't help that some days I ate more food than I sold (technically allowed, and we had some real slow days), and some employees made dinner & took it home to their families (not allowed, but the boss was away and they had seniority, so I kept quiet.))

But I'm glad to be out of it now. The management style of that theater was stifling, though. For example:
"Soda. No ice, please."
"I'm sorry, ma'am. We're not allowed to do no ice. Would you like light ice?"
That was seriously part of the policy. I was told it was because, if we have no ice, the soda foams too much. And I tested that & it actually is true, but I think the main reason was to save money on soda syrup by using ice as a filler. Of course, it led to some people opting not to buy soda, which probably hurt revenue a lot more than wasting some syrup would have.

To the manager's credit, he did smile and was polite to customers, at least most of the time. But he'd put his foot down on anything he found an extra request (like no ice.) All in all, I enjoyed working there and was glad for what I learned and experienced.

I didn't much like working at the hardware section in a store. Not terrible, but it had plenty of annoying "let me check the back" to placate people when I was pretty sure we didn't have it in stock. And I was generally too ignorant of the merchandise to really help sell it, so I'd have to send customers to someone else. (My job was restocking & ordering stock, not sales/helping customers, but I'd be asked questions about stuff as I was stocking.)

Speaking of stupid things like not allowing "no ice," I recently ran into something similarly idiotic at the fast food place I work at. In addition to sodas, you can also get water from the soda fountain (for free) or certain other bottled drinks (for a cost), including bottled water. If you get a small combo, replacing a soda with a bottled water is an even exchange, so no extra cost. If you get a large combo, the option on the register changes to "2 bottled waters" and charges an extra 30 cents. There is literally no possible way to put one bottled water through the system if they have a large combo, and management throws a hissy fit about their inventory being off if you put it through as anything other than bottled water and give out bottled water. So with a small combo, getting bottled water is free (well, not an extra charge), but with a large combo, it costs 30 cents extra. That's incredibly stupid.

[WarKitty]

One other peril of call centers: we occasionally get customers who call up to, well, make inappropriate requests of female employees.

[Ornithologist]

As a Fellow Retail worker, I Salute you all.

Fun Stories, that make you hate life.

My current work is at a Well Known Toy Store that is currently going out of business. Yes I got the "privilege" of wearing the Giraffe suit. To be fair I went from part time seasonal to Store HR, and then to back of house part time to lose some stress, so I at least did some good for a bit. My goal was always employees first Customers last.

One story that will haunt me for probably a long long time:

I was the closing Manager on Duty on Christmas eve. The store had just closed, and all the registers were shut down. No one was able to do any more sales and "season" (2 months of Hell) was over. My underlings who got shafted with the same shift as me were waiting for me to finish the last manager thingy or so, so we could all leave. Then the outside phone rings, and one of them answers it. (He knew better, but I think it might have been shell shock).

Customer asks for me the manager. I pick up, and find out the following story.

The customer opened layaway they picked up from us 10 days earlier (it was the last day to do that before they were all canceled, so it could have been even longer), and find there are no toys for their 4 year old Daughter. There is only a box of toys for a 9 year old. They had waited until Christmas eve to open this box and verify what they had purchased. Very assuredly someone should have opened this box when we gave it to them, but they could have done that at any time. They demand to come by and exchange toys, which we cannot do because its already closed.

So this man screams at me for about 20 minutes about how I personally am going to ruin his daughters Christmas, and he's gonna get me fired, and for F$$ks sake I better be there when he gets there or else.

I will say, most customer threats have lost their bite when you get accused of ruining a little girls Christmas. Really, I just feel bad that that girl has to deal with such horrid parents.

[Peelee]

As a Fellow Retail worker, I Salute you all.

Fun Stories, that make you hate life.

My current work is at a Well Known Toy Store that is currently going out of business. Yes I got the "privilege" of wearing the Giraffe suit.

Why bother being coy about it? If it matters to the story and you say, for instance, "a retail store with a red bullseye logo and rhymes with 'Sarget,'" then just say the name already. If it didn't matter to the story, why bother going out of your way so that everyone knows exactly where it was, especially in the most roundabout way.

Sorry, I don't mean that towards you explicitly. I just get that way every time anyone does that, and it's been bottled up for a while.

[Keltest]

The grocery store that I work at is part of a chain that runs up and down the east coast. The store I work at is called "Giant", but we also go by "Martins" because, obnoxiously, there is another grocery store chain in the same area called "Giant Eagle". No, we are not related. If there is a town with a Giant Eagle in it, our chain will almost invariably be known as Martins there. People still come into our store insisting that we honor Giant Eagle store cards and coupons and what not, and threaten to get us fired when we explain that no, this is not that store chain, there isn't even one of them in town, and we cannot accept a Giant Eagle store card at this store.

Bonus points because we are a college town, and therefore get a number of parents of college students from out of town who insist that they are smarter than we are and know better than we do what company we work for.

[Leecros]

I work for a fairly large variety store (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_store) chain. I actually haven't been working there too long. It's been a little over a month.

In many ways, I am very fortunate with where I work. Not only is the store small, but there are two other stores from the same chain within a mile and a Wal'mart right up the road. So it's not a busy store and most of the people who visit are older folk who tend not to be as jerkish(although some of them can be rude).

I'm fortunate in the sense that I haven't had any problems with the customers. However, I did dodge a bullet just last week.

There's a couple that comes in every week or so and buys 4 bottles of soda. Well, last week they called ahead and asked us to bring a fuzzy pillow that's been sitting in the store for some promotional thing up to the front because they wanted to buy it.

Well, over the trip to the store, the Husband decided that he didn't want the pillow. They brought their 4 bottles of soda up to the counter and they argued with each other hard over whether to get the pillow or the soda and it ended with the wife in tears.

I was just standing there awkwardly waiting for them to decide what they wanted because I didn't want to ring something up just for them to change their minds, because then I'd have to call the manager and go through that process.

So finally the Husband told her to take one of the bottles of soda back and while she was gone he quickly said "I don't want the pillow. Just ring up the soda."

I went through with it, he paid, and they left. I awkwardly looked at my assistant manager(who was stocking the cigarette case while all this was going down) and asked him what I should do in those situations and he encouraged me and said I did fine.

Half an hour or so passes and the husband calls and says that I rang up four bottles of soda and they only got three. Now I swear that I only rang out the three bottles that were there. I made it a point to because I knew how sensitive the situation was. We try to keep our customers happy and our assistant manager asks them to come back in and he'll take care of it.

They never show.

They never show until a week later when they come back for their weekly Soda and no receipt from the incident on a day where neither the Manager or Assistant Manager was working.

The only person there was our Key Holder and she neither had the authority nor the temper to handle the situation tentatively. Based on her account it wasn't a pleasant argument. They claimed that she thought they were lying and were thieves when she explained that she didn't have the authority to do what they wanted.

It sort of sounds to me like they were trying to pull the wool over our eyes, because they always get 4 bottles of soda and this time they got 3 so they wanted to see if they could get a free one, but I only have her recount of the story and she's the type of person who's always the victim.

Anyway, that was the day she quit. I mean, she stayed on for a couple of extra days so that she could tell the manager directly that she quits. Enough for me to speak with her about the situation and what happened, but then she just walked out. No 2 weeks notice or anything.

Now that might not be so bad if we hadn't already lost two employees the same week(one transfer and one already had given her two weeks notice) and were already short a Key Holder(tried to get Worker's Comp and never came back).

So a store which should have:

1 Manager
1 Assistant Manager
2 Key Holders
3 Sales Associates(at least)

Currently has
1 Manager
1 Assistant Manager
1 Sales Associate
1 Trainee Associate

Needless to say, my hours have doubled.:smallsigh:

At least I might get considered for Key Holder status, but I'm not holding my breath due to my current lack of experience.


My current work is at a Well Known Toy Store that is currently going out of business.
I was kind of...profoundly sad when I had to pull down the "Well Known Toy Store that is currently going out of business." gift cards from the store.

It's probably for the best though. That name was difficult to fit on the card.:smallamused:

The grocery store that I work at is part of a chain that runs up and down the east coast. The store I work at is called "Giant", but we also go by "Martins" because, obnoxiously, there is another grocery store chain in the same area called "Giant Eagle".


Wait...Giant and Martin's are the same chain?!?

But...there's a Giant in my hometown

And a Martin's up the road!

My brain!!!

[Peelee]

The grocery store that I work at is part of a chain that runs up and down the east coast. The store I work at is called "Giant", but we also go by "Martins" because, obnoxiously, there is another grocery store chain in the same area called "Giant Eagle". No, we are not related. If there is a town with a Giant Eagle in it, our chain will almost invariably be known as Martins there. People still come into our store insisting that we honor Giant Eagle store cards and coupons and what not, and threaten to get us fired when we explain that no, this is not that store chain, there isn't even one of them in town, and we cannot accept a Giant Eagle store card at this store.

Bonus points because we are a college town, and therefore get a number of parents of college students from out of town who insist that they are smarter than we are and know better than we do what company we work for.



Wait...Giant and Martin's are the same chain?!?

But...there's a Giant in my hometown

And a Martin's up the road!

My brain!!!

OK, you fancy Northerners who are too good for Winn-Dixie and Publix. After some research, I'm assuming that the Giant is Giant-Landover (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-Landover), and Martin's is Giant-Carlisle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-Carlisle). Also, after a quick glance at the wikis, if I was in Martin's and somebody was insisting that it was a Giant's, I'd act all surprised that I apparently suddenly joined a union.

Also, I miss Bruno's.

[Leecros]

OK, you fancy Northerners who are too good for Winn-Dixie and Publix. After some research, I'm assuming that the Giant is Giant-Landover (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-Landover), and Martin's is Giant-Carlisle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-Carlisle). Also, after a quick glance at the wikis, if I was in Martin's and somebody was insisting that it was a Giant's, I'd act all surprised that I apparently suddenly joined a union.

Also, I miss Bruno's.

At least in my situation, both stores are run by Giant-Carlisle. That's based on the logo and the name.

[Peelee]

At least in my situation, both stores are run by Giant-Carlisle. That's based on the logo and the name.

....that does not help the confusion, I'd wager.

[Seerow]

OK, you fancy Northerners who are too good for Winn-Dixie and Publix. After some research, I'm assuming that the Giant is Giant-Landover (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-Landover), and Martin's is Giant-Carlisle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant-Carlisle). Also, after a quick glance at the wikis, if I was in Martin's and somebody was insisting that it was a Giant's, I'd act all surprised that I apparently suddenly joined a union.

Also, I miss Bruno's.

As someone who spent his teenage years in Lakeland, I always get a mixture of confused and sad when people from other parts of the country have never heard of Publix.

[WarKitty]

Around here it's Wawa.

[Peelee]

As someone who spent his teenage years in Lakeland, I always get a mixture of confused and sad when people from other parts of the country have never heard of Publix.

It's the only place I can find chicken prosciutto tortellini anymore. And the deli is just delightful for lunch. I'd do all my grocery shopping there if I could afford it. Well, except for the bulk items I get at Costco. And the meats and cheeses and spices from Restaurant Depot.

I take it back. I'd do all my grocery shopping at Restaurant Depot if I had enough fridges and freezers.

[Khedrac]

And over in the UK (possibly until a couple of months ago) we have the same problem with "The Co-operative" (or, as everyone calls it, "The Co-op").

Now being a co-operative there are actually a lot of separate companies involved, but there are (or possibly were) two main networks, using identical branding, but not accepting each other's loyalty cards. I only found this out when stopping at one in a town which has two to be told that my loyalty card (got because I took out their credit card, not because I shop there) was for the other one in town (the one with the less convenient parking).

Of course, all this ignores the local Co-ops that are not afiliated with the national chains at all.

Recently I have seen a number of Co-op stores being rebranded (new name) so one of the chains may have just changed, but I won't know until I go into one again...

[2D8HP]

As someone who spent his teenage years in Lakeland, I always get a mixture of confused and sad when people from other parts of the country have never heard of Publix.


Around here it's Wawa.


Never heard of either.

Around here the big supermarkets/grocery stores are Safeway and Lucky (which used to be known as Alpha Beta, and briefly as Albertsons), but they're not many Lucky's around anymore.

What's been popping up a lot are Sprouts (a chain I never say until a year ago), Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods.

Whole Foods is often referred to as "whole paycheck" and one time when we drove by my wife looked at their full parking lot and said: "Look at all those stupid ***** people".

[WarKitty]

Never heard of either.

Around here the big supermarkets/grocery stores are Safeway and Lucky (which used to be known as Alpha Beta, and briefly as Albertsons), but they're not many Lucky's around anymore.

What's been popping up a lot are Sprouts (a chain I never say until a year ago), Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods.

Whole Foods is often referred to as "whole paycheck" and one time when we drove by my wife looked at their full parking lot and said: "Look at all those stupid ***** people".

Wawa's more like someone combined a gas station and a deli. It's pretty good for what it is - and they're open like all the time, which makes them a favorite of people who work long hours and just want someone to feed them.

[Keltest]

....that does not help the confusion, I'd wager.

Ding ding ding!
In PA both Giant and Martins are Giant-Carlisle. We do get some Marylanders who have cards from Giant-Landover, which is basically the same store under the same parent company, but their cards do not work for our machines either, for some reason. People are justifiably upset when we explain why their card isn't working, but its usually a one minute fix to get them most of the benefits.

[Peelee]

Never heard of either.

Around here the big supermarkets/grocery stores are Safeway and Lucky (which used to be known as Alpha Beta, and briefly as Albertsons), but they're not many Lucky's around anymore.

What's been popping up a lot are Sprouts (a chain I never say until a year ago), Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods.

Whole Foods is often referred to as "whole paycheck" and one time when we drove by my wife looked at their full parking lot and said: "Look at all those stupid ***** people".

Well, I was deliberately pulling out regional chains, though I was admittedly surprised Publix wasn't national; they very easily could be. It's a slightly more upscale grocery store, with the biggest emphasis I've ever seen on customer service. The employees will bend over backwards to help, and it is very noticeable. The chain prides itself on that. They also are pricier than every other place, so I don't go as often as I'd like. If you ever see one, I highly recommend it.

Sprouts I like a lot, especially since my doctor put me on what I call the "don't be poor, *******" diet. Short version, if it's inexpensive, I'm probably not allowed to eat it. Red meat is in the banned list, but wild game isnt, so I can totally have the kangaroo and bison meat they got at Sprouts.

Costco I love for so many reasons, not the least of which is how they treat their employees. But it's hard to talk about that without it turning political, so I'll just leave it at their food court. I almost changed locations at one of my jobs just so I could be in walking distance of the Costco, solely so I could eat there for lunch. Would have saved a ton of money, I tell ya.

I never thought any place would topple Costco as my favorite, but then I discovered the Birmingham Restaurant Depot self to the general public, and it's the greatest thing ever. Sliced meat is the biggest racket, I'm telling you. I can't believe the mafia never got into that. I got me a nice meat slicer, (well, my wife got me an upgraded one for Christmas the other year), and the in-laws got us a dedicated freezer as a housewarming gift. Thirty dollars for a five pound prosciutto hock. FIVE POUNDS! It's a deal, it's a steal, it's the sale of the flippin century. In fact, I think I'll keep it.

And that's not even talking about the roast beef and pastrami hocks I get on the clearance rack. Slice em up, bag em up, freeze the bags, and I have perpetually one-week-from-expiry roast beef for months, at a fraction of the price. I've gotten boneless skinless chicken thighs for buck a pound, spareribs for less than $1/lb, ribeye hocks at under $5/lb... You can cut your own steaks to any thickness you want, and at amazing prices. These are the halcyon days of my middle-age, I tells ya!

[Ornithologist]

Why bother being coy about it? If it matters to the story and you say, for instance, "a retail store with a red bullseye logo and rhymes with 'Sarget,'" then just say the name already. If it didn't matter to the story, why bother going out of your way so that everyone knows exactly where it was, especially in the most roundabout way.

Sorry, I don't mean that towards you explicitly. I just get that way every time anyone does that, and it's been bottled up for a while.

Worse, I tend to agree with you. But I know many retail places will fire you for any "perceived" negative press on social media. It was something I always told people I hired for the store, " If you post something bad and corporate finds out they can fire you without me getting any say in the matter." If you have to post pictures from work make sure either no one is in uniform, or you can't tell its our company.

We had one employee get fired for bad pictures, and that was an awful thing to have to hand down. So I recommend everyone do behavior I dislike, because its better than nothing.

[Peelee]

Worse, I tend to agree with you. But I know many retail places will fire you for any "perceived" negative press on social media. It was something I always told people I hired for the store, " If you post something bad and corporate finds out they can fire you without me getting any say in the matter." If you have to post pictures from work make sure either no one is in uniform, or you can't tell its our company.

We had one employee get fired for bad pictures, and that was an awful thing to have to hand down. So I recommend everyone do behavior I dislike, because its better than nothing.

I totally get that. More often than not, it can be defines to name the store. Which is why I find it odd that people will still try to specify which please it is; for instance, in my aforementioned "rhymes with sarget" bit, not explicitly naming the place offers virtually no protection. And even if it did, it's often not important to the story, and just makes more clutter. And honesty, this is just a years-too-late rant from when I stopped reading Notalwaysright due to constantly declining quality. The Target example is most word for word something I'd seen on there at one point.

[WarKitty]

I totally get that. More often than not, it can be defines to name the store. Which is why I find it odd that people will still try to specify which please it is; for instance, in my aforementioned "rhymes with sarget" bit, not explicitly naming the place offers virtually no protection. And even if it did, it's often not important to the story, and just makes more clutter. And honesty, this is just a years-too-late rant from when I stopped reading Notalwaysright due to constantly declining quality. The Target example is most word for word something I'd seen on there at one point.

It's meant to defeat automatic searches. So a lot of companies will have a bot out there that trawls the web for new mentions of their company. But they won't pick up if the actual name isn't used, so unless an actual human who cares happens to stumble on the site it won't be noticed.

[Peelee]

It's meant to defeat automatic searches. So a lot of companies will have a bot out there that trawls the web for new mentions of their company. But they won't pick up if the actual name isn't used, so unless an actual human who cares happens to stumble on the site it won't be noticed.

Five bucks says target includes "bull's-eye" in their automated searches.

[Douglas]

Whole Foods is often referred to as "whole paycheck" and one time when we drove by my wife looked at their full parking lot and said: "Look at all those stupid ***** people".
I don't shop at Whole Foods much, but I do occasionally go there to get certain niche products that just plain aren't available anywhere else that I know of in my area. For example, my preferred flavors of non-dairy ice cream.

[Telonius]

Different kind of customer service here; technical help desk at a science journal. Any time somebody's files aren't loading correctly, I'm the guy that gets the message. So it's my job to make computer files do what authors want them to do, despite not being designed for that. Fixing the same wretched problem over and over can get mind-numbing, but at least I have some interesting papers to read while I'm doing it.

I think it's partially because of the industry, partially because it's a pretty prestigious journal, but real horror stories are kind of rare. A few really stick out though. Once in a very long time, we get a scientist whose ego is bigger than the page limit, and who just doesn't get that no, we aren't going to change our submission guidelines just for you. One case a few years back, we had a fairly well-known scientist (not a household name by any means, but known to people in the field) who called in so irate, and treated the staff so abusively, that we actually banned them from submitting for a few years. The Editor in Chief actually called this person personally and let them know that.

I think that's an important part of making customer service much less miserable; feeling like you have some agency and that the management will have your back if it's something really terrible.

[Leecros]

I think that's an important part of making customer service much less miserable; feeling like you have some agency and that the management will have your back if it's something really terrible.

Sadly, while I know management has my back. I also know that corporate does not. They very much treat us all like little thieves. They have cameras all throughout the store and have made it clear that it's not to catch customers doing something wrong, but to catch us doing something wrong. Whether it's shoplifting or not doing our jobs at the scheduled periods or whatever. While the cameras can be used to catch customers doing bad things, they've made it clear that they can access the camera feed at any time.

We also can't ring out family members and when we ring out other employees we have to sign the receipt. At the end of the night, if an employee has a lunch bag or something like that another employee has to check it in front of a camera. If we bring anything from the outside that we also sell in the store, it has to be clearly marked as from home and we have to show it to the cameras every time we enter the Sales Floor.

This attitude is cemented in our CBL(computer-based Learning) training where the company constantly emphasizes that most shrink (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkage_(accounting)) is from employee theft. That might be true, but that's not a reason to treat all of your employees like criminals and that's exactly how I feel some days walking into the store with cameras everywhere and corporate threatening the possibility of watching my every move.

And they still owe me a paycheck from two weeks ago! I can't actually get ahold of anyone to actually sort it out!:smallfurious:

[Peelee]

And they still owe me a paycheck from two weeks ago! I can't actually get ahold of anyone to actually sort it out!:smallfurious:

I recommend going to your GM and saying, "look, if you can't get me this paycheck, I'm pretty sure the Department of Labor can."

[razorback]

I recommend going to your GM and saying, "look, if you can't get me this paycheck, I'm pretty sure the Department of Labor can."

Trying to keep away from the legal advise, so do a Google search (https://www.google.com/search?q=employer+penalties+for+not+giving+paychec k&rlz=1C1CHZL_enUS750US750&oq=employer+penalties+for+not+giving+paycheck&aqs=chrome..69i57.606j0j9&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) regarding the penalties for not providing a check in a timely manner (http://employment.findlaw.com/wages-and-benefits/payday-laws-overview.html).

That ain't right.

[tomandtish]

The grocery store that I work at is part of a chain that runs up and down the east coast. The store I work at is called "Giant", but we also go by "Martins" because, obnoxiously, there is another grocery store chain in the same area called "Giant Eagle". No, we are not related. If there is a town with a Giant Eagle in it, our chain will almost invariably be known as Martins there. People still come into our store insisting that we honor Giant Eagle store cards and coupons and what not, and threaten to get us fired when we explain that no, this is not that store chain, there isn't even one of them in town, and we cannot accept a Giant Eagle store card at this store.

Bonus points because we are a college town, and therefore get a number of parents of college students from out of town who insist that they are smarter than we are and know better than we do what company we work for.

Relevant strips begin here (http://www.leftoversoup.com/archive.php?num=681). Note: These comics are OK, but some in the strip overall may be NSFW.

[Keltest]

Relevant strips begin here (http://www.leftoversoup.com/archive.php?num=681). Note: These comics are OK, but some in the strip overall may be NSFW.

Ive never had anything like that happen to me personally (rather inexplicably to be honest), but I have seen several people absolutely freak out about the requirements Western Union has. Its rather baffling how many people don't realize that no, you cannot collect money on behalf of another person, and a voice over a phone does not count as valid identification.

I cant decide if people leave me alone because I have a nice face that looks like I'm genuinely trying my best to help them, or because I look like I live in the mountains and wrestle bears to death for sustenance. Or both.

[inexorabletruth]

*slides some tall frosty mugs down the bar*

@Telonius
I'm glad you don't experience the darker side of service often. It's nice to hear that your boss has your back when things get weird, too. Although it isn't fair for me to do so, always expect more from the scientific or religious community (I suppose a leader in a community really), so it is a special kind of disappointment when they show their uglier sides.
*fills your frosty mug with a heady brew*

@Leecros
Wow, that's... invasive. It's pretty normal for security cameras to keep an eye on the staff, but your company takes it to the next level. And I know your pain on the paychecks. The last company I worked for, the junior executive of the company blatantly stated they weren't going to pay me my last two paychecks because I had submitted my resignation, and they didn't appreciate that. I quit because I was being harassed at work, and the company didn't want to do anything about it. I can't help you out with money, but I can do this...
*pours you something bold, golden, and richly flavored*

@Keltest
Working in college towns can be rough like that. And oddly, it doesn't always churn the brightest clientele. It sucks to be condescended to, especially when you are actually not the one acting foolishly. It's not always obvious to the customer, but some really bright minds work in service. I've had coworkers who had degrees (or were working on their degrees) in science, medicine, business, law, education, history, humanities, and a variety of other fields. I've had team members who were straight A students in high school, and dean's list students in college. One of my cashiers was technically a rocket scientist. It is an act of pure hubris to think that just because someone works in service that they aren't smart enough to do their job. Anyway, here's a nice local brew. I hope you like it.
*pours you something most people never heard of, then adjusts hipster glasses*

[Keltest]

@Keltest
Working in college towns can be rough like that. And oddly, it doesn't always churn the brightest clientele. It sucks to be condescended to, especially when you are actually not the one acting foolishly. It's not always obvious to the customer, but some really bright minds work in service. I've had coworkers who had degrees (or were working on their degrees) in science, medicine, business, law, education, history, humanities, and a variety of other fields. I've had team members who were straight A students in high school, and dean's list students in college. One of my cashiers was technically a rocket scientist. It is an act of pure hubris to think that just because someone works in service that they aren't smart enough to do their job. Anyway, here's a nice local brew. I hope you like it.
*pours you something most people never heard of, then adjusts hipster glasses*

One of our deli workers actually recently got his PHD. So now we can page Doctor Clark to the deli, and to answer the phone.

[Peelee]

One of our deli workers actually recently got his PHD. So now we can page Doctor Clark to the deli, and to answer the phone.

Man, job requirements have gotten ridiculous these days.

[Wraith]

Never heard of either.

Around here the big supermarkets/grocery stores are Safeway and Lucky (which used to be known as Alpha Beta, and briefly as Albertsons), but they're not many Lucky's around anymore.

Just to make matters especially confusing; Safeway used to have a franchise in Britain which was sold off in 1987, but kept the name "Safeway" until it was bought out by another supermarket in 2004.

So if you mentioned "Safeway" to us, you'll be told on no uncertain terms that they a) went completely out of business b) only exist in America and c) never heard of them, what are you talking about? :smalltongue:


But I know many retail places will fire you for any "perceived" negative press on social media. It was something I always told people I hired for the store, " If you post something bad and corporate finds out they can fire you without me getting any say in the matter." If you have to post pictures from work make sure either no one is in uniform, or you can't tell its our company.

I can confirm that the 'negative press' doesn't even have to feature the company name or brand directly. There was a case in Britain a few years ago where someone made unpleasant remarks on their Facebook - not about work or the company, just generally unpleasant - and because they had "Tesco" (the supermarket where I used to work) listed as their employer, their contract was ended to prevent their attitude from being connected to the brand.

It was upheld too, since they weren't "fired" but just didn't have their contract renewed after their probation period was up. In hindsight it was probably bad netiquette for them to have a public Facebook profile while on probation, but it proved the lengths that people go to when looking for this sort of thing.

....But only when it suits them, of course. Tesco have ended contracts for "Social Media violations" more than once, but a couple of years ago one of the stores independently organised a Christmas music video, where after-hours the staff came in and danced around the building to Gangnam Style while a fat guy dressed as Santa was "chased" by the security team.
Despite the crotch-thrusting and the wiggled butts that Gangnam Style is known for - in uniform and with name tags, no less - the video went around the company and was praised by corporate as being a good example of "fun at work" (which was the title of a corporately mandated programme wherein stores had to complete a minimum number of allotted "fun activities" each year. Thank you indeed, Friend Computer.... :smallannoyed: )

Frankly I'm one of the least Christmassy people that you might ever meet and I thoroughly enjoyed the insane irreverence for the holiday encapsulated within the video, but it's very hard to imagine that such a thing wouldn't also receive a lot of complaints from staff and customers alike.

[Leecros]

Well, for those wondering, I did get my paycheck. The bank deposited it into the wrong account and we got it worked out.


I'm still not convinced that the company I work for is doing everything right when it comes to payroll. I was stonewalled three different times when I asked for any kind of information that would actually allow the bank to find the money easily, but at least it was found...

After they pretty much went through every transaction for that day...

[Ornithologist]

That's good they got you squared away.

1st Rule of Retail management - Don't screw up Payroll. We have such little benefits or perks, if that gets messed up people will just walk out.

The GM I worked under longest, he kept about a thousand dollars cash of his own money on hand in case of an emergency when someone didn't get paid by corporate.

I saw him use it once, but he knew the rule so it was rare.

That being said, not everyone is so lucky. (using a very specific definition of lucky, since this is retail).

[Keltest]

That's good they got you squared away.

1st Rule of Retail management - Don't screw up Payroll. We have such little benefits or perks, if that gets messed up people will just walk out.

The GM I worked under longest, he kept about a thousand dollars cash of his own money on hand in case of an emergency when someone didn't get paid by corporate.

I saw him use it once, but he knew the rule so it was rare.

That being said, not everyone is so lucky. (using a very specific definition of lucky, since this is retail).

Not sure if this is the second rule or an addendum to the first, but Don't Screw Up Scheduling either. Many people working retail are either living paycheck to paycheck, and therefore need to be able to predict how many hours (and therefore how much money) they get in a week/month/year, or have very specific availabilities where they again need to be able to predict their schedules reasonably well. You botch the schedule up, and people will leave on the spot, as our COM is starting to learn.

[Leecros]

The GM I worked under longest, he kept about a thousand dollars cash of his own money on hand in case of an emergency when someone didn't get paid by corporate.


Fortunately my manager was willing to pay me out of his own pocket, but that doesn't change the fact that he should have to and how unwilling the company was to actually help figure out what the problem was disappoints me greatly.

[darkrose50]

I am an insurance agent.

Me: I can look you up in our system with A or B.

Caller: I don’t have A, can you find me with C.

Me: No C is the name of a product.

Caller: I have D, can you look me up with D?

Me: I can look you up in our system with A or B.

Caller: Can’t you use C?

Me: No, that would be like calling Toyota, and telling them you have a Corolla. They would not be able to find you in their system with that information.

Caller: But I need to make my payment by the first.

Me: You may make your payment up to 30-days past your effective date.

Caller: I have not received any paper work yet.

Me: It will take 5-10 business days to get the paperwork done.

Caller: I want to make a payment.

Me: You cannot make your payment without the paperwork first getting done.

Caller: I don’t want to get canceled.

Me: You may make your payment up to 30-days past your effective date. This is how the process works for everyone.

. . . I am quite sure I left out 5-6 more “You may make your payment up to 30-days past your effective date” lines in there.

-------

I was working on a return to sales charge request where the guy wanted to remove his son from his insurance as he went off to college and was covered at school. The charge request would not go though because his son's SSN on the form did not match the one in the system. However it would go though just fine if he left the SSN fields blank . . ..

[darkrose50]

Well, for those wondering, I did get my paycheck. The bank deposited it into the wrong account and we got it worked out.


I'm still not convinced that the company I work for is doing everything right when it comes to payroll. I was stonewalled three different times when I asked for any kind of information that would actually allow the bank to find the money easily, but at least it was found...

After they pretty much went through every transaction for that day...

I once worked for Comcast doing tech support (internet for customers, and then the VOIP phones for field technicians). There were three people in the company with the same name as mine. One left the company and I stopped getting a pay-check. I thought it was funny, but HR had a heart attack.

[WarKitty]

I am an insurance agent.

Me: I can look you up in our system with A or B.

Caller: I don’t have A, can you find me with C.

Me: No C is the name of a product.

Caller: I have D, can you look me up with D?

Me: I can look you up in our system with A or B.

Caller: Can’t you use C?

Me: No, that would be like calling Toyota, and telling them you have a Corolla. They would not be able to find you in their system with that information.

Caller: But I need to make my payment by the first.

Me: You may make your payment up to 30-days past your effective date.

Caller: I have not received any paper work yet.

Me: It will take 5-10 business days to get the paperwork done.

Caller: I want to make a payment.

Me: You cannot make your payment without the paperwork first getting done.

Caller: I don’t want to get canceled.

Me: You may make your payment up to 30-days past your effective date. This is how the process works for everyone.

. . . I am quite sure I left out 5-6 more “You may make your payment up to 30-days past your effective date” lines in there.

-------

I was working on a return to sales charge request where the guy wanted to remove his son from his insurance as he went off to college and was covered at school. The charge request would not go though because his son's SSN on the form did not match the one in the system. However it would go though just fine if he left the SSN fields blank . . ..

Reminds me of an annoying part of my job. I need to talk to travel agents periodically and ask them questions about what they booked. They have particular information they use to look up trips. They don't give us any of this information, but then get frustrated when I don't provide it (and then things go wrong because we can't find the trip to fix it).

[Chen]

. . . I am quite sure I left out 5-6 more “You may make your payment up to 30-days past your effective date” lines in there.

Did the person understand what effective date even means? If I had this sentence repeated to me verbatim I’d be upset too.

[darkrose50]

Did the person understand what effective date even means? If I had this sentence repeated to me verbatim I’d be upset too.

The date the policy starts.

The government sends these poor people an email saying that they need to pay by their effective date or be cancelled. Unfortunately that is not the case. This is likely the legal case, as in an insurance company may do this. We don't do this because we want customers (I assume), and we want to have their account ready in all the systems before taking this kind of payment (Affordable Care Act Marketplace applications, where the applicant selected the option to pay later, and did not enter payment information at the time the application was submitted). The government works with quite a lot of different insurance producers.

I apologize to the applicant, explain how our system works, and ~8/10 people get it the first time I explain it. This lady took the prize. It can be a difficult idea to process that the company is in charge of when it terminates someone for nonpayment. I get about 2-4 such calls per day.

Someone could call on 03-30-2018, get an effective date of 04-01-2018, and be approved on 04-13-2018. The government sending them a letter saying that they must pay by the 1st or they will get cancelled panics people. I am not even in billing (I am in sales) and I get 2-4 of these calls a day (or similar).

With all other forms of applications it is the law to submit payment for the first month along with the application as it makes the contract legal. This is called consideration. Without payment, normally, an insurance application that is otherwise filled out is not an insurance contract.

[2D8HP]

Customer: "I want an air filter for motorcycle"

Me: "What kind of motorcycle do you have?"

Customer: "A red one".

[Peelee]

Customer: "I want an air filter for motorcycle"

Me: "What kind of motorcycle do you have?"

Customer: "A red one".

Customer: "I need a CPAP mask"
Me: "What kind do you like?"
Customer: "The nose one."

Funny thing is, I always say that's like if you wanted to get new tires for you car and saying "a sedan" when they ask what kind of car.

[darkrose50]

Customer: I want a healthcare policy like this one, but with a lower premium, and the same benefits.
Me: . . .

----

Customer: I know that it is less than 24-hours till the deadline, that I spent 30-minutes waiting to talk to you, but I want to ask a bunch of questions, and I am not ready to enroll.
Me: <thinking that I am not customer service> I can email you a brochure. <The crewel thing to do would be to transfer her to customer service, but I try to be nice.>
Customer: Why cant you answer my questions?
Me: There are 64-people in the queue who need to apply for insurance before the deadline.
Customer: But I am just as important.
Me: . . . <thinking, no you are not . . . you wait till the last day, want to take up my time, and this is not my job this time of the year . . . other times of the year I can help you till the cows come home, but not now>

[2D8HP]

Customer: I want a healthcare policy like this one, but with a lower premium, and the same benefits.
Me: . . .


....I also want a pony.

[Peelee]

Customer: I want a healthcare policy like this one, but with a lower premium, and the same benefits.
Me: . . .


Customer: Hey, I have two insurances.
Me: Oh, cool. Which one is your primary?
Customer: You tell me.
No, that's not how this works. You tell me. It's your insurance, you are the one who got it, and I'm not going to waste three hours trying to call potentially five different companies across three states just because you can't spend five minutes calling the patient advocate and asking if they are your primary.

[Traab]

Having worked in an outbound center before, typically it's on an auto dialer where there's no control over who gets called next. Especially when the person in question hangs up immediately before there's a chance to go through whatever the procedure is to remove the person called from the list (That said if it happens more than twice in a row the person in the call center is probably not doing something right, even if it's just not using ACW). Though I suspect this would vary a lot based on the company in question. Some outbound centers are little more than quasi-legal scams, while others are pretty strictly regulated.

I will admit to having fun with the scam ones. I won't shout at them or anything, but I've kept an alleged Microsoft Tech Support Agent on the line for a couple of hours playing the role of technical incompetent as he tried to walk me through how to download a load of spyware on my computer.


In either case, I am grateful to be in a role where I only answer phones 3 days a week now, and none of that is outbound. The worst role I had was tech support for AT&T, because people get very touchy when their phones don't work, and don't like it when you can't find a resolution in under 5 minutes. Or the most haunting calls were the ones coming in at 2am from worried parents wanting us to track their suicidal children's phones (for the record: If you are ever in this situation, do not call your phone company, call the police. The front line reps at the phone company can't track your phone for privacy and legal reasons. The police are able to put in requests through the correct channels when it is deemed necessary). Those sorts of experiences are why I never looked into working as a 911 operator.


I worked as a telemarketer once. This one poor woman I called with the autodialer was FROTHING with rage. Turns out somehow she had been called by us SIX TIMES THAT DAY! And yes, had stayed on the line long enough to be taken off the call list. Of course, I also found out this scummy company only pretended to do so. Just one reason among many I barely lasted 2 months there.

[darkrose50]

I worked as a telemarketer once. This one poor woman I called with the autodialer was FROTHING with rage. Turns out somehow she had been called by us SIX TIMES THAT DAY! And yes, had stayed on the line long enough to be taken off the call list. Of course, I also found out this scummy company only pretended to do so. Just one reason among many I barely lasted 2 months there.

We help billing sometimes. This, more or less, translates into calling people and saying "Hey, pay your dammed bill." By the time we get the list they have been called a mess of times. There are duplicates of this list, and people could literally get called 2-3 times by different people on the same day. It is annoying for everyone involved. I can certainly find better things to do. I could be looking for leads, studying, or preparing my list of contacts for our busy season (quite important), but I can be given a list of normally 100 people (rarely thousands) to call and annoy. We get a list like this or similar every week or so (we would get one every 2-days or so during the summer of hell), and they usually take about two hours (if you are super good at it), sometimes more, depending. Getting a hold of someone who has forgotten to pay one month is a lot easier than getting a hold of someone three months behind, for example.

-----

I wasted two weeks do the following:

[1] Cold calling individuals aged 65+ asking them for their SSN.
[2] Cold calling individuals aged 65+ asking them for their credit card information.
[3] Once I got someone to enroll I would email these individuals aged 65+ an application as our computer system would not let us enroll someone 65+ over the phone . . . and then not get credit as the client never told us the application was sent in (to the fax or email that is on the damned fool application no less).
[4] If I left a message, and they called back, then my co-workers would ~100% of the time consistently transfer them to me while unavailable (big red stoplight in the phone system) FOR WEEKS. My co-workers were supposed to send me an email, but did not, because no one followed the procedure.
[5] It was absolute TORTURE. I lost all of my sanity points on that project.

[darkrose50]

Customer: Can you read me the insurance product table over the phone. so that I can recreate it with pen and paper.
Me: . . .

HONEST TO GOD people want you to read them a TABLE! OVER THE PHONE! SO THAT THEY CAN REMAKE IT! We have eyes for that and we have tables to look at for that. This is crazy super common, and these people are not sight impaired.

[2D8HP]

We help billing sometimes. This, more or less, translates into calling people and saying "Hey, pay your dammed bill...


A former co-worker (Roy, so sometimes I imagine the OotS Roy as my former co-worker) would take these calls on his cell phone during lunch, and his responses would floor us laughing:

"Nah, I'm not going to pay you the money, y'all the ones stupid enough to give it to me, if you'd look at my record you'd know not to do that, so you out"

True words of wisdom!

I seldom get live people anymore, but when I still had a land line and was listed in the phone book (early mid 1990's) I got a lot of calls from "creditors" wanting to be paid money that I didn't owe.

Once a creditor called me a different middle name, and with a couple hours on the web (this was when we had dial up so it often took many minutes for a page to load) I found the guy who I suspect the creditors were looking for, he was a decade older thsn me, and lived one city over.

Before I permanently unplugged the land line, when "creditors" called demanding payment, I'd say "You say I owe you money, what's my middle name then?"

[AMFV]

I wasted two weeks do the following:

[1] Cold calling individuals aged 65+ asking them for their SSN.

To be fair, I never give out my SSN to anybody that calls me, ever. Like if somebody claims to be from some place I owe money to, I tell them that I will call them back. Then I call them at the number listed on their website or on the paper bill. There are too many leaks for that kind of stuff.



[2] Cold calling individuals aged 65+ asking them for their credit card information.

Same as the above. And even more here since a lot of times I pay for things like medical bills with debit cards, which are difficult to prove fraud on. I really don't like to use those over the phone.

[Starwulf]

Once a creditor called me a different middle name, and with a couple hours on the web (this was when we had dial up so it often took many minutes for a page to load) I found the guy who I suspect the creditors were looking for, he was a decade older thsn me, and lived one city over.


There are 2 other people in my general area with my same name(the entire thing, which is weird, because neither of them are even related to me, oddly enough), and back about 14 years ago I got a call on Christmas day from a debt collection agency that started out asking for *my name* and I was like "This is him" and they started getting really rude, demanding that I pay them X amount of money that I owed them or they were going to call the police and have me arrested. I had to repeat that I owed nobody any money, that I didn't even have a credit card or a car payment(at the time) like 4 or 5 times before they stopped demanding that I pay them. Finally they were like "Do you live in X area", and I was like "Well, I'm about 2 hours away from there" "Oh, so you are the one who owes us expletive money" "No sir I'm not, and I don't appreciate you yelling at me and cussing me out on Christmas expletive day" "Is the last 2 digits of your SSN XX" "Nope, not at all, they are XX". "Oh, so you aren't the *my name* we're looking for. But you must be related to, I demand you give me their phone # right now" "Sorry, I don't know who the hell they are, and I certainly don't have their phone #, now if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to celebrating Christmas with my family, and if you call me again, I'll be the one calling the police for harassment". They hung up without even apologizing for screaming and cussing at me on my Christmas day ><. I was so furious it took me like an hour to calm down, nearly ruined Christmas day for me, and it was the first Christmas with my first-born daughter.

They really need to do their research a little better when they attempt to collect money instead of cold-calling the first person they find with the name they are looking for. Surely they had this guys address and could see that my address didn't match it and was in fact 2 hours away from my area.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering, apparently this guy owed several thousand dollars for gym equipment, which made the situation even more surreal for me, as I am disabled(broken back) and couldn't use gym equipment no matter how much I'd want to.

[The Glyphstone]

Since it doesn't appear to have been mentioned, there are several websites I'm fond of reading that would likely be of interest to people here.

https://notalwaysright.com/ - primarily a site with reader-submitted stories of dumb customers and co-workers, with a whole bunch of related sites with the same theme in different venues like school, family, relationships, etc.

http://www.retailhellunderground.com/ - a blog with retail-related stories and content; dumb customers, funny stories, and pictures of odd things.

https://clientsfromhell.net/ - like notalwaysright, but oriented towards freelance professionals.

[Peelee]

Since it doesn't appear to have been mentioned, there are several websites I'm fond of reading that would likely be of interest to people here.

https://notalwaysright.com/ - primarily a site with reader-submitted stories of dumb customers and co-workers, with a whole bunch of related sites with the same theme in different venues like school, family, relationships, etc.

http://www.retailhellunderground.com/ - a blog with retail-related stories and content; dumb customers, funny stories, and pictures of odd things.

https://clientsfromhell.net/ - like notalwaysright, but oriented towards freelance professionals.

Or, for the reddit-inclined peoples,

https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromretail/ Same as NAR, but better IMO.

https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/ Similar, but from a tech support POV.

https://www.reddit.com/r/IDontWorkHereLady/ Flip side. People who do not work at a place, but are assumed to by other people.

[Leecros]

Some of those stories are rather unpleasant. I'll be honest one of my biggest fears going to work every day is dealing with an angry customer. I dont' really handle conflict and confrontation very well and it's something that I somewhat dread.

Fortunately, as a lowly Sales Associate, I can pretty much always defer to my Manager and he can handle the problem. Also as I mentioned in a previous post, the store I work in is quite the backwater. Most of the angry people go to Wal'mart right up the street from us. Most of the drunks go to the store from the same chain in-town.

We did have a girl come in the last time I worked who was high as a kite. She came in wearing thick sunglasses that she wore the entire time as she just kind of drifted throughout the store for awhile looking at everything. Finally she gathered up a handful of small items and brought them up to the register and asked what the price was for every single one of them. I didn't mind though, the activity was beginning to die down and there wasn't anyone else in the store and she actually found a couple of things that were mislabeled.

That pretty much leaves our most obnoxious customers being the coupon junkies. Coupons are quickly becoming my least liked object. A few saturdays back, we had a customer at the register with an absolutely massive order. Once I had rang out her entire cart, bagged everything and she had put her things back into her cart to take them to her car; she pulls roughly 80 coupons out of her purse. I started ringing them up and roughly half of them didn't work. So I called my manager up and explained the situation and we had to go through everything on the register one by one, verify that she bought it, then my manager had to manually drop the price. Because our system doesn't like a large number of coupons being put in all at once. It's probably took about half an hour to pair everything up and it was very frustrating for all the parties involved. Words weren't said, but I could tell it was getting on all of our nerves.

That wasn't the first time that something like that happened, but that was definitely the worst time so far. So please, If you have a lot of coupons...Keep in mind that you're already inconveniencing us at closing by giving them yet another thing to keep track up and count and please put your coupons with their corresponding product. It makes life so much easier when we can do the coupons as we go instead of all at the end and helps with mechanical failsafes. If you don't, then just remember that not only are you doubly inconveniencing us, but you're also inconveniencing yourself as well if something goes wrong.

[Douglas]

Because our system doesn't like a large number of coupons being put in all at once.
Then whoever designed your system is an idiot, because that's something that people legitimately do, with correct coupons, on an infrequent but far from unheard of basis. If the coupon is valid and the item it's for has been rung up in the current purchase, then the system should accept it. How many coupons you've scanned in a row should be completely irrelevant.

I worked as a grocery store cashier in high school, and I remember ringing up someone who had 2 or 3 full carts of stuff and a big pile of coupons. As I recall, I did all the coupons at the end and most of them just worked, and for each of the ones that didn't I ended up finding some detail that made the coupon not apply - it was for a different size, or slightly different product, or the coupon was expired, or there was some other condition not satisfied. I still had to find some things in the carts to verify details, but the customer helped with that and it was only for a few of the coupons.

[WarKitty]

In the U.S., WIC is way more annoying than coupons. Which of course is not at all the fault of the people using it. (Usually if someone was complaining, I made a point of somewhat loudly making comments about bureaucrats designing things.)

[Starwulf]

In the U.S., WIC is way more annoying than coupons. Which of course is not at all the fault of the people using it. (Usually if someone was complaining, I made a point of somewhat loudly making comments about bureaucrats designing things.)

Oh yeah, that's for damn sure. Especially with the ever changing list of what you can and can not get with the checks. One month you could get this type of cereal and bread and cheese, and the next month none of what you previously could get is on the list and it's something entirely different. My local supermarket got so sick and tired of it that they(technically defrauded, but meh) started ringing up peoples purchases as something approved on the list, as long as the price was comparable and the item was comparable. I mean, I can remember a time when literally, back to back to back months the bread we could get changed every time. The cashier was like "Technically this isn't on the list anymore, but my manager told me to ring it up as an item on the list because it's the same price".

I mean, they wouldn't even send out new lists with the updated stuff to the WIC users, you wouldn't get that until you went in to get your next set of 3 months worth of checks. Instead they just sent the updated stuff to all the stores in the area.

I think the only thing that never changed was the milk, and the eggs. And actually, iirc, at one point you were allowed any brand of milk, but they eventually changed it to store-brand only, lol. That whole system was just a massive cluster cluck that needed a complete and total reorganization top to bottom.

[Traab]

Going back a bit, yeah, the people who yell and holler at the cashier over policies they dont like are the worst. Its just so STUPID to yell at these guys. Its abusive nonsense at people who dont deserve it and applies to customer service reps just as much. Look lady, YOU are the one who didnt pay your cable bill. Its not the CSR's fault that your power got shut off, and its not their fault that its company policy to do so when you get two months behind. Shut up, pay the bill, get your cable back.

That said, let me rant a bit. Cable internet can be turned on in 10 seconds from the computer of the guy who I just paid. There is absolutely no excuse to tell me that i can either pay an extra hundred now to reactivate it, or wait several days first. That is flat out extortion and totally unjustifiable and may your company and every executive that agreed to that policy burn in jail, then hell. And may your next job not involve working for pure scum.

[The Fury]

Being involved in customer service as long as I have has taught me quite a lot. One of the first things I learned is that anyone in customer service should not call themselves "service industry." Apparently that term's for kitchen staff, servers, bartenders and other food and drink service workers. Some of them take that very seriously and get way offended if you use the "service industry" label incorrectly.

One facet of the customer service jobs I've had over the years was making sure that public restrooms were clean. Since then I got to learn colorful new terms like "hovering" and "distance challenges." Too bad I can't unlearn them.

[Leecros]

Then whoever designed your system is an idiot, because that's something that people legitimately do, with correct coupons, on an infrequent but far from unheard of basis. If the coupon is valid and the item it's for has been rung up in the current purchase, then the system should accept it. How many coupons you've scanned in a row should be completely irrelevant.


Based on everything that i've learned about my company and it's practices over the last couple of weeks. This really wouldn't surprise me in the least.

[darkrose50]

To be fair, I never give out my SSN to anybody that calls me, ever. Like if somebody claims to be from some place I owe money to, I tell them that I will call them back. Then I call them at the number listed on their website or on the paper bill. There are too many leaks for that kind of stuff.

Same as the above. And even more here since a lot of times I pay for things like medical bills with debit cards, which are difficult to prove fraud on. I really don't like to use those over the phone.

Yeah it was a nightmare! TWO WEEKS . . . I wanted to rock myself to sleep with my tears as my only comfort . . ..

[darkrose50]

I just had to tell a man that he filled out the paperwork to remove his dead wife from his insurance incorrectly.

I am going to need all the chocolate.

[WarKitty]

A lot of people at my job seem to struggle with specificity.

Look, your driver is at the airport. I'm going to need something more specific than "outside at the door" to get him to you. And it's always like Laguardia or Logan or Hartsfield that people pull that at.

[darkrose50]

A lot of people at my job seem to struggle with specificity.

Look, your driver is at the airport. I'm going to need something more specific than "outside at the door" to get him to you. And it's always like Laguardia or Logan or Hartsfield that people pull that at.

My wife does this to me.

Me: Where is the <insert item always in the fridge>.

Wife (whom I love and adore): In the kitchen.

Me: But where is it?

Wife (whom I love and adore): In the fridge.

Me: But where in the fridge?

Wife (whom I love and adore): I don't know.

[WarKitty]

My wife does this to me.

Me: Where is the <insert item always in the fridge>.

Wife (whom I love and adore): In the kitchen.

Me: But where is it?

Wife (whom I love and adore): In the fridge.

Me: But where in the fridge?

Wife (whom I love and adore): I don't know.

Presumably, however, she is not simultaneously complaining about how you're useless because you can't even find one item in the fridgge.

[darkrose50]

Presumably, however, she is not simultaneously complaining about how you're useless because you can't even find one item in the fridgge.

I am a lucky man and I love my wife. I certainly got the better end of the deal, hands down.

Dilemma: I am oblivious when finding things. Combined with the fact that my wife never puts things back where I left them, and we get a fun little problem. The things I put anywhere move. I never know where my things are, much less our things. Basically she puts things down when she is done with them, wherever she is. For example, we have four house phones, and most of the time they are not where the phones charge. I no longer answer the phone figuring the answering machine will get it, and/or I will wader around the house doing idiot circles looking for a phone and then the answering machine will get it.

Failed Solution: Buy my own sets of things. I cannot buy my own remotes, phones, keys . . . anything . . . to ensure that I know where they are. It is my lot in life.

New Dilemma: My father-in-law is staying with us after a heart surgery. I had a steak in a zip-lock bag, and could not find it. It was underneath a bunch of other things courtesy of my father-in-law (who stacks food on top of food so that you cannot see it?). My father-in-law also does laundry, and that is nice, but now I cannot find my cloths. He figures garbage bags are more efficient than laundry hampers. I hope that I do not throw out my cloths.

[Leecros]

So fun story. Turns out I'm probably going to be promoted to be one of the keyholders at the store I work at. Not only do I have zero management experience, but I only have less than two months of experience working there. I'm still learning the job that i'm doing and they expect me to fill a position in lower management overseeing people doing the job that i'm currently learning to do?(Amongst other things)

That doesn't sound fun...That doesn't sound fun at all...:smalleek:

[Peelee]

So fun story. Turns out I'm probably going to be promoted to be one of the keyholders at the store I work at. Not only do I have zero management experience, but I only have less than two months of experience working there. I'm still learning the job that i'm doing and they expect me to fill a position in lower management overseeing people doing the job that i'm currently learning to do?(Amongst other things)

That doesn't sound fun...That doesn't sound fun at all...:smalleek:

Does it come with a raise?

[WarKitty]

One of our new guys was trying to joke by saying "the customer is scared and won't come out" (it was a standard can't find the client call). I pointed out I have seen all of the following:

- A customer who got impatient because there was a crash on the bridge on the interstate and the car got stuck, so he got out of the car, after dark, and started to walk down the shoulder.
- A customer who insisted that his flight was delayed, despite our dispatch and driver repeatedly informing him it was not, finally came out, screamed and cursed at our driver for making him late, stumbled in one door of our car and out the other, and then got in a cab. No idea if he made his flight on time, but given how drunk he was he wasn't making it on anyway.
- A customer who was angry that his driver was in a different terminal than he was and as such decided to punch the driver.
- Someone who was angry that our GPS kept sending cars to his location when we wanted his neighbor around the corner, and threatened our driver with a gun.
- A client who refused to stop smoking marijuana while in the vehicle.

These are all calls I have taken. People are crazy.

[Leecros]

Does it come with a raise?

Define "Raise". I would be going from $7.25/hour to $7.75/hour. A raise which isn't all that significant for the extra responsibility i'll have.

[Wraith]

Having been made redundant from my job in a supermarket, I have quite recently found new employment in the Contact Centre for a school - it's about as far away from my old job as it is possible to be, so I'm very happy with it even if it's just a stepping stone onto a more fulfilling career later on.

Even so, with barely a month under my belt, I would like to offer the following advice to people who ever need to make a telephone call to an office or institution.

+ If the stranger on the other end asks for your name, please tell them. Answering by describing your requirement or giving a vague label like "Brian's Dad" is kind of you, but it in no way helps me introduce you to the person that you want to talk to. Similarly, if you insist on introducing yourself to me only as "John Smith's Mum" then please don't be upset if I'm left with no choice but to refer to you as "Mrs Smith" - I know that inclusivity and alternative lifestyle are important to respect, but sometimes if I can't get a straight answer from you then I have to play the odds and hope for the best and that's not my fault.

+ If the person answering the call asks "How can I help you?" the correct answer is never just "I don't know". I appreciate that academia is big and intimidating and that many people have anxieties about talking to strangers, but you called me. There was probably a reason and I don't know what it is yet, so I can't help you.
Calm down, take a deep breath, and tell me what your problem is so that I can point you in the right direction. After telling me your name. I promise I won't yell at you if you're not entirely sure.

+ The College that I work for has over 10,000 students supported by 3,000 teachers and members of support staff spread out over 4 campuses in a 15-mile diameter over a major metropolitan area. Asking for "Sam" with no other details probably isn't going to get you anywhere without at least adding a subject area or a surname.

+ If I ask why you are trying to call, I'm not doing so because I'm trying to violate your privacy and subsequently insist that it's "none of (my) business". For every subject that the College teaches, there's at least 9 departments - teaching staff, personal tutors, special needs assistance, student support, finance, attendance, over-and-under 19's and disciplinary - that could be relevant, not to mention peripherally-related ones like security, IT and HR, and I'm just trying to get you to the right person.

+ A "switchboard" is an old-fashioned term for a big wall of switches that someone would turn by hand in order to connect two wires together and thus transfer your call to another person. Asking the contact centre for the switchboard, and then the call centre, and then the switchboard again? All of those things are still just me with my fingers hovering over skype, no matter how angry you get when I try to tell you that. Sorry.


(T)here are several websites I'm fond of reading that would likely be of interest to people here.


Or, for the reddit-inclined peoples;

It would be remiss of me not to add the classic Acts of Gord (http://www.actsofgord.com/) to your lists. Somewhat dated nowadays, given that it's regarding a turn-of-the-millennium video games rental store, but the quality of the writing and ignorance of the customers stands the test of time.

[Peelee]

Define "Raise". I would be going from $7.25/hour to $7.75/hour. A raise which isn't all that significant for the extra responsibility i'll have.
Can you decline the promotion? It's very likely you can.


It would be remiss of me not to add the classic Acts of Gord (http://www.actsofgord.com/) to your lists. Somewhat dated nowadays, given that it's regarding a turn-of-the-millennium video games rental store, but the quality of the writing and ignorance of the customers stands the test of time.
Oh man, I haven't seen that in forever.

[Traab]

Can you decline the promotion? It's very likely you can.

Oh man, I haven't seen that in forever.

I was binging those just now and I have to say, not bad overall, but I lost interest once he started waxing lyrical on how many teenage butts he pimp slapped in his day. Its like, look, im willing to suspend disbelief and accept you said and did these awesome things instead of only thinking them, but once you admit to assaulting a couple dozen 13 year olds, I have to wonder if this is your prison memoirs or something.

[Peelee]

I was binging those just now and I have to say, not bad overall, but I lost interest once he started waxing lyrical on how many teenage butts he pimp slapped in his day. Its like, look, im willing to suspend disbelief and accept you said and did these awesome things instead of only thinking them, but once you admit to assaulting a couple dozen 13 year olds, I have to wonder if this is your prison memoirs or something.

It was really cool back in my teenage years. In my defense, most kids that age are stupid or like stupid things at some point.

[Peelee]

The longer I've worked with health insurance, the more I've hated every health insurance company. But lo, among them one must be king. The most hated, the absolute worst to deal with, the one that has jackasses at every level of the company. All names are (very obviously) changed, of course. Also, keeping any sort of politics strictly out of this, and only dealing in objective facts.

So, we get some medical records faxed over to us to give Patient Al a CPAP machine (a device that lets people sleep better). Patient Al really wants it, because he feels terrible. His wife also has one and she loves it and feels great on it, so unlike most people we deal with, he's actually pretty excited about it. Ideal conditions, really. Now, with most in-state insurance companies, this would be a simple "we got everything we need, just come in and we'll figure out what feels best" deal. In and out.

However, the patient has insurance out of a different state. And that insurance company contracts out to a third party, who shall be known as Jerks, Incorporated. Jerks, Inc. is ridiculous to deal with; their policies amount to stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime, and much of what I believe about cannot be repeated here while staying within forum rules. Anyway. Jerks, Inc. was somehow even more colossally inept than normal.

Doctor Betty requested pre-authorization for a sleep study for Al. For the record, literally every insurance requires a sleep study to be done in order to get a CPAP. It's the only thing that can officially diagnose someone with sleep apnea, and insurance companies aren't keen on paying for stuff they don't need to. If you get CPAP, you better be able to prove you need it. Which, to be fair, makes a fair amount of sense.

Not so for Jerks, Inc.! They denied the pre-auth for the sleet study (which, bytheway, I've never heard of an insurance denying a sleep study. Hell, I know at least one insurance that will never pay for any CPAP supplies if you're over 18, but will still pay for the sleep study. It's never been an issue before with any insurance I've ever dealt with, including Jerks, Inc.! Instead of doing a pre-auth for the sleep study - which, incidentally, would also let Dr. Betty know what settings to put Al at, or if Al needed to be put on a different type of machine altogether - they instead went ahead and authorized the equipment. Which was.... odd, to say the least, especially since in order to bill the equipment to the insurance, we would need a copy of a sleep study on hand. Of course, this mattered a bit less, since Jerks, Inc. gave the pre-auth for the CPAP to Dr. Carl.

Dr. Carl does not sell CPAP supplies. He is a pulmonologist; he deals with respiratory diseases, and does a lot of sleep studies, but he doesn't sell anything. He's also, pointedly, not Dr. Betty; Al had never seen Dr. Carl. And, of course, as a privately owned business, we're not affiliated with Dr. Carl. Which means we can't get a pre-auth to give Al the stuff he wants, since there's an existing pre-auth on file.

Jerks, Inc. also decided to not tell Dr. Carl about any of this. His office was understandably confused, since has no knowledge about any of this, and had no clue about why they would have a pre-auth to sell stuff they didn't sell to a patient they didn't have. And since only the pre-auth holder or the patient could release the authorization, and they didn't have any authorization number, they couldn't do jack about it.

The patient, however, could. After explaining (or attempting to explain; logic had clearly flown out the window at this point) to Al what was going on, he called Jerks, Inc. for us to try to release it so we could get it. He did, and called us back later, saying that he was told we had to call them back with an authorization number he was given. It's important to note here that the authorization number they gave Al, to give to us, to give back to them, was not the pre-authorization we needed. Such a thing would be too reasonable for Jerks, Inc. Instead, that would let them know that we were really able to get a pre-auth, because Al wanted to get his stuff from us.

Of course, when I call Jerks, Inc., I'm told there is already a pre-auth on file for Dr. Carl. I explain the situation, including that Al had never seen Dr. Carl, and even if he had, Dr. Carl does not sell medical supplies, so it wouldn't even matter if Al had seen him. Several times I tried to give this lady the authorization number I'd gotten from Al, but she had no interest whatsoever in actually taking it, instead telling me constantly that I needed to get Dr. Carl's office to release the pre-auth. So, once again, I explained the situation to her, very slowly and condescendingly, highlighting every way that her company was making this entire thing a massive cluster****. After putting me on hold at the end, and presumably not willing to attempt to fight against logic and reason, she eventually relented and gave us the pre-auth. A pre-auth which, bytheway, required information that could only be gotten from a sleep study before they would issue to us.

Best part - it's a ~$1,000 machine, and the insurance will only help pay for ten bucks and change on it.

[Douglas]

What springs to mind on reading all of that is the old quote "never ascribe to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity." Most of that story sounds a lot more like incompetence than jerkish behavior to me.

Still doesn't say anything good about the company, of course.

[Wraith]

I was binging those just now and I have to say, not bad overall, but I lost interest once he started waxing lyrical on how many teenage butts he pimp slapped in his day. Its like, look, im willing to suspend disbelief and accept you said and did these awesome things instead of only thinking them, but once you admit to assaulting a couple dozen 13 year olds, I have to wonder if this is your prison memoirs or something.

Yeah, some of the stuff in the middle does become somewhat cringeworthy in that regard, and it's stuff that is genuinely left ~20 years ago because it doesn't fly so well nowadays.
Some of the stories that come afterwards though - like when Gord successfully challenged City By-laws over the definition of a pawn shop, some of the court cases he attended and finally the story of the death of the store - are very interesting and a lot more like tales of customer stupidity, rather than the "look at me I'm so great" stuff.

[Peelee]

What springs to mind on reading all of that is the old quote "never ascribe to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity." Most of that story sounds a lot more like incompetence than jerkish behavior to me.

Still doesn't say anything good about the company, of course.

Normally, I would agree with you. However, I skipped over the bit about needing to re-up the pre-auth every 90 days, where at any point if the patient failed to use the machine enough for whatever reason (including being hospitals and unable to use it), they would reject the whole thing. For ten months, so 4 pre-auths total. And under their policy, it can only be billed as a rental every month for a fraction of the cost and purchased at the end, which means unless you get it in Jan or Feb, the deductible resets and they wouldn't even cover the ten dollars.

There's more I'm skipping as well, mostly because it's either speculation, political-ish enough, or things that don't apply to everyone with the condition and it's common enough that I don't want to needlessly scare someone who may have it. But I absolutely attribute malice to the people who came up with the ridiculous policies they use, because they are clearly intended to make short-term profit rather than address the care of the patient.

And, truth be told, they're not even the worst ones in that regard. Just the most infuriating to deal with.

[darkrose50]

You are going to a birthday party at a burger place. You pre-paid and your burger was chosen by the party planner. The burger the birthday party guests are required to have does not come with fries. You want to eat fries. They have copious mounds of fries, but not for the people in your birthday party. You cannot upgrade to another burger that comes with fries. You cannot upgrade to a different burger that would allow you buy a side of fries. The burger place flat out refuses to sell you fries, because you have that birthday party burger reservation. You cannot order fries this trip to the burger place. Forget about eating fries, go eat your burger, and like it.

-----

The Walt Disney World Resort really confused me . . .

My daughter competed at the Summit cheer leading event. As a result we did not have the option for add-ons. We stayed at the All Star Movies location, because that is where the cheerleaders from her gym were placed. I brought my 70-year-old mother (who uses a walker). We had two rooms, they were far apart, I could not buy my family a meal plan (I especially wanted this for my mother), and we were denied access to booking Fast Passes far enough in advance to mitigate her needing a walker.

[1/3] Lack of access to adjoining/adjacent rooms
I brought my 70-year-old mother who uses a walker. My wife requested adjoining rooms 60-days prior to our stay as directed. We had a cheer leader staying next door (likely on all sides). My mother stayed on the opposite side of our building. Not having the option for adjoining rooms available to my family is insulting. Not having the option to upgrade or relocate in order to obtain adjacent rooms is mind-boggling. This is just mean. If I knew that we would not have adjoining/adjacent rooms, then I would have brought my mother another time.

[2/3] Lack of access to meal plans
I would have liked the opportunity for a meal plan for my family, especially for my mother. I did not want to discuss who is paying for food at every meal or snack . . . I wanted to pay for everything, have the cost of things blend into the background, and not even have my mother think about it. Not having the option for a meal plan is insulting and bewildering. I want to bring my mother on vacation and have her not worry about whom is paying for food (I did not want paying for food to cross her mind). Not foreseeing this common behavior trigger and not appropriately planning for it makes me question the competence of Disney's project managers. I could have bought a thick stack of meal vouchers, but then we would have to carry them around, we could forget bringing them, they could get lost, and why in Sam hell do I have that bracelet if I need to carry paper vouchers around?

[3/3] Lack of access to Fast Passes
My wife over-plans everything. Having my 70-year-old mother, who uses a walker, stand in line for a good portion of attractions is spiteful. The answer to this issue that comes to mind would be planning for this with Fast Passes 60-days before . . . also refused. Not having the option for my family to avail ourselves of this time-saving marvel, frankly is a malicious combination.

I find that the refusal of options for the above add-ons to be confusing and crewel. These options would have added comfort and ease to my vacation. I was essentially forced to stay in a room (or tell my daughter that she could not compete), without the options available to others. I am truly and completely perplexed as to why I was not given the opportunity to PAY MORE in order to provide my mother and my family the most enjoyable stay possible.

I guess my money does not spend at Disney.

Essentially I was treated as if I were not the customer . . . even though I paid with my money. I find this fact to be infuriating, and how this could ever be a thing to be mindboggling.

[WarKitty]

Fun at my job.

Me: "Ok, so that's a pickup in Geneva, so where exactly are we picking up"
Arranger, in an are-you-stupid voice: "uh, Geneva?"
Me: "Could you be a bit more specific?"
Arranger: "Geneva, Switzerland?"
Me, thinking: "..."

[Algeh]

You are going to a birthday party at a burger place. You pre-paid and your burger was chosen by the party planner. The burger the birthday party guests are required to have does not come with fries. You want to eat fries. They have copious mounds of fries, but not for the people in your birthday party. You cannot upgrade to another burger that comes with fries. You cannot upgrade to a different burger that would allow you buy a side of fries. The burger place flat out refuses to sell you fries, because you have that birthday party burger reservation. You cannot order fries this trip to the burger place. Forget about eating fries, go eat your burger, and like it.

-----

The Walt Disney World Resort really confused me . . .

My daughter competed at the Summit cheer leading event. As a result we did not have the option for add-ons. We stayed at the All Star Movies location, because that is where the cheerleaders from her gym were placed. I brought my 70-year-old mother (who uses a walker). We had two rooms, they were far apart, I could not buy my family a meal plan (I especially wanted this for my mother), and we were denied access to booking Fast Passes far enough in advance to mitigate her needing a walker.

[1/3] Lack of access to adjoining/adjacent rooms
I brought my 70-year-old mother who uses a walker. My wife requested adjoining rooms 60-days prior to our stay as directed. We had a cheer leader staying next door (likely on all sides). My mother stayed on the opposite side of our building. Not having the option for adjoining rooms available to my family is insulting. Not having the option to upgrade or relocate in order to obtain adjacent rooms is mind-boggling. This is just mean. If I knew that we would not have adjoining/adjacent rooms, then I would have brought my mother another time.

[2/3] Lack of access to meal plans
I would have liked the opportunity for a meal plan for my family, especially for my mother. I did not want to discuss who is paying for food at every meal or snack . . . I wanted to pay for everything, have the cost of things blend into the background, and not even have my mother think about it. Not having the option for a meal plan is insulting and bewildering. I want to bring my mother on vacation and have her not worry about whom is paying for food (I did not want paying for food to cross her mind). Not foreseeing this common behavior trigger and not appropriately planning for it makes me question the competence of Disney's project managers. I could have bought a thick stack of meal vouchers, but then we would have to carry them around, we could forget bringing them, they could get lost, and why in Sam hell do I have that bracelet if I need to carry paper vouchers around?

[3/3] Lack of access to Fast Passes
My wife over-plans everything. Having my 70-year-old mother, who uses a walker, stand in line for a good portion of attractions is spiteful. The answer to this issue that comes to mind would be planning for this with Fast Passes 60-days before . . . also refused. Not having the option for my family to avail ourselves of this time-saving marvel, frankly is a malicious combination.

I find that the refusal of options for the above add-ons to be confusing and crewel. These options would have added comfort and ease to my vacation. I was essentially forced to stay in a room (or tell my daughter that she could not compete), without the options available to others. I am truly and completely perplexed as to why I was not given the opportunity to PAY MORE in order to provide my mother and my family the most enjoyable stay possible.

I guess my money does not spend at Disney.

Essentially I was treated as if I were not the customer . . . even though I paid with my money. I find this fact to be infuriating, and how this could ever be a thing to be mindboggling.



I don't work for Disney and have never actually been to a Disney park, but I have dealt with coordinating group hotel bookings and events for other things, so I can see how some of this may have happened.

Usually, when a large group is going somewhere they have a "room block" for that event, and those rooms are at some kind of special rate negotiated by whoever is running that group activity. Some hotels let you add on things like breakfasts/restaurant credits/whatever to those group rates, some don't. This generally depends on whether those are structured as other rates/specials (in which case you can't apply them in the block since you're in a "different" one for your group and you can't be in more than one) or whether they're sold as individual upcharges. (It can also depend on whether you're booking directly through the regular reservation system with a discount group code or through an outside reservation system that manages the block - a lot of of hotels and multi-hotel conventions manage their room blocks through an outside reservation system that wouldn't generally have the ability to add special room packages.)

My guess is that there was a group discounted room rate for your event, and that you couldn't do individual customizations as part of that group reservation handling.

The adjoining room thing is also annoyingly hard in blocks for some reason - I don't know if physical room allocation was done by your group or by the hotel, but if the reservations were done by an outside reservation system it may have had no way to mark certain rooms as needing to be adjoining when passed to the hotel's system. It's also possible that if the group blocked their own physical rooms they put all of the kids/teens near each other with a buffer space of involved adults in the surrounding rooms to try to cut down on noise complaints from regular hotel guests. (We do this with the conventions I'm involved with - we have a specific "loud" party wing or floor where we put anyone who wants to throw a party in their room, and fill the rest of the rooms on that floor/wing and nearby floors/wings with con-goers/con staff who have agreed not to complain to the hotel about all the party noise, probably because they're too busy going to the parties.)

Your burger analogy is actually pretty much spot-on. Large catered events almost always feature a restricted menu so they can serve everyone at the same time en masse and don't allow for individual orders so the catering kitchen can focus on throughput rather than the individual plates. Large group travel is pretty much the same thing.

Now, whether or not any of this was communicated to you in a way that let you make good decisions and understand how it would work once you got there is another question entirely...

[Seerow]

Tagging this to remind me to respond when I have more time and am not on a cell phone.

Edit: Okay I'm at home and on my desktop now. So I am going to go ahead and say I have worked at Disney World in a call center environment. That being said, nothing I say here is official company stance, or possibly even the way things still work. Just going to give a bit of insight based on my experience.


[1/3] Lack of access to adjoining/adjacent rooms

This is a two-part issue. On one hand, you booked as a part of a group. As someone else pointed out above, usually groups are blocked off in a large section together. Chances are the room your booked for your mom was not a part of the group, so she would by necessity be put in a different part of the resort. The other side of this is, even when rooms are booked as a part of the same category and can in theory have adjoining rooms... we can't guarantee it for everyone. It's impossible to have every room being connecting, and at Disney World connecting rooms is a ridiculously popular request. We would always emphasize that adjoining rooms are a request only. The only situation in which it could be guaranteed is if you had a pair of rooms with 2 adults and some number of children. There's generally still plenty of connecting rooms available to offer after those go out, but not enough to make it a guarantee for everyone who asks.


[2/3] Lack of access to meal plans

This is one of the quirks of wholesalers in general. Dining Plans at Disney are only available as a part of a package reservation. There is no way to buy a stand alone dining plan, the understanding I was given about it is it's actually a major contract negotiated between Disney Travel Company and all of the various restaurants across property and ultimately results in all of the charges for the meals you get being charged back to the resort, who converts it to those dining entitlements you get from the plan. You can't have a dining plan without charging to the resort (which is why even packages for affiliated resorts like Swan & Dolphin can't have the dining plan). But the flip side of this is when booking through a wholesaler... Disney actually legally has no way to modify the reservations to add extra stuff on their own. It's basically considered poaching. Some wholesalers do negotiate the ability to offer the dining plan. Similarly, some groups do get the dining plan (my understanding is for a group to get the dining plan every single room in the group reservation has to have it, so it is super rare among larger groups such as the cheer competitions)... but for the most part it just can't happen. Trust me, if there was some way for Disney to offer the dining plans to these reservation types without causing more harm than good, they would almost certainly be all over it. Maybe some day it will happen.


[3/3] Lack of access to Fast Passes

This one is entirely on the group. Every group has the ability to choose how they want to distribute room/ticket information. There's a half dozen different models for it that Disney offers to the group coordinators, and far and away the most common one picked is giving a list of tickets/reservation numbers to everyone in the group and let them do their own thing. Disney does have groups come that get their reservations and tickets linked up and booking fastpasses 60 days in advance. The fact that Varsity Cheer doesn't do provide the information to do this, and forces you to book through them to compete, is entirely on the shoulders of decisions made by that group. I'm sure they have reasons for it that are very reasonable to whoever is in charge of it, but I have no idea what they are having never been on that side of the planning. I can say with confidence that this in particular is not Disney's fault. The dining plan and adjoining rooms thing I can see being ultimately rooted in Disney policies that maybe could be reviewed to make things more comfortable for more guests, but not this.

[Florian]

Ancient history....

Started working for a certain company as a side job while still at school. When I finished school, more or less graduated from technician to sales and very quickly was promoted to lower management, because TPB understood that I've mostly a good way with people, so it´s handling customer complaints and refunds.

So this guy comes in, totally muscle-bound and a 100% aggression, complaining that his bought hardware doesn't work. Small wonder, you don't use clue.... Ok, so the usual develops, "No, Sir, we can´t refund that, you broke it"... "I want to speak the manager!"... "That's me..." and so on.

At that point, the guy felt really entitled, red-faced, full adrenaline mode and screaming like an idiot.

So I said: "Ok, man, let's go outside and settle that!".

Now I can actually quote Deadpool on this: "Rolling up the sleeves, really?", but that was exactly what happened on the way to the exit. Guy was really swelling up and looking for a fight - ridiculous, considering that I was 18 and a thin whisk back then.

So, outside: "Dear sir, I am sorry to lose you as a potential loyal customer, but I must inform you that you are now banned from entering this store again. See this building over there? Know that it houses the riot squat police department and I have their number on quick dial. Have a nice day, bye".

[darkrose50]

I really wanted to give my mom a good vacation. I would have brought her a different time, if I know that I could not have any add-ons. I love my mom, but she felt obligated to do that "who is going to pay at every meal, and every snack" dance. I would have preferred the option to avoid those dances entirely.


. . . Varsity Cheer . . .
Yeah . . . lots of incompetence here as well.

The folks in charge of these cheerleader things are also not all that together at times.

The coaches have children ages ~8-15, and are not really that good at counting like a teacher would. They give each girl a buddy, and do not seem to count them after. Teachers are ALWAYS counting to make sure that all the kids are there. They just forget kids sometimes. A buddy is a redundant system, not a primary system.

At one competition in Atlanta (I am from Chicago) the competition moved my daughters performance back 15-minites. It is super crazy nuts loud at these things . . . so we were just outside in the hall, sitting down, eating some bananas. They have a book, that costs $10, with everyone's performance time printed in it. My family (not the cheer leader) missed the performance. I was livid. I took days off of work, bought plane tickets, and paid for a hotel room. One high level management lady told me that they post the times online . . .. I was like, you can not just change times, and say that they are posted online. That would be like going to the airport for a 10:00 AM flight, and being told that it left at 9:45 AM, but that they posted the flight time change online. The airline would not get away with something like that. This sort of thing just should not happen. If anything the time should only be moved back.

[WarKitty]

That would be like going to the airport for a 10:00 AM flight, and being told that it left at 9:45 AM, but that they posted the flight time change online. The airline would not get away with something like that. This sort of thing just should not happen. If anything the time should only be moved back.

You realize they can and do get away with that?

[darkrose50]

You realize they can and do get away with that?

I would imagine that they reimburse you for your ticket, and may even put you up in a hotel.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I would imagine that they reimburse you for your ticket, and may even put you up in a hotel.

Not for an international flight. If you show up to the airport fewer than two hours before scheduled departure and miss the plane, even if it is because it left early, no one has sympathy.

[WarKitty]

I would imagine that they reimburse you for your ticket, and may even put you up in a hotel.

Nah, a lot of them just say it was your responsibility to check your email and be there on time.

[Peelee]

Nah, a lot of them just say it was your responsibility to check your email and be there on time.

If they email, that's still notifying you. The cheerleader org just posted it online; he didn't say anything about them emailing out updates. The situation is not analogous.

[WarKitty]

If they email, that's still notifying you. The cheerleader org just posted it online; he didn't say anything about them emailing out updates. The situation is not analogous.

That still relies on you being able to check your email though. Last time I had it happen I was informed when I got there that it was my responsibility to wake up at 6am in order to ensure my 2pm flight hadn't changed (to around 8am, as it turns out).

[Peelee]

That still relies on you being able to check your email though. Last time I had it happen I was informed when I got there that it was my responsibility to wake up at 6am in order to ensure my 2pm flight hadn't changed (to around 8am, as it turns out).

I'm not saying it's a good practice, or can't be horribly abused as it clearly was in your case. But they can still say they notified you, while the cheer org cannot, and that is a meaningful distinction.

Of course, if you received the email at 6am for the notification the flight time had changed to 8am and you need to be there 2 hours in advance, the notification likely doesn't carry the same weight, but that doesn't affect "they didn't send notification of the change at all."

[WarKitty]

I'm not saying it's a good practice, or can't be horribly abused as it clearly was in your case. But they can still say they notified you, while the cheer org cannot, and that is a meaningful distinction.

Of course, if you received the email at 6am for the notification the flight time had changed to 8am and you need to be there 2 hours in advance, the notification likely doesn't carry the same weight, but that doesn't affect "they didn't send notification of the change at all."

I'd argue that putting it on a website also counts as a notification, even if it wasn't delivered to you personally. The primary problem is that you have to keep looking at something on a regular basis in order to know what you're supposed to do.

[Keltest]

I'd argue that putting it on a website also counts as a notification, even if it wasn't delivered to you personally. The primary problem is that you have to keep looking at something on a regular basis in order to know what you're supposed to do.

Given what modern phones are capable of, its not that unreasonable to assume that any given person regularly checks their email, probably even several times a day. Many people even get alerts in real time when they get a new one. Its rather like assuming that somebody will open their physical mail every day. However, unless they were specifically warned to keep an eye on the website because of the possibility of changes, it isn't that reasonable to assume that somebody would regularly go back to a website they have no reason to think would contain new information.

[darkrose50]

If I bought tickets for a 8:00 AM flight, and I needed to be checked in 2-hours before the flight takes off, and I showed up at 6:00 AM, and they gave my seat away because I was not there at 5:45 AM, because they changed the time the flight takes off to 7:45 AM . . . wow . . . I would be pissed.

Any company that has such a policy . . . should be ridiculed.

[WarKitty]

Given what modern phones are capable of, its not that unreasonable to assume that any given person regularly checks their email, probably even several times a day. Many people even get alerts in real time when they get a new one. Its rather like assuming that somebody will open their physical mail every day. However, unless they were specifically warned to keep an eye on the website because of the possibility of changes, it isn't that reasonable to assume that somebody would regularly go back to a website they have no reason to think would contain new information.

Eh, a lot of people still don't - in fact most people I know check their email once a day, if that. They certainly don't check it every couple of hours even in the middle of the night.

You can set it up to check a website too, it's not much harder than checking an email.


If I bought tickets for a 8:00 AM flight, and I needed to be checked in 2-hours before the flight takes off, and I showed up at 6:00 AM, and they gave my seat away because I was not there at 5:45 AM, because they changed the time the flight takes off to 7:45 AM . . . wow . . . I would be pissed.

Any company that has such a policy . . . should be ridiculed.

Yeah that's pretty much what happened. I had to be there an hour prior to my 2pm flight. I apparently got a notification at some point that I actually had to be there at 7am. I had gotten in at midnight the night before, so at 7am I was not even awake.

[Peelee]

I'd argue that putting it on a website also counts as a notification, even if it wasn't delivered to you personally. The primary problem is that you have to keep looking at something on a regular basis in order to know what you're supposed to do.

Your argument wouldn't hold up, though; putting it on a website is not notifying anyone specifically. Emailing, like snail mailing, is notifying specifically. If you don't check your email, it is seen similarly as if you don't check your mailbox; they sent you the information, so the ball is in your court to act on it. They made an effort to directly contact you by the email/address you provided, as opposed to you needing to make an effort to find out information by them indirectly contacting you via the website that they mandated.

Some times it sucks, sure, like your plane issue (which I also think is bullhonky to a high degree on their part, and quite a few other things that I'm not going to say on this forum), but it's a socially and usually legally accepted method of communication.

[AMFV]

Yeah . . . lots of incompetence here as well.

The folks in charge of these cheerleader things are also not all that together at times.

The coaches have children ages ~8-15, and are not really that good at counting like a teacher would. They give each girl a buddy, and do not seem to count them after. Teachers are ALWAYS counting to make sure that all the kids are there. They just forget kids sometimes. A buddy is a redundant system, not a primary system.

Well there's a big difference between kids who are 8 and kids who are 13-15. 13-15 year olds should be responsible enough not to require constant counting. And definitely at Varsity age cheerleading the girls should be old enough to be more responsible for themselves.



At one competition in Atlanta (I am from Chicago) the competition moved my daughters performance back 15-minites. It is super crazy nuts loud at these things . . . so we were just outside in the hall, sitting down, eating some bananas. They have a book, that costs $10, with everyone's performance time printed in it. My family (not the cheer leader) missed the performance. I was livid. I took days off of work, bought plane tickets, and paid for a hotel room. One high level management lady told me that they post the times online . . .. I was like, you can not just change times, and say that they are posted online. That would be like going to the airport for a 10:00 AM flight, and being told that it left at 9:45 AM, but that they posted the flight time change online. The airline would not get away with something like that. This sort of thing just should not happen. If anything the time should only be moved back.

It does happen though. Like sporting events like that are often subject to change. I mean you should be glad your daughter didn't do wrestling and you'd have to sit there for hours because you have no idea when the next match is going to be. Or football, when you have no idea when she's off the bench, or soccer when it's the same. I mean for a performance 15 minutes either way is pretty standard.


If they email, that's still notifying you. The cheerleader org just posted it online; he didn't say anything about them emailing out updates. The situation is not analogous.

Yes, but this isn't a flight, this is a sporting event. They can't just have everybody sitting there doing nothing if there were no-shows, they have to keep things moving. And if a person goes outside before a performance and doesn't like have somebody in there watching at least, that's on them.

[8BitNinja]

I've worked in several fast food places in the past. If you work in food service, I salute you. The crap you have to put up with is crazy.

[WarKitty]

Your argument wouldn't hold up, though; putting it on a website is not notifying anyone specifically. Emailing, like snail mailing, is notifying specifically. If you don't check your email, it is seen similarly as if you don't check your mailbox; they sent you the information, so the ball is in your court to act on it. They made an effort to directly contact you by the email/address you provided, as opposed to you needing to make an effort to find out information by them indirectly contacting you via the website that they mandated.

Eh, I think the important criterion is "could a reasonable person be expected to find this information and be aware of it on a reasonable schedule." It doesn't really matter if that's by putting it on a website and expecting you to check it, or by emailing you and expecting you to check it.

[Khedrac]

Guys, can we please stop discussing notification practices - I think we are getting dangerously close to legal advice here (I realised this when I thought of making a post on what might and might not actually count as notification) - and get back to discussing customer service and the poor people who have to endure abuse from idiot customers and defend policies they know are inexcusable if they want to keep their jobs.

[WarKitty]

Guys, can we please stop discussing notification practices - I think we are getting dangerously close to legal advice here (I realised this when I thought of making a post on what might and might not actually count as notification) - and get back to discussing customer service and the poor people who have to endure abuse from idiot customers and defend policies they know are inexcusable if they want to keep their jobs.

To be fair, I think we're discussing semantics, not legality.

In any case, lemme look through my store. Oh, there's the guy who got impatient because he was being taken to the airport and the car was stuck on the bridge because of an accident. So he got out and started walking. On the interstate at night when over an hour's drive from the airport.

[Khedrac]

In any case, lemme look through my store. Oh, there's the guy who got impatient because he was being taken to the airport and the car was stuck on the bridge because of an accident. So he got out and started walking. On the interstate at night when over an hour's drive from the airport.
There's a psychological aspect to this one - it always seems better to be moving rather than queuing.

Driving around the UK motorways and major dual carriageways I have noticed that I, in common with a lot of people, have a tendency to turn off a slowly moving motorway to try an alternative route; having realised this I find I can now think more rationally about such decisions when I encounter traffic jams.
The problem tends to be:
Free moving motorway / dual carriageway: average speed 60-65mph (this is where free moving is not the same as "clear".
"Slow" motorway - 50mph (well it feels slow when one is in the queue).
"Very Slow" motorway - 30-40mph.
If the diversion is through a town it will be longer, and with a speed limit of 30mph it wil probably average 20mph.
If it is through normal country roads (assuming they are not now blocked with the motorway traffic) the average will probably be 40-50mph, the route will probably also be longer.

Result: coming off a "slow" motorway is almost always slower than remaining on it - it just feels better because oe it driving to the speed of the road not the queue.

I think the same psychology explains the mistake of getting out and walking.

[darkrose50]

Customer Service: "So . . . yeah . . . this guy bought the wrong policy, did not know it was on-market (Obammacare), by himself on the computer, without an agent helping him, like six-weeks ago."

Insurance Agent (me): "So you want to transfer a guy over to me for an issue that I did not cause, where I cannot sell him insurance, so that he can complain about Obamacare and politics, and then I can transfer him back to customer service."

Customer Service: "Yes."

Insurance Agent (me): "I cannot do anything for this guy. He needs to talk to a supervisor in customer service, likely escalations."

Other departments often want us to take calls that have nothing to do with us. I really do not want to debate politics with customers. To be fair I am betting that most of the people who do this are new. The best case scenario is that I may be able to sell him insurance during open enrollment. I am betting that I will be on the phone constantly during that time, so this may be a chance of a chance of a chance at a sale.

Also one just cannot change what health insurance you have at a whim. This would have glaring loop-holes that you could drive a truck though. Just buy the cheapest plan, and switch when you are sick or need a surgery. It is a crazy super bad idea.

[WarKitty]

There's a psychological aspect to this one - it always seems better to be moving rather than queuing.

I mean, if this was in a downtown area, that might make sense.

But this is an interstate. After dark. Pedestrian traffic isn't even legal, and for good reason. People are going to be trying to drive quickly, they are not looking for pedestrians, and you are not very visible.

Yesterday also had someone insisting they needed a car to "the port in New Jersey." They were very confused when I said I would need more information and insisted that was all the cruise line told them. It turned out they needed to go to the manhattan cruise terminal.

[Seerow]

Customer Service: "So . . . yeah . . . this guy bought the wrong policy, did not know it was on-market (Obammacare), by himself on the computer, without an agent helping him, like six-weeks ago."

Insurance Agent (me): "So you want to transfer a guy over to me for an issue that I did not cause, where I cannot sell him insurance, so that he can complain about Obamacare and politics, and then I can transfer him back to customer service."

Customer Service: "Yes."

Insurance Agent (me): "I cannot do anything for this guy. He needs to talk to a supervisor in customer service, likely escalations."

Other departments often want us to take calls that have nothing to do with us. I really do not want to debate politics with customers. To be fair I am betting that most of the people who do this are new. The best case scenario is that I may be able to sell him insurance during open enrollment. I am betting that I will be on the phone constantly during that time, so this may be a chance of a chance of a chance at a sale.

Also one just cannot change what health insurance you have at a whim. This would have glaring loop-holes that you could drive a truck though. Just buy the cheapest plan, and switch when you are sick or need a surgery. It is a crazy super bad idea.

Yeah stupid transfers happen all the time in every call center. 90% of the time it's a case of the other agent going "I don't actually want to talk to this guy anymore, and his complaint is somewhat related to this apartment, so let's pass it off to them".


On the note of dumb call center things... Surveys. If you want to take a survey for someone who helped you out, great! If you want to leave a poor survey because they totally screwed up and you want to make it known, by all means!

But please, if you are just ambivalent about the person you are talking too, don't leave a survey with middle of the road numbers. In many cases anything less than perfect is counted as a bad survey. For example in my current role, after your contact with me, you are given the option to rate your overall experience and agent helpfulness on a scale of "Excellent, Very Good, Good, Just Okay, and Poor".

You might then, assume that Excellent is 100%, Very Good is 75%, Good is 50%, Just Okay is 25%, and Poor is 0%. So giving a Very Good is still a nice thing to do for the person you are talking to, after all you just said they did a very good job! Right? No. Because in actuality, Excellent is 100%, everything else is 0%. That very good you gave me after I just spent half an hour going above and beyond to fix your problems? Yeah it's basically the same as saying I treated you like crap and resolved nothing. As far as the system and my metrics look, it is identical.

The worst part is we are able to see our survey results in real time. We can see where suddenly a streak of 3 contacts from people who don't like giving perfect scores drops our average from 95% to 80% despite having done nothing wrong. It's totally disheartening, and can throw a person off for the rest of the day. These metrics end up figuring into bonuses, raises, eligibility for special projects/promotions/transfers, and if they sink too low can get a person fired. So please, be kind to your customer service agents, just keep in mind what your mom told you. If you don't have something nice to say, please say nothing.

[WarKitty]

One fun perk of my job is that I occasionally have to explain to europeans just how big the United States is. Some highlights:

"Can I get the rate for a car and driver from Lansing to Opa-Locka?"
"I'm landing at LAX and I need a car to take me to my hotel in Boston. And then the next day I need a car to take me from the hotel to my morning meeting."

Wanting to be picked up at "the airport in DC" is also common.

[ve4grm]

One fun perk of my job is that I occasionally have to explain to europeans just how big the United States is. Some highlights:

"Can I get the rate for a car and driver from Lansing to Opa-Locka?"
"I'm landing at LAX and I need a car to take me to my hotel in Boston. And then the next day I need a car to take me from the hotel to my morning meeting."

Wanting to be picked up at "the airport in DC" is also common.

Mainland Europeans are one thing, and they'll often get it when you compare the country to their continent. (I'm Canadian, so same idea.)

But people from the UK! I love them dearly, but some of them have no concept of driving for 3 hours in one direction and not drowning!
Heck, if I drive 3 hours in one direction, I won't even reach the next city. :smallbiggrin:

We had some Scottish friends come over a while back. They wanted to do a road trip, see the rest of Canada. My parents took them from Manitoba (central) to the west coast. They'd never seen so much... nothing! They were stunned that it was a 3 day drive, 8 hours a day, to reach the ocean.

[2D8HP]

One fun perk of my job is that I occasionally have to explain to europeans just how big the United States is....


...They'd never seen so much... nothing! They were stunned that it was a 3 day drive, 8 hours a day, to reach the ocean.


I've found people from the East coast much the same.

Them: "Now that we've seen San Francisco, let's see Hollywood tomorrow"

Me: "You're going to catch a plane for a day trip?"

Them: "Plane? But it's the same State, why don't we just drive"

Me: o_O

[Khedrac]

One fun perk of my job is that I occasionally have to explain to europeans just how big the United States is.
What we get in Europe is the reverse of this - a lot of tourists from the USA think (or have been told) that you can do the UK in three days - one day for London, one for Stratford on Avon (Shakespeare's home) and one for Edinburgh - and this sort of attitude leads to only seeing a brief glance of what's available (and probably not a good glance either).

The other stereotype (which is true way too often) is the "oh you're from <insert name of county>, you must know <insert random first name>" (of if you are lucky random surname as well). Now Somerset, the county I grew up in has a population of just over half a million, Hampshire, the county I live in has a population of over 1.25 million so do the maths on the odds of me knowning a random person from the same county...

That said, when I see "rivers" mentioned in most fiction I think of rivers of the sort we get in the UK - and not continental rivers of the sort mainland Euorpeans and Americans get so yes, I am guilty of that sort of error though I knwo better.

[Peelee]

Me: "What kind of insurance do you have?"
Customer: "I have a few choice words to say about it, but I'm not going to go into politics." [spends the next 20 minutes talking about nothing but politics]

The joys of dealing with medical insurance, I tell ya...

[WarKitty]

I get it. When something goes wrong and you're upset, you want it fixed. But calling up to demand someone "do something" with no idea of what can actually be done (presuming the company does not have a high-level wizard on staff) doesn't do anything except annoy the staff.

Case in point: The car we sent smells a bit like smoke. That's an actual problem! But you don't want money back. You don't want to wait. You don't want to find alternate transportation. We've already had it marked for investigation. You appear to want me to instantly materialize a new vehicle at your location. That is not going to happen, because if I could do that I wouldn't be answering the phone.

[GloatingSwine]

You appear to want me to instantly materialize a new vehicle at your location. That is not going to happen, because if I could do that I wouldn't be answering the phone.

It is vitally important when answering the phone in any customer service role to not introduce yourself as Harry Potter. So as to set the customer's expectations some way below actual magic.



(That said, most of the time when they are complaining they are not actually looking for a solution, they are looking for an outlet to vent their frustration. Just let them get on with it. Do not give in to the need to justify why things went wrong, because that sounds like making excuses and nobody is interested in excuses. Let them vent, sound surprised that it went wrong even if it's the tenth time this hour, and always offer what you can do rather than trying to explain why you can't do something else. Pro tip, whenever you are acknowledging that something has gone wrong say "we", whenever you are offering solutions say "I". That means that the customer's frustrations remain directed at the company in general and are therefore diffuse and nonspecific but you are on their side.)

[WarKitty]

It is vitally important when answering the phone in any customer service role to not introduce yourself as Harry Potter. So as to set the customer's expectations some way below actual magic.



(That said, most of the time when they are complaining they are not actually looking for a solution, they are looking for an outlet to vent their frustration. Just let them get on with it. Do not give in to the need to justify why things went wrong, because that sounds like making excuses and nobody is interested in excuses. Let them vent, sound surprised that it went wrong even if it's the tenth time this hour, and always offer what you can do rather than trying to explain why you can't do something else. Pro tip, whenever you are acknowledging that something has gone wrong say "we", whenever you are offering solutions say "I". That means that the customer's frustrations remain directed at the company in general and are therefore diffuse and nonspecific but you are on their side.)

Except in most cases they are on the phone demanding that we "do something", but then rejecting every single possible option that I could offer. But they'll get angrier and angrier at you because you specifically are refusing to do anything for them.

A lot of times it's not even the passenger, it's a secretary or travel agent or someone too. So they don't even have the venting excuse.

[AMFV]

Except in most cases they are on the phone demanding that we "do something", but then rejecting every single possible option that I could offer. But they'll get angrier and angrier at you because you specifically are refusing to do anything for them.

A lot of times it's not even the passenger, it's a secretary or travel agent or someone too. So they don't even have the venting excuse.

Actually the secretary or travel agent probably has even more reason to be panicky and venty. Since they got the initial call from the person who was mad, who could fire them or replace them. So they have a lot of reason to be agitated, which is also why **** rolls downhill.

[WarKitty]

Actually the secretary or travel agent probably has even more reason to be panicky and venty. Since they got the initial call from the person who was mad, who could fire them or replace them. So they have a lot of reason to be agitated, which is also why **** rolls downhill.

True. Still, the main annoyance is that I am being blamed for not doing anything, while simultaneously being offered no solution and having any that I offer rejected.

[AMFV]

True. Still, the main annoyance is that I am being blamed for not doing anything, while simultaneously being offered no solution and having any that I offer rejected.

Fair enough, the problem with stuff rolling downhill is that it stops being able to discriminate well as it goes down the hill.

[GloatingSwine]

Except in most cases they are on the phone demanding that we "do something", but then rejecting every single possible option that I could offer. But they'll get angrier and angrier at you because you specifically are refusing to do anything for them.


Keep repeating the options you can offer. "What I can do for you is X, Y or Z which of those would you like?". Over and over again in response to basically anything they say that isn't choosing one of the options. They will break and choose one eventually and you avoid going off into the weeds explaining the laws of physics and/or bureaucracy that they don't care about.

[WarKitty]

Keep repeating the options you can offer. "What I can do for you is X, Y or Z which of those would you like?". Over and over again in response to basically anything they say that isn't choosing one of the options. They will break and choose one eventually and you avoid going off into the weeds explaining the laws of physics and/or bureaucracy that they don't care about.

In my experience, a lot of times that just makes them even angrier because you, personally, are refusing to do anything actually helpful and just repeating that stupid crap over and over again and not listening to them at all.

[Keltest]

In my experience, a lot of times that just makes them even angrier because you, personally, are refusing to do anything actually helpful and just repeating that stupid crap over and over again and not listening to them at all.

While this is true, you aren't a therapist, counselor or hug dispenser. Youre there to provide a specific service within a specific range. If they want you to do something outside of that, well, they should prepare for disappointment.


If you react to them, you could conceivably say something foolish that could lead to consequences. If you just outline what youre capable of doing and they just don't care, youre somewhat more protected from them trying to cause trouble for you later.

[GloatingSwine]

In my experience, a lot of times that just makes them even angrier because you, personally, are refusing to do anything actually helpful and just repeating that stupid crap over and over again and not listening to them at all.

There'll be some you can't win, but if you get into the weeds explaining why you can't do {thing} you always lose because it helps nobody and takes far longer.

The other thing is to not rise to meet their tone and behaviour, because that will cause them to escalate it in response.

By repeating the same options over and over again you can avoid rising to meet their tone. Ignore how they're speaking, calmly repeat the same options over and over again until they give in and pick one or go away.

Also, if they're the type that won't let you speak and keep butting in let them. Go silent. Mute your mic or even just take your headset off and let them talk to dead air.

When they stop and ask if you're still there, then carry on. If they barge in again do it again. They'll get the hint eventually, again without escalating your tone to meet theirs and driving them to higher states of annoyance/aggression.

[Wraith]

While this is true, you aren't a therapist, counselor or hug dispenser. Youre there to provide a specific service within a specific range. If they want you to do something outside of that, well, they should prepare for disappointment.

There is a particular point of British Law called the Sales of Goods Act, which is essentially the embodiment of this ; problem is, 90% of people only bother to read the first half of it, and that always ends in tears.

Specifically; the SoGA is consumer protection. It says that if you buy something from a shop and it is defective or otherwise unfit, you can return it to the shop for a refund, repair or replacement. This is the part that customers adore and will crow long and loudly about at every opportunity.
What they always - ALWAYS - fail to remember is that this sentence in question does not end with a period but with a semi-colon - it continues to say that which one you get is at the discretion of the shop according to what is financially viable, and NOT the customer's choice. We'd accommodate that if we could, but we were expressly relieved in law from being FORCED to do so.

It very quickly, when i was in electrical sales, reached the point where we printed off the legislation and kept a laminated copy of it at the till. Sometimes we didn't even bother to explain it; some guy would start up jabbing his finger, red in the face, demanding a brand new £700 TV "because I know the law!", and we'd just hand it to them and point at the two lines; one highlighted in green and the other in yellow, and let him read it. A surprising amount would realise that they had been beaten at that point - claiming to know the law backs you into a very specific corner, because then you're trying to bypass me as a human being and my employer as a retailer and appeal to a higher authority who, despite 'common knowledge', is there to see that BOTH sides are treated fairly. Customers are not sacrosanct merely for the fact of being customers.

Yet there were always some who doubled down. Angry, scowling, rude, accusing us (sometimes me, personally) of being liars and cheats, even threatening us with the law and a civil suit and then insistent that we should give them a full refund "as a sign of good faith" after we proved that we knew the law better.
We were very fortunate to have a strong manager; when this started to happen, we very deliberately lost all sympathy and we would only offer exactly what suited *us* best, and he was great for not even bothering to attend demands of "I want to see the manager" and instead told them over the 'phone that he wasn't interested in what they wanted - either deal with me and take what was offered, or leave.

[GloatingSwine]

There is a particular point of British Law called the Sales of Goods Act, which is essentially the embodiment of this ; problem is, 90% of people only bother to read the first half of it, and that always ends in tears.

Actually superceded now. Under the new CRA the customer has a 30 day right to reject goods that are unfit or faulty for a refund, after that the retailer gets one go to repair or replace the item if it's under six months old and the customer can ask for a refund if the repair or replacement was unsuccessful.

After six months the customer has to prove that the product was defective as sold and any refund if a repair or replacement is unsuccessful is likely to be partial to account for the time the product was owned.

[Wraith]

Actually superceded now. Under the new CRA the customer has a 30 day right to reject goods that are unfit or faulty for a refund, after that the retailer gets one go to repair or replace the item if it's under six months old and the customer can ask for a refund if the repair or replacement was unsuccessful.

After six months the customer has to prove that the product was defective as sold and any refund if a repair or replacement is unsuccessful is likely to be partial to account for the time the product was owned.

That all sounds the the same as the old Act, then.
What hasn't changed is that the retailer still gets to choose whether it's a refund, repair or replacement at the first point of complaint. As far as I recall (I've been out of direct sales for about 5 years so correct me if I'm wrong) the only relevant part updated is that it used to be that if the retailer chose to repair then they had to do it "within a reasonable amount of time" which was not properly codified, but more or less accepted to be within 28 days, though they allowed more for specialist or custom goods.

The stories that I had in mind almost never happened more than a couple of weeks after sales, in which case our customer always - ALWAYS - cited the European Law that allows for returns and partial refunds up to 3 years after sale (even though in England that is superceded by British Law which says 5 years :smalltongue: )

It's not griping about the policy as such, more about the fact that my store took £1million turnover per week (and we weren't even the biggest in the area) as part of a business that owns 400 other similar sized stores. We *know* what the law is and how to run a shop, probably more so than Mr.Part-Time Bus Driver whose education predates the mandatory civics classes introduced in Britain in 2002.

[GloatingSwine]

That all sounds the the same as the old Act, then.
What hasn't changed is that the retailer still gets to choose whether it's a refund, repair or replacement at the first point of complaint. As far as I recall (I've been out of direct sales for about 5 years so correct me if I'm wrong) the only relevant part updated is that it used to be that if the retailer chose to repair then they had to do it "within a reasonable amount of time" which was not properly codified, but more or less accepted to be within 28 days, though they allowed more for specialist or custom goods.

Also if the repair or replacement doesn't work at the first attempt, then the customer can ask for a refund no matter how long it's been going on.



The stories that I had in mind almost never happened more than a couple of weeks after sales, in which case our customer always - ALWAYS - cited the European Law that allows for returns and partial refunds up to 3 years after sale (even though in England that is superceded by British Law which says 5 years :smalltongue: )


Six years (5 in Scotland) :P

[Wraith]

Six years (5 in Scotland) :P

Slip of the tongue - "Another 5", is how I used to remember it.
1 year as standard, "another 5" for evaluation and partial refund, because if you tell people "6 years" it's technically not true as there's two separate parts to it.

Also, tell people "6 years" and they automatically assume that means a guaranteed replacement after half a decade. Voice of experience on that one, thanks to my dumbass supervisor not clarifying for some guy and leaving me to sort it out. :smallsigh:

[Khedrac]

Be careful that we don't cross into legal advice beyond "a new version of this law exists - look it up if you want to know about it, don't ask here".

For me the law seems slightly unfair as it puts responsibility on the vendor not the manufacturer and I don't believe that the vendors have similar rights to then claim off the manufacturer when it's a flaw in the actual product (though one tyre place did ask my father to make a Sales of Goods Act claim on them as they wanted the evidence to go back to the manufacturer to say "your tyres are junk" - an example of excellent customer service by the tyre place imo).

Dad also once got a refund when the second replacement washing machine failed in exactly the same way as the first two - spraying water onto its control board which then shorted out after a couple of weeks of use - Dad claimed "not of merchandisable quality" and got his money back for a badly designed product.

Oddly enough this makes me think of a couple of big organisations - one with bad mandated customer service (i.e. it's the company to blame not the staff) and a bigger one with good customer policies (never tried their actual individual service).

Start with a national chain of catalogue shops - who take cash or credit/debit card payments only. One day I visited a branch with a friend (I was providing transport) to find that their card-reading machines were having a bad day and only accepting about 1 in 5 cards. The response? "There's a cashpoint round the corner." No matter that people were buying items costing hundreds of pounds nor that carbon counterfoils for cards have been around for years (and about that time a filling station I called at produced a brand new counterfoil sheet when their reader wasn't working) if their readers failed to read your card you had to use cash - in this instance it failed on my friend's cards but worked on the 3rd one I tried so I said I'd take a cheque.
Next the same chain of shops found some people with "chip and sign" cards not "chip and pin" cards - shouldn't be a problem, right? They are modern cards issued by the card companies (VISA I think in this case) for people who have a problem with chip & pin. No, the catalogue shop in its corporate wisdom said "chip and PIN only" and refused to accept them. The card complany (probably VISA) said "your contract requires you to accept all the cards we issue - would you like us to withdraw all our services from you?" and the catalogue shop realised the error of their ways.
I think I feel sorry for the staff who work in that chain - corporate policy is obviously to be as unfriendly as possible.

(*I was most impressed with the filling station's counterfoil sheet - it had rows for each different fuel type including LPG - which was how I knew they were not old stock but modern stock in case of system failure.)

[Keltest]

Be careful that we don't cross into legal advice beyond "a new version of this law exists - look it up if you want to know about it, don't ask here".

For me the law seems slightly unfair as it puts responsibility on the vendor not the manufacturer and I don't believe that the vendors have similar rights to then claim off the manufacturer when it's a flaw in the actual product (though one tyre place did ask my father to make a Sales of Goods Act claim on them as they wanted the evidence to go back to the manufacturer to say "your tyres are junk" - an example of excellent customer service by the tyre place imo).

Speaking from experience, vendors can and often will have something set up with the manufacturer to get partial or complete refunds for damaged products. Theres an understanding that sometimes things happen, and as long as we actually have proof that the product existed in the first place (usually a barcode or something) its pretty easy to just get a refund or replacement. That's part of why our inventory checks are important: they help prove that were being honest when we say something wasn't able to be sold.

[Wraith]

For me the law seems slightly unfair as it puts responsibility on the vendor not the manufacturer and I don't believe that the vendors have similar rights to then claim off the manufacturer when it's a flaw in the actual product (though one tyre place did ask my father to make a Sales of Goods Act claim on them as they wanted the evidence to go back to the manufacturer to say "your tyres are junk" - an example of excellent customer service by the tyre place imo).

Certainly where I worked, this is part of the reason as to why we were so pedantic in differentiating between the 6 month/1 year/6 years time frames. The company had contracts with their suppliers and manufacturers to return faulty items under very specific circumstances, and any we took back within those terms we would be refunded to us as manufacturing error. When the fault occurred, determined who we had to refer the problem to; supplier, manufacturer and corporate respectively. Anyone who wouldn't agree to such a contract, didn't do business with us - we were a big enough company that we had the power of refusal even to the likes of Toshiba, Kodak and (for a while) Apple.

Any we took back outside of those circumstances was rejected without appeal and would come off of our own budget. 50% of my job was examining returned items to discern what was actually wrong with them, and fixing them if possible before escalating the case to a contracted repair service.

You probably wouldn't believe what some people tried to call "manufacturing faults" after they thought they had figured out our system. An LCD TV with a big dent and 'spider web' fracture pattern in the middle of the screen, an iPad whose Home button had been pushed so hard that it had indented into the motherboard, an Epson printer that had a Canon ink partridge jammed into it so hard that the carriage had broken free.... :smallsigh:

[Khedrac]

Speaking from experience, vendors can and often will have something set up with the manufacturer to get partial or complete refunds for damaged products.

Certainly where I worked, this is part of the reason as to why we were so pedantic in differentiating between the 6 month/1 year/6 years time frames.
It's nice to hear that businesses usually have some protection - especially is this thread is mainly about put-upon businesses and put-upon employees.

[Peelee]

Customer: Hey, I'd like to get a mask through insurance, you guys have me on file.
Me: Great! What's the name?
Customer: Smith.

Yes, that's more than enough to pull your file, you're clearly the only person with that name that's ever come in here.

On the one hand, I'm slightly grumpier than normal today. On the other, this happens way more than it ever should. Mr. Funionrings can pull that and have it work. Mr. West cannot. And they should know that, dangit.

[Seerow]

Customer: Hey, I'd like to get a mask through insurance, you guys have me on file.
Me: Great! What's the name?
Customer: Smith.

Yes, that's more than enough to pull your file, you're clearly the only person with that name that's ever come in here.

On the one hand, I'm slightly grumpier than normal today. On the other, this happens way more than it ever should. Mr. Funionrings can pull that and have it work. Mr. West cannot. And they should know that, dangit.

Most places I've worked don't actually pull up anything by name, but still ask for name first as a courtesy. Could be that's what the customer was expecting.

What gets me is when I ask for an email address, and the person on the phone has something really unusual, but say it once quickly, then get irate when you ask them to repeat or spell it. Similarly anytime the email includes lots of n's and M's or D's and B's, and then they get upset when I have to go letter by letter to figure out what their email actually is.

[The Glyphstone]

I was lucky enough to be raised by a pilot, so I default to phonetic alphabet whenever I'm on the phone. Helps a lot except when I forget one of them and have to improvise.

[Traab]

This is less a rant about idiot customers and more a general rant. I work in the parts department of an auto shop. I would estimate at least twice a day, ofte more, we get this exchage

Customer: "Hi, I need to get x part"

Us: "Ok, that will cost 500 bucks, are you sure you want it?"

Customer: "Yep!"

/orders part to be delivered

/two hours later

Customer: "Never mind, I wont get it now, maybe later"

Us: "FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!"

See, we have to pay for those parts, often we can cancel the order, sometimes we can even return it for a refund, but that is not always the case, and when that happens we are stuck with a random part, nowhere to put it, and out 500 bucks because that customer is never, ever coming back for it and the odds of another customer walking through the door with a 2013 elantra with that engine type, and that exact issue, are fairly low. (Otherwise we would carry a stack of that item) I realize its thoughtlessness, not malice, cruelty, or even outright stupidity which is why I dont insult them for doing it, but come on people, parts arent free, not even for the company itself. Stop ordering and canceling. And no, im not sure why we dont get paid in advance. Its probably some sort of customer service deal where we make sure its the right part (you would be surprised how often its not) first or else it turns into an obnoxious game of credits, debits, and math to figure out how much money they get back, or still owe for the actual piece needed.

[Peelee]

Most places I've worked don't actually pull up anything by name, but still ask for name first as a courtesy. Could be that's what the customer was expecting.

Medical field (kinda). Name and date of birth are king. Imean, we could assign them customer numbers or by insurance contract numbers, but everyone knows their name and dob offhand, they're easy to convey, and they're universally used. If a doctor calls and asks for therapy data, they ID patients by name and dob. When I make an appointment with my doc, they want name and dob.

I maintain that saying "Smith" is patently unhelpful, and when they've been coming to us for a couple years, they should know that. If they're ever shocked or confused about how their insurance works, I'll cut em all the slack in the world; that stuff can get ridiculous. But if they specifically ask me to pull up their history and just give me a last name to go off, I'ma judge them. Except, of course, for the HIPAA-means-youre-not-getting-his-real-name Mr. Funionrings. Damned memorable name, and I know ain't nobody else has it.

[Keltest]

Medical field (kinda). Name and date of birth are king. Imean, we could assign them customer numbers or by insurance contract numbers, but everyone knows their name and dob offhand, they're easy to convey, and they're universally used. If a doctor calls and asks for therapy data, they ID patients by name and dob. When I make an appointment with my doc, they want name and dob.

I maintain that saying "Smith" is patently unhelpful, and when they've been coming to us for a couple years, they should know that. If they're ever shocked or confused about how their insurance works, I'll cut em all the slack in the world; that stuff can get ridiculous. But if they specifically ask me to pull up their history and just give me a last name to go off, I'ma judge them. Except, of course, for the HIPAA-means-youre-not-getting-his-real-name Mr. Funionrings. Damned memorable name, and I know ain't nobody else has it.

I mean, did you ASK him for his DOB? because even with a first name, its not out of the realm of possibility that he had a common first name as well.

[Douglas]

Medical field (kinda). Name and date of birth are king. Imean, we could assign them customer numbers or by insurance contract numbers, but everyone knows their name and dob offhand, they're easy to convey, and they're universally used. If a doctor calls and asks for therapy data, they ID patients by name and dob. When I make an appointment with my doc, they want name and dob.
I remember a story about one time where my mother called a hospital about my older sister, and her full name and date of birth together still only narrowed it down to two people.

[Peelee]

I mean, did you ASK him for his DOB? because even with a first name, its not out of the realm of possibility that he had a common first name as well.
Nope, because 9 times out of ten we don't need it. Less than that, really; I only ask if I see we have multiple patients with that name, which is surprisingly uncommon. Regardless, narrowing it down to three or four people is still more helpful than half a file cabinet drawer of people.

I remember a story about one time where my mother called a hospital about my older sister, and her full name and date of birth together still only narrowed it down to two people.
Ha! We've never needed to confirm ID by address, but we can if it ever arises. We did have two people with the same name (down to middle initial) come in for machines a week apart from each other. The was a little confusing before we realized the deal.

[Traab]

I remember a story about one time where my mother called a hospital about my older sister, and her full name and date of birth together still only narrowed it down to two people.

I got in trouble because someone with my full name and birthdate had an overdue library book and I got blamed for it. Still bump into this issue sometimes.

[Maryring]

Me: XXX my name is XXX how can I help you.

C: Yeah I was wondering about something regarding my account. My DOB is XXX.

Me: Okay and what's your name?

C: I need you to (blahblahblah)

Me: Yes, but could you please give me your name? Or perhaps your address?

C: I'm at (address that doesn't exist). Tell me X about my account!

Me: There doesn't seem to be anything on that address. Could you please give me your name?

C: I'VE TOLD YOU BEFORE MY DOB IS XXX. YOU GOTTA NOTE THIS DOWN!

Me: I have, but there are several people who share your DOB. Can you please give me your name?

C: My (not a name at all, but a different identifier) is XXX.

Me: I'm sorry but there is nothing on that identifier either. Can you please give me your name?

C: MY DOB I XXX! I'M GONNA CALL THE COPS ON YOU!

---

Best part? He wasn't even our customer in the first place.

[Stuebi]

I finally got an apprenticeship now and will be a fully fledged computer technician somewhere in 2020. So yay to that.

On a "Less Yay" note, I just finished half a year of First & Second Level Support at a school. Get those seatbelts ready, people.


It took maybe a month before I was reduced to "Minimal required effort to not get into trouble.". This is a bad working attitude, I know. But I ahve no idea how I could've managed otherwise. Firstly you have kids shoving anything from bubblegum to chocolate into their computers just to spite you. Unless you catch the lad/ladette in question in the act of shoving a Toblerone onto their Motherboard, you can't do anything about it. Except of course clean it out.
Secondly there are the teachers, being firmly in a "9 out of 10 people think computers are witchcraft" ratio, and also firmly believe that anything bad that ever happens to them is YOUR and only YOUR fault. I have been accused of sneaking into peoples Offices and installing Toolbars. This is not a joke. We had a gentleman down the hall who managed to constantly reinstall a range of colorful toolbars on his browser, and was resistant to any advice on the matter. And instead believed that I was doing it to spite him. I dont even know how you would go about that. I'm reasonably sure when you Google "Toolbar XY downloader" it just goes "Haha, good one. Really tough, what do you wanna search?"

Other funny Events:

- Getting slapped after informing a Secretary that I had ordered "More Ram for her Machine.". After an explanation ("No, not that kind of Ram, Miss.") much apology and awkwardness ensued. I actually felt really bad because it didnt even occur to me this could be misunderstood.
- Getting a paycut after I had been accused of breaking a PC on purpose. (In actuality the person in question had nudged the Voltage switch on the back and I caught it too late to prove it had happened before being delivered to me.)
- Being called out of bed just past midnight for an "emergency", which turned out to be a teacher unable to plug in his external-drive. For context, I had to actually take the bike for most of the route since no trains were driving at the time.
- The two other workerlings got a bonus for good performance at the end of december. Not me, because Captain Toolbar from above had complained about me so often that I didnt deserve it, appearantly.

Thank Yawgmoth I'm finally rid of that place. I'm not even kidding when I say that I was basically a Zombie by the end of it.

[Peelee]

I wish this occurance wasn't as frequent as it is.

Me:OK, so your insurance is going to pay most of the cost of this machine, but they want you to prove you're using it.
Customer: OK.
Me: They're really flexible about it too, but if you haven't met it by a certain date, they'll refuse to pay.
Customer: OK.
Me: Let me explain it to you very simply, and in great detail.
Customer: OK.
Me: Also, here's a written printout of the requirements. They're broken down here. It's in plain language. It's also surrounded by asterisks so you can't possibly miss it.
Customer: OK.
Me: Also, I need you to initial here and sign here that you understand this.
Customer: OK.
Me: Now, just one more time, you need to do this for your insurance to pay. It's not our requirement. It's an insurance requirement. Once you get this machine, the clock starts ticking. If you don't use it, they don't care. If you're out of town on vacation, or hospitalized, or anything else that may happen, they don't extend the time frame. It's an absolute.
Customer: OK.
Me: Lastly, if you have any problems, please call us and let us know so we can help you fix it.
Customer: OK.

[time passes]
Me, on the phone: I see you used the machine once for twelve minutes two weeks after getting it, and never again. Is there anything we can do to get you to use it more?
Customer: Nah. I just went on vacation for a bit, tried it when I got back, and had some problems, but don't worry about it.
Me: Are you sure? A lot of problems when you're new are common, and we can easily help fix them. And, if you don't start using your machine soon, your insurance can deny the claim.
Customer: OK, I'll start using it.

[time passes]
Me, on phone: We need you to bring your machine back or pay the rest of the amount in full, since you basically never used it.
Customer: No. I have insurance. Also I was on vacation and couldn't use it for a while, and when i did, I had problems. Anyway, can I have more time to use it? Nobody told me any of this.

People, I swear...


I finally got an apprenticeship now and will be a fully fledged computer technician somewhere in 2020. So yay to that.

Congrats!

[Vinyadan]

I'll be honest, I find customers easier to handle than colleagues or management. Customers don't do anything in a personal way; you can just swipe the worry off once they leave the door, and you shouldn't feel involved anyway. But slacking colleagues are really bad, and management not keeping its promises to costumers is next on the list.

[Onyx]

I'll be honest, I find customers easier to handle than colleagues or management. Customers don't do anything in a personal way; you can just swipe the worry off once they leave the door, and you shouldn't feel involved anyway. But slacking colleagues are really bad, and management not keeping its promises to costumers is next on the list.

I also find these hard to handle:
1. slacking colleagues are really bad
2. management not keeping its promises to costumers is next on the list.

I totally feel you man

[John Cribati]

Ohhhhh boy do I have some gems.

My third day of the job I was faced with a lady who paid about for $3 and some change worth of stuff by picking dimes and nickels out of the palm her hand, and purposely came up 4 cents short (I reiterate, she had a handful of coins. There were more coins in her hand) and got angry at me for being "cheap" and not letting her "have" 4 cents. It got the the point where she asked the person behind her for the extra. That she had available.

[Random Sanity]

I work in a trophy and engraving shop. I mainly deal with the database and ordering in stuff, but occasionally have to deal with customers when everyone else is busy. It's a tiny business, with just barely enough space for our equipment, my half-an-office, and the bare minimum of supplies to keep us running. This is readily apparent to anyone with a working pair of eyes as they come in.

So this guy comes by needing a trophy for some mini-tournament (not uncommon), looks around at the aforementioned shop conditions, and says "What do you have in stock?"

:smallannoyed:

I explain to him in no uncertain terms we don't keep trophies on hand - there's nowhere to put them. We order stuff as we need it.

"Yeah, but what do you have in stock?"

:smallmad:

Seriously, how does anyone that stupid manage to get from their bed to the front door without getting someone killed?

[Peelee]

I work in a trophy and engraving shop. I mainly deal with the database and ordering in stuff, but occasionally have to deal with customers when everyone else is busy. It's a tiny business, with just barely enough space for our equipment, my half-an-office, and the bare minimum of supplies to keep us running. This is readily apparent to anyone with a working pair of eyes as they come in.

So this guy comes by needing a trophy for some mini-tournament (not uncommon), looks around at the aforementioned shop conditions, and says "What do you have in stock?"

:smallannoyed:

I explain to him in no uncertain terms we don't keep trophies on hand - there's nowhere to put them. We order stuff as we need it.

"Yeah, but what do you have in stock?"

:smallmad:

Seriously, how does anyone that stupid manage to get from their bed to the front door without getting someone killed?

I think he can't to get a CPAP machine after he left your shop. Guy today wanted to not deal with his insurance, since he has a huge deductible, so we cut him a deal. We mentioned that this m we could give it to him for $X, since we weren't going to deal with insurance, and he promptly replied, "yeah. Oh, and can you bill it towards my deductible?"

[Khedrac]

Ohhhhh boy do I have some gems.

My third day of the job I was faced with a lady who paid about for $3 and some change worth of stuff by picking dimes and nickels out of the palm her hand, and purposely came up 4 cents short (I reiterate, she had a handful of coins. There were more coins in her hand) and got angry at me for being "cheap" and not letting her "have" 4 cents. It got the the point where she asked the person behind her for the extra. That she had available.

One weird (and little known) twist with UK law is that if someone tries this here the till operator can reject their payment and tell them to find another way to pay. We have two concepts - legal tender and legal currency, all of our coinage (I think) has a limit above which they cease to be legal tender and remain legal currency - and for coppers the limit is about 20 pence. The main difference is that while legal tender is always valid for the settlement of a debt (and refusing it can waive the debt), legal currency is only valid if the creditor is willing to accept it.
I have carefully not given the legal details (as legal advice is not allowed here) - look it up if you want to know more.

I have actually seen this come into play once - at university in the hall of residence bar on a quiet evening a mate of mine tried to pay for a £1 drink with a fistful of coppers (had a few 5ps in it too) and Betty the barmaid (lovely grandmotherly lady) just said "get lost" knowing full well that my mate knew she could reject his proffered payment - he didn't even complain but just pulled out more suitable coins. I think part of why she did it was because my mate didn't try to count out the cost of the drink himself, but was hoping she would count it out!

[Wraith]

One weird (and little known) twist with UK law is that if someone tries this here the till operator can reject their payment and tell them to find another way to pay. We have two concepts - legal tender and legal currency, all of our coinage (I think) has a limit above which they cease to be legal tender and remain legal currency

Honestly, you wouldn't even need to cite that much of the law. A transaction can be refused for any reason (provided that it is not discriminatory of course) - "it's not worth my time to sit and count all of these pennies" is a perfectly good reason in that regard.

Try explaining that to some people, though. The culture nowadays is that many customers think we ought to be grateful for their custom, and grovel for every coin they deem worthy of giving us no matter how lowly, and woe betide anyone who tries the *absurd* claim that a retailer also has rights on their side of a transaction! :smalltongue:

[Douglas]

One weird (and little known) twist with UK law is that if someone tries this here the till operator can reject their payment and tell them to find another way to pay. We have two concepts - legal tender and legal currency, all of our coinage (I think) has a limit above which they cease to be legal tender and remain legal currency - and for coppers the limit is about 20 pence. The main difference is that while legal tender is always valid for the settlement of a debt (and refusing it can waive the debt), legal currency is only valid if the creditor is willing to accept it.
I have carefully not given the legal details (as legal advice is not allowed here) - look it up if you want to know more.

I have actually seen this come into play once - at university in the hall of residence bar on a quiet evening a mate of mine tried to pay for a £1 drink with a fistful of coppers (had a few 5ps in it too) and Betty the barmaid (lovely grandmotherly lady) just said "get lost" knowing full well that my mate knew she could reject his proffered payment - he didn't even complain but just pulled out more suitable coins. I think part of why she did it was because my mate didn't try to count out the cost of the drink himself, but was hoping she would count it out!
I don't think the concept of legal tender is relevant in either story - neither of them actually involves a debt, they're both about payment at time of purchase. For legal tender to be relevant, the customer would have to take ownership of the product first, and then pay for it later on some deferred payment arrangement.

[Marillion]

Wow, some of the people I've dealt with since I started managing a restaurant.

"This gorgonzola tastes like blue cheese, I want my money back." :smallsigh:

"I work at a very high end business and I make lots of money, more money in a day than you make in a year" yeah sure you do, that's why you've spent THE ENTIRE DAY on the phone with multiple people trying to get thirty dollars back.

"I come here all the time and I always get the raspberry vinaigrette" Ma'am, in the entire 25 year history of the company we have literally never offered raspberry vinaigrette.

"I bought food for my family of five, and you only gave me two loaves of the complimentary house bread, so I'm never eating at your establishment again" byeeeeeeeeee

"I'm sorry sir, we can't accept all three of these coupons (that all explicitly say may not be combined with any other offer) but perhaps we could offer you a dessert on the house?" "I WILL KILL YOU AND YOUR UNBORN CHILD". Actual words from an actual conversation that a pregnant server had with an actual table.

And then he called corporate to complain about how we treated him and when he spoke to our district vice president, the disgruntled customer threatened to burn his house down with his children in it. And he still got $100 in gift cards!!! :smallfurious:

That corporate mindset of undermining us and throwing gift cards at people who are blatantly lying or being terrible is truly upsetting.

[Peelee]

"I WILL KILL YOU AND YOUR UNBORN CHILD". Actual words from an actual conversation that a pregnant server had with an actual table.

I'm pretty sure this is actionable.

[Algeh]

A little off-topic, but here's something I've been wondering: is there a reason why, in a "tips are likely" environment such as a restaurant, that the server will not intentionally give back change in such a way as to make tipping easier but rather give the largest/fewer bills possible?

For a specific example, assume I buy some combination of things that costs about $9.50, and I pay with a $20 bill. If I get back a $10 bill and 2 quarters as my change, my tipping options are to (a) leave the $10 bill, a tip more than the cost of the actual thing, (b) tip the 50 cents, (c) not leave a tip at all, (d) rummage through the rest of my money looking for more coins or small bills for the tip, or (e) flag the person down again and ask them to break the ten so I can leave a tip. On the other hand, if they made my change in the form of a $5 bill and 5 $1 bills, I'd have an easy way to leave a $1-$2 tip, which is a more likely tipping amount in this situation.

I've noticed that some people will give the $5 and 5 $1 change in this situation, and others will give the $10 bill. Is there some advantage (other than just less counting to do) in giving the $10 bill back as change to help me see why this is so common? I usually have lots of small bills so it doesn't create much hassle for me, but it seems like it's something that would result in smaller tips so I'm surprised at how common it is among people who would, presumably, prefer/expect me to leave a tip. (Most annoyingly, it recently happened to me at an ice cream shop that also handed me all 3 cones I'd ordered before telling me the total, let alone giving me my change, at which point I really couldn't rummage through my small bills collection for a tip because I was already trying to deal with more ice cream cones than I had hands.)

[WarKitty]

A little off-topic, but here's something I've been wondering: is there a reason why, in a "tips are likely" environment such as a restaurant, that the server will not intentionally give back change in such a way as to make tipping easier but rather give the largest/fewer bills possible?

For a specific example, assume I buy some combination of things that costs about $9.50, and I pay with a $20 bill. If I get back a $10 bill and 2 quarters as my change, my tipping options are to (a) leave the $10 bill, a tip more than the cost of the actual thing, (b) tip the 50 cents, (c) not leave a tip at all, (d) rummage through the rest of my money looking for more coins or small bills for the tip, or (e) flag the person down again and ask them to break the ten so I can leave a tip. On the other hand, if they made my change in the form of a $5 bill and 5 $1 bills, I'd have an easy way to leave a $1-$2 tip, which is a more likely tipping amount in this situation.

I've noticed that some people will give the $5 and 5 $1 change in this situation, and others will give the $10 bill. Is there some advantage (other than just less counting to do) in giving the $10 bill back as change to help me see why this is so common? I usually have lots of small bills so it doesn't create much hassle for me, but it seems like it's something that would result in smaller tips so I'm surprised at how common it is among people who would, presumably, prefer/expect me to leave a tip. (Most annoyingly, it recently happened to me at an ice cream shop that also handed me all 3 cones I'd ordered before telling me the total, let alone giving me my change, at which point I really couldn't rummage through my small bills collection for a tip because I was already trying to deal with more ice cream cones than I had hands.)

In most retail environments you tend to run out of small bills first. So if your bill had been $5.50 instead, they'd have to give you back 4 1's. If they give everyone back 1's they're liable to run out.

[Peelee]

A little off-topic, but here's something I've been wondering: is there a reason why, in a "tips are likely" environment such as a restaurant, that the server will not intentionally give back change in such a way as to make tipping easier but rather give the largest/fewer bills possible?

For a specific example, assume I buy some combination of things that costs about $9.50, and I pay with a $20 bill. If I get back a $10 bill and 2 quarters as my change, my tipping options are to (a) leave the $10 bill, a tip more than the cost of the actual thing, (b) tip the 50 cents, (c) not leave a tip at all, (d) rummage through the rest of my money looking for more coins or small bills for the tip, or (e) flag the person down again and ask them to break the ten so I can leave a tip. On the other hand, if they made my change in the form of a $5 bill and 5 $1 bills, I'd have an easy way to leave a $1-$2 tip, which is a more likely tipping amount in this situation.

I've noticed that some people will give the $5 and 5 $1 change in this situation, and others will give the $10 bill. Is there some advantage (other than just less counting to do) in giving the $10 bill back as change to help me see why this is so common? I usually have lots of small bills so it doesn't create much hassle for me, but it seems like it's something that would result in smaller tips so I'm surprised at how common it is among people who would, presumably, prefer/expect me to leave a tip. (Most annoyingly, it recently happened to me at an ice cream shop that also handed me all 3 cones I'd ordered before telling me the total, let alone giving me my change, at which point I really couldn't rummage through my small bills collection for a tip because I was already trying to deal with more ice cream cones than I had hands.)

I'd say that's indicative of the server either trying to get a larger tip or being new and not thinking about it. A fair amount of the time if I pay cash in a tipped business, they'll ask how I want the change back.

This isn't something I'd really recommend doing for the most part, but if it's a regular occurrence with a specific person, you could say something like "well, I was gonna tip you more, but looks like I can only do two quarters."

[huttj509]

In most retail environments you tend to run out of small bills first. So if your bill had been $5.50 instead, they'd have to give you back 4 1's. If they give everyone back 1's they're liable to run out.

I second this, the number of times I've seen "please pay in $1s/$5s if you can, we are low on bills" signs in places like starbucks or the gas station, it's not infrequent.

[Peelee]

I second this, the number of times I've seen "please pay in $1s/$5s if you can, we are low on bills" signs in places like starbucks or the gas station, it's not infrequent.

Gas stations aren't tipped jobs, though. Starbucks shouldn't be either, but I don't drink coffee so this isn't a hill I'll die on.

[ve4grm]

In most retail environments you tend to run out of small bills first. So if your bill had been $5.50 instead, they'd have to give you back 4 1's. If they give everyone back 1's they're liable to run out.

It is 100% this.

Let's say you have $100 - 10 $5 bills, and 50 $1 bills. Let's say it's typical to have someone use a $20 to pay for a $14 meal.

If I give back change as a 5 and a 1 first, I can make change for 16 customers before I run out of money. (10 as a 5 and a 1, 6 as 6 1s, 4 $1 remaining)
If I give change starting with all 1s, I can only make change change for 10 people before I can no longer make change. (8 as all 1s, 2 as a 5 and a 1, and then I'm left with 8 $5 bills that can't make change)

Managing change is extremely important in a restaurant, as the banks are closed well before restaurants get their rush hours, so they can't just go get more change at any time.

If someone is giving you $10 change, and uses a 5 and 5x 1s to do it, I can all but guarantee that is not to make tipping easier, but because they ran out of 10s.

EDIT: That said, asking for payment after giving you three ice cream cones? That's just stupidity.

[Peelee]

It is 100% this.

Let's say you have $100 - 10 $5 bills, and 50 $1 bills. Let's say it's typical to have someone use a $20 to pay for a $14 meal.

If I give back change as a 5 and a 1 first, I can make change for 16 customers before I run out of money. (10 as a 5 and a 1, 6 as 6 1s, 4 $1 remaining)
If I give change starting with all 1s, I can only make change change for 10 people before I can no longer make change. (8 as all 1s, 2 as a 5 and a 1, and then I'm left with 8 $5 bills that can't make change)

Managing change is extremely important in a restaurant, as the banks are closed well before restaurants get their rush hours, so they can't just go get more change at any time.

If someone is giving you $10 change, and uses a 5 and 5x 1s to do it, I can all but guarantee that is not to make tipping easier, but because they ran out of 10s.

Don't a lot of restaurants have servers bring their own bank, and can't they trade out small bills for larger ones as they get tipped?

[Xyril]

I'm pretty sure this is actionable.

Speaking generally, that's uncertain. Police, if they're not too busy, might come and talk to, possibly even arrest the guy, and if they're thoroughly vindictive and he's thoroughly unpleasant, he might actually get convicted, but on appeal it will be highly dependent on circumstances. There are many articles on analysis of true threats by guys who were prosecutors or First Amendment lawyers, or both, but the gist of it is that courts are incredibly strict on what they'll consider a true threat (the vast majority of guys who threaten to kill the President, including actual white supremacists who own actual guns and actually trained to use them, don't get charged with anything because they can't--or at least shouldn't, legally.) At best, you might inflict a disorderly conduct charge on the jerk, and that might stick. On the civil side, it would be hard to win on something like IIED, but I don't it would be sanctioned as a frivolous suit either.

That said, I'd call the cops anyway. Esoteric legal questions and concerns about what may or may not happen to the guy once the criminal justice system gets involved are less important than trespassing him and getting him out of there before he can escalate, and making sure he knows that the cops know who he is and that he threatened to kill someone.

[Peelee]

Speaking generally, that's uncertain. Police, if they're not too busy, might come and talk to, possibly even arrest the guy, and if they're thoroughly vindictive and he's thoroughly unpleasant, he might actually get convicted, but on appeal it will be highly dependent on circumstances. There are many articles on analysis of true threats by guys who were prosecutors or First Amendment lawyers, or both, but the gist of it is that courts are incredibly strict on what they'll consider a true threat (the vast majority of guys who threaten to kill the President, including actual white supremacists who own actual guns and actually trained to use them, don't get charged with anything because they can't--or at least shouldn't, legally.) At best, you might inflict a disorderly conduct charge on the jerk, and that might stick. On the civil side, it would be hard to win on something like IIED, but I don't it would be sanctioned as a frivolous suit either.

That said, I'd call the cops anyway. Esoteric legal questions and concerns about what may or may not happen to the guy once the criminal justice system gets involved are less important than trespassing him and getting him out of there before he can escalate, and making sure he knows that the cops know who he is and that he threatened to kill someone.

Sounds like a lot for the guy to deal with, and not terribly much for the person who got yelled at to deal with. Plus, police report to back up a ban to corporate. No real downsides I'm seeing here.

[Algeh]

Sounds like a lot for the guy to deal with, and not terribly much for the person who got yelled at to deal with. Plus, police report to back up a ban to corporate. No real downsides I'm seeing here.

I would assume that many chain restaurants have policies on what employees should and shouldn't call the cops about, so there's that to take into consideration too.

(I work in education, and I certainly would be expected to go with the in-school established threat assessment process rather than calling the cops if a student made threats.)

[Peelee]

I would assume that many chain restaurants have policies on what employees should and shouldn't call the cops about, so there's that to take into consideration too.

(I work in education, and I certainly would be expected to go with the in-school established threat assessment process rather than calling the cops if a student made threats.)

Corporations have policies about a lot of things. Doesn't mean those policies are legal (or that one couldn't pursue a retaliatory firing case if one were let go for contacting the police).

To be fair, I have rather strong affinity towards rebelling against what I think are unjust practices or policies, so that probably isn't how most people would respond.

[Xyril]

Sounds like a lot for the guy to deal with, and not terribly much for the person who got yelled at to deal with. Plus, police report to back up a ban to corporate. No real downsides I'm seeing here.

I don't disagree. "Actionable" has a slightly more specific legal meaning than "can I get away with siccing the government on him in a way that punishes him more than it costs me," so I was addressing that.

[ve4grm]

Don't a lot of restaurants have servers bring their own bank, and can't they trade out small bills for larger ones as they get tipped?

To a point, yes. They will also trade bills/coins amongst themselves to get appropriate change.

But when you're going to have to make changes for 50+ tables in a night, possibly up to 4 times per table if people are paying individually, you still need to be a bit conservative. Unless you're asked for specific change, you always give higher-value bills first, under the assumption that since the customer didn't ask, they probably have a few 1s left over for a tip.

(There are also the occasional person who will yell at you if you break their change into too many bills. Don't ask me why, I don't know.)

The lesson to be learned here is just to specify how you want your change. Then everything's cool.

[Peelee]

Unless you're asked for specific change, you always give higher-value bills first, under the assumption that since the customer didn't ask, they probably have a few 1s left over for a tip.

The lesson to be learned here is just to specify how you want your change. Then everything's cool.

That's a good point. I frequently do that, but never really thought about it.

[Xyril]

(There are also the occasional person who will yell at you if you break their change into too many bills. Don't ask me why, I don't know.)


If you're asking why they would want fewer bills, the answer is that the whole reason large bills exist is so that people don't always want to carry around a huge number of bills. A large stack gets especially cumbersome if you have a really thin billfold or trifold wallet. Unless I know I'll need to make a lot of change myself (i.e., if I'm going to some street fair where I'll make a lot of small purchases from people who aren't always able to have enough singles on hand to make all the change they need, or if going somewhere to help put someone through school a dollar at a time) I'd prefer to have only enough small bills to make exact change once or twice, and assume that most places will be able to break a twenty.

If you're asking why they would think it's okay to yell at someone just doing their job for picking the "wrong" option from one of many perfectly reasonable options, especially if they never asked for change in a specific way, I have no answers for you.

[ve4grm]

If you're asking why they would think it's okay to yell at someone just doing their job for picking the "wrong" option from one of many perfectly reasonable options, especially if they never asked for change in a specific way, I have no answers for you.

That one, yeah. :smallbiggrin:

[Random Sanity]

Sounds like a lot for the guy to deal with, and not terribly much for the person who got yelled at to deal with. Plus, police report to back up a ban to corporate. No real downsides I'm seeing here.

You're assuming corporate has two bleeps to rub together for the opinion/wellbeing of anyone below corporate. Generally speaking, they don't.

[Peelee]

You're assuming corporate has two bleeps to rub together for the opinion/wellbeing of anyone below corporate. Generally speaking, they don't.

I agree. Hence the police report for a CYA so corporate can't (or at least likely won't) kowtow to banned person if they complain.

[Xyril]

You're assuming corporate has two bleeps to rub together for the opinion/wellbeing of anyone below corporate. Generally speaking, they don't.

Maybe not, but that cuts both ways. If you've documentation justifying the reason for the ban and a guy being carried off (even if not formally arrested), and you trespass the guy for life, nobody's going to come down on the local manager and say "I don't care how much trouble he is, rescind the ban so that we can make a few more bucks off that guy."

Also, as Peelee mentioned, you've gotta watch out for yourself. If that guy comes back weeks later and complains that he was kicked out for no reason, and you don't have a police report and names of witnesses, then throwing you under the bus could very well become the path of least effort on their part even if they don't actually believe him.

[WarKitty]

We have a fun one. It's kind of annoying but I also see where the customers are coming from

We have a bunch of phone lines that come into our call center. One of these lines is apparently one digit off from a major telecommunications company, which I will refer to as MTC. Somehow, at some point, MTC has put on of our numbers in as one of their support numbers on an internal document. Which results in them transferring customers who are looking for troubleshooting to our number.

I have gotten yelled at so much over this. I get a lot of people very angry and demanding that I do something because they're tired of being transferred and sitting on hold. I have a lot of people who start yelling as soon as I answer the phone, or more commonly as soon as I start explaining that it's the wrong number.

Unfortunately, I have exactly zero affiliation with MTC, which means there is absolutely nothing I can do to solve their problem.

(I do get it though - most people have trouble believing that they were transferred to a completely unrelated company, and not just the wrong department.)

[Random Sanity]

Maybe not, but that cuts both ways. If you've documentation justifying the reason for the ban and a guy being carried off (even if not formally arrested), and you trespass the guy for life, nobody's going to come down on the local manager and say "I don't care how much trouble he is, rescind the ban so that we can make a few more bucks off that guy."
.

You have a lot more faith in corporate overlords than my experience justifies.

[Peelee]

You have a lot more faith in corporate overlords than my experience justifies.

Nah, it's just most corporate overlords won't care about small fry like that. Absent a police report, they are more likely to not care in the customers favor. A police report against a customer means they're more likely to care in favor of the employees.

[Random Sanity]

Nah, it's just most corporate overlords won't care about small fry like that. Absent a police report, they are more likely to not care in the customers favor. A police report against a customer means they're more likely to care in favor of the employees.

That's exactly what I was talking about - police reports (and laws in general) aren't worth the paper they're printed on when there's money to be made. A customer who's barred from your store is spending their money somewhere else, ergo said barring is not going to stick once brought to corporate's attention.

"Care in favor of the employees"? Who are you trying to kid? Employees are disposable automatons that exist only to print money for their masters, as far as a corporate suit is concerned. If they're not doing that, fire them and get new ones.

[Peelee]

That's exactly what I was talking about - police reports (and laws in general) aren't worth the paper they're printed on when there's money to be made.

When the money to be made is on a three dollar hamburger, yeah, the police report is absolutely something the company will use to say "sucks to be you, guy who can't buy here anymore." Yeah, companies can and have flouted laws when they could make enough money on it, but you're conflating millions of dollars with peanuts and applying the same principle.

[John Cribati]

The 1-hour photo kiosk seems to have some quality that reduces a person's capacity for critical thinking and reading comprehension.

Like, even before they start, dozens of customers find themselves stumped by the adapter cables we have. People will try and plug their phone into a loose head that's clearly not connected to the cable in the electrical sense. Or people won't realize that someone left one of the heads on the base cord (this became especially frustrating when we had to replace the black cord with a white one. And attach the adapter heads to the cord with rubber bands).

Then actually using the kiosk. 30% of customers seek a mouse when the smallest observation of the screen will let you know, in rrasonably large letters, that you can "Touch anywhere to begin."

Then there's the complete inabilitt to find the option they want (usually it's "Prints and Enlargements." You know, the very first option once you touch the screen). After that, they come to a screen that gives you two options: Choose images and sizes you would like to print or Print all in one size.
While I admit that "print all in one size" is kind of vague wording, it's the second option on the screen, and there are directions that say that choosing it will quickly print a set number of pictures in one size. Still, a frighteningly large percentage of people will ask for help and say something along the lines of "I want to pick the ones I want" and I want to just... Shove their face into the screen. Bonus points go to the lady who, when faced with these two options, Chose Print all in one size, realized that it wasn't what she wanted, selected the "Back" button... And then chose Print all in one size again. Twice.

And Then actually making the order, which consists of touching the image you would like printed, then hitting a big obvious + sign dorectly beneath it to print in standard size, or else hitting one of the series of slightly less obvious + signs at the bottom of the screen that corresponds to the size you want. A shocking number of people are unable to tell a + sign from a - sign.

Then there are the folks who ask me why, say, their square photos get cut off when printing in a size other than 4x4 or 8x8, and I thus find myself teaching kindergarten geometry to a 30-hear-old.

Penultimately, the customer has navigate to the checkout menu to put in their phone number ("Do I have to put my number?" "Do you want us to be able to find your order when you come back?"). Again, a pitifully large number of people will type in their phone number and wait several minutes as the computer waits for them to hit the "Enter" button, not thinking that maybe the computer needs some sort of other instruction. And then when I say to hit "Enter," many of them select "Clear." If the system finds their number in the database, it will display the name attached to it and the instruction to select their name if it appears, or the "New Customer" option if it doesn't. More sitting and staring at the screen.

And finally, when the order uploads, the kiosk instructs them to "Please remove media" which, while again a bit poorly worded, you'd think the meaning would be obvious. Wrong.

Not to mention those who want their 200 pictures printed immediately.

[Peelee]

1-hour photo stuff

Oh man, it's been like that since those things were first introduced. Be glad you've never had to deal with APS. It itself wasn't bad, but the people... Oh Lord, the people. I'd ask if they had an APS camera (they never did. If they had an APS camera, they wouldn't be asking me questions about it), I'd tell them not to buy it, I'd tell them it wouldn't work in their 35mm camera, I'd tell them it was more expensive to buy, and to process, and they'd have to get a camera that would fit it since THEY WOULDN'T HAVE AN APS CAMERA DAMMIT and I would never be able to talk them out of buying it, since I'd always hear a cashier griping about how it must be a bad format since it's returned a lot.

I also a had a girl ask, and I quote, "how long does the one hour photo take?" To be fair, she rephrased it after her boyfriend fell down laughing at my reply, and I was amused enough (and dead enough) to help her out, but still. Helluva way to ask.

[darkrose50]

I am an insurance agent, and my department has a project.

Step 1: Call the customer and ask if they have any questions about their policy.
Step 2a: If they say yes, then answer their question, and then proceed to step 3.
Step 2b: If they say no then proceed to step 3.
Step 3: Blast them with pages and pages of facts using a script that looks like War and Peace fan-fiction . . . about how their policy works . . . even if they said that they did not have any questions about how their policy works.

. . . Step 3 also begins by asking them for their first name, last name, and address . . . because reasons of stupidity (HIPPA says that we cannot give out their information . . . but how a X insurance policy works is not individually identifiable information . . . it is quite literally public information . . . I have the BCBC of IL HMO . . . try your best to figure out my name and address and phone number, and so on with that information).

If BCBC of IL called me wanting me to give them my PII . . . I would be like WTF is wrong with you!

[Peelee]

I am an insurance agent, and my department has a project.

Step 1: Call the customer and ask if they have any questions about their policy.
Step 2a: If they say yes, then answer their question, and then proceed to step 3.
Step 2b: If they say no then proceed to step 3.
Step 3: Blast them with pages and pages of facts using a script that looks like War and Peace fan-fiction . . . about how their policy works . . . even if they said that they did not have any questions about how their policy works.

. . . Step 3 also begins by asking them for their first name, last name, and address . . . because reasons of stupidity (HIPPA says that we cannot give out their information . . . but how a X insurance policy works is not individually identifiable information . . . it is quite literally public information . . . I have the BCBC of IL HMO . . . try your best to figure out my name and address and phone number, and so on with that information).

If BCBC of IL called me wanting me to give them my PII . . . I would be like WTF is wrong with you!

Oh good lord, I hate BCBS IL. "Tell the automated system the patient's contract number, date of birth, name. Let us read that back to you as you put it in to confirm it. Now, let us tell you the patient's contract number, date of birth, and name."

Imagine that for thirty minutes, and that's their provider line.

[darkrose50]

Oh good lord, I hate BCBS IL. "Tell the automated system the patient's contract number, date of birth, name. Let us read that back to you as you put it in to confirm it. Now, let us tell you the patient's contract number, date of birth, and name."

Imagine that for thirty minutes, and that's their provider line.

I work for an insurance company (not BCBS of IL, I get that though my wife's work) . . . but we use the same phone numbers that customers use . . . it is a nightmare. "We are busy right now please **** off by looking up the information yourself online . . . did you know that you can **** off and call us later (and hopefully forget about it) . . ."

Menu #1 . . . lots of options . . . press 3 for billing
Menu #2 . . . lots of options . . . press 1 for billing
Menu #3 . . . lots of options . . . press 2 for billing . . . then I get billing.

[WarKitty]

Ok, I get it, you want us to meet you when your flight lands. That's a thing we do. We even track the flights so if it comes in early or late we'll still be there! This does, however, rely on you keeping us informed of the flight you are currently on. If you decide to change to an earlier flight and don't tell us, you won't get picked up.

Calling up your overpriced travel agent and complaining to them that the car you booked wasn't there to pick up up, resulting in our poor trainee getting yelled at and having no clue why, is not appreciated.

[veti]

The 1-hour photo kiosk seems to have some quality that reduces a person's capacity for critical thinking and reading comprehension.

Or to put it another way, some appallingly bad user interface design has been perpetrated on your system. An interface that depends on reading comprehension to perform the most routine functions - is doomed before the customer even arrives.

I suggest you do a study. Next week, keep count of how many customers use a particular machine, and how many of them get stuck at which points. Then send all that info to the manufacturer of the machine. I guarantee they'll be interested. They should have done such a study themselves, of course, but from your story it's pretty clear they didn't.

Do it well enough, there could be a better job in it for you. Interface design is a big thing, and user testing is a pretty good entry to the subject.

[darkrose50]

Per instructions I called 1100 people on “the first tab” of an Excel Spreadsheet . . . one thousand one hundred . . . we were supposed to call people on the second tab of the Excel Spreadsheet . . ..

I will be crying in the corner eating ice-cream and chocolate if anyone comes looking for me.

[Peelee]

Per instructions I called 1100 people on “the first tab” of an Excel Spreadsheet . . . one thousand one hundred . . . we were supposed to call people on the second tab of the Excel Spreadsheet . . ..

I will be crying in the corner eating ice-cream and chocolate if anyone comes looking for me.

I hope you're probably by the hour:smallwink:

[darkrose50]

Customer: “I need a problem fixed.”

Me: “Our systems are down, and I will call you when they are back up.”

Customer: “I need a problem fixed.”

Me: “I apologize for the inconvenience, I cannot fix anything. Our systems are down.”

Customer: “How can I get my problem fixed.”

Me: “I will call you when our systems are back up.”

Customer: “What do I do in the mean time?”

Me: “I apologize for the inconvenience. Our systems are down, and I will call you when they are back up.”

[darkrose50]

I hope you're probably by the hour:smallwink:

It ended up only being for a smaller section of the calls. I get paid by the hour and I get paid by the sale.

[John Cribati]

So I'm working in the aisle and a customer calls me over to the next aisle, points to a little tag beneath a product that says "But 1 get 1 FREE with card, and asks me if ot means that the product that the tag is beneath is offered for But 1, get 1 Free.

Like. Yes. You have established that despite English not being your first language, you have sufficient comprehension skills to deduce that. Why was my presence necessary?

[DearJtheDM]

I work in a bank call center. I had a caller last month that was calling for details on her husbands account. I could tell right away that she was tired, and angry. So pleasant as I could I told her that sure you know all your husbands info, and I am sure that make life easier for the both of you but rules are rules, and it is his account, not yours.

At the end of the call she just blows up, "You guys are the most [expletive deleted], [expletive deleted], [expletive deleted] bank, and that we can [expletive deleted] ourselves."

She did have the courtesy to thank me though:
"Thank you for your [expletive deleted] lack of help."

Before she hung up, I thanked her for calling, and told her that I hope she has a great rest of her day.

[Khedrac]

I work in a bank call center. I had a caller last month that was calling for details on her husbands account. I could tell right away that she was tired, and angry. So pleasant as I could I told her that sure you know all your husbands info, and I am sure that make life easier for the both of you but rules are rules, and it is his account, not yours.

At the end of the call she just blows up, "You guys are the most [expletive deleted], [expletive deleted], [expletive deleted] bank, and that we can [expletive deleted] ourselves."

She did have the courtesy to thank me though:
"Thank you for your [expletive deleted] lack of help."

Before she hung up, I thanked her for calling, and told her that I hope she has a great rest of her day.

Well done for maintaining your professionalism whilst understanding (and from the sound of it) being sympathetic to someone you were unable to help.
Personally I don't think there can be justification for her actions, but we don't know her situation and everyone has a breaking point for stress (and she sounds well past hers).

[darkrose50]

Me: The underwriting department requires a letter with [1] the companies letter head, [2] your first and last name, [3] the date your healthcare was terminated, and [4] the reason why your healthcare was terminated.

Customer: <unable to grasp this concept over ~12 calls and / or emails . . . somehow thinking that telling me over the phone and/or over email is somehow the same thing as a letter from a company . . . as if they would take people's word on whether or not they qualify . . . people would just get insurance when they were sick, and this would defeat the point of insurance.>

Me: <beating my head against a wall, until rendered unconscious>