Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Day 2

Gotta love people who don't live in the real world.
Lady come in today with 2 carat diamonds in her ears driving a luxury suburban reserved for moms with nannies and/or rich housewives with nothing better to do then attempt to use all of the oil in the world for their beast of a vehicle. She seemed down so I asked her how her morning was going.
"Horrible! I just had a massage!"

Ummm what?!?! how could your day possibly be horrible then?! I thought to myself.

"Really? that would be amazing, I need to get one myself soon." I respond politely. ( I have had ONE professional massage in my lifetime and it was a birthday present from a friend. sad.. i know.)

She responds " My back is hurting because I got a deep tissue massage to relax, so I am going to go home and sleep the rest of the day."

This is 11am. Wow.

I hope I never become as jaded as that woman. One of her earrings alone could have killed 2 of my bills. Wealthy, privileged and your life is so tough that you have to go get a massage? Cry me a river Lady.
Really.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Day One

First customer, " Hi, my name is J, How are you doing today?"
"Get me a coffee" says Grumpy Man number one. Stay cheerful.. just stay cheerful. I tell myself.
"Sure thing! Can I get anything else for you today?" I respond in a sing song happy voice.
"No"
"Ok, no problem! I'll have that right up for ya!"
Grumpy Man practically throws his money across the counter at me and just walks away when i deliver his coffee a full 15 seconds later.

Now what is the problem with this interaction?

Issue 1. Grumpy man decided to completely ignore that fact that I asked him a polite and friendly question. Politeness dictates a marginal response, a "Fine" would have been acceptable. Apparently that would take too much O2 out of his system to say.

Issue 2. I am aware that manners are falling out of fashion with the youth of today but the middle aged should know better. A simple "Please" or a "Thank you" would have been phenomenal towards alleviating the sense of hostility this man is projecting. I would have taken either because asking for both would have been expecting too much.. obviously. maybe I should run a manners school for the layman.

Issue 3. Throwing money is not an acceptably way of transferring money from one person to another. If parting with the 2 dollars is so painful for you that you have to do it quickly to prevent lasting aches, perhaps you should not be going to a coffee shop for your cuppa joe. Make it at home and save those of us behind the counter from having to deal with your monetary attachment issues.

Please?

Welcome to the Customer Service Industry

In today's age we have blogs about everything. It is time someone wrote a blog about working on the other side of the customer service counter. You know, the side that has to deal with hundreds of people's shit all day everyday for minimum wage or less. Most of those people work multiple of these minimum wage jobs just to make ends meat and hate it. I work one of these jobs. I am the perky redhead you see in that local coffee shop, your favorite breakfast place or the new clothing store. Welcome to my life.