Nobody goes into Customer Service hating people. The relationship between customers and server changes you.
In hindsight, I should have preserved my sanity, reduced my anxiety, and maintained a healthy attitude towards the public, by getting OUT of Customer Service 40+ years ago.
Thankfully, my amount of customer facing exposure these days is extremely limited.
But like last night, a woman who was worse for wear, was dumped in the station by her “friends” for us to deal with. She was incoherent and unable to walk due to alcohol. Not really something we should be responsible for, but it tied up two members of staff (from a very depleted workforce) to ensure her safety until the blue lights arrived.
This is what we are now……adult babysitters.
This is everything really. All my work interaction with the public is through the medium of comparatively expensive product. I can magically extend warranties and ship spare parts for free if I feel like it. If you have been treated badly by a dealer (and can prove it), I have many options available to me to make things better. It pays to be courtious to me because it can often save you a lot of money. For this reason, most people don’t tend to come into my space in a flying kick which is why I’m 21 years in and don’t hate it. This is not a luxury that all customer facing people have and I’m very grateful for it.
This is not to say I don’t deal with arseholes because I do. One man was furious we couldn’t repair his amplifier a little while back. This was despite it;
Being 26 years old
Having spent at least six months in a flooded cellar. And no, not ‘damp,’ actually underwater.
Whereupon she became someone else’s responsibility.
I would be quite happy for those members of the public that require ‘baby sitting’ services due to their own lack of responsibility to be invoiced accordingly.
I only worked one customer facing job, it wasn’t even with the general public and that convinced me I’m not safe talking directly to customers as the main component of my work. It was also the only job I’ve been ‘let go’ from albeit with a lovely parachute.
As my natural tendency is ‘cunt turned up to 11’ and I know and have accepted this I tend to be overly and consciously pleasant when a customer, I find that usually gets the best service / results and prevents me getting ejected by security / arrested if I let my natural tendencies run free.
Luckily I have some real life mates and places online like this to set my inner bell end free.
I’m my opinion tipping is for excellent service, this isn’t America where service workers get taxed on average tips they might make and driving a clapped out Peugeot 3 miles to deliver me lukewarm takeaway isn’t ’above and beyond’.
