Man complained about me re yoghurt brand stopped doing a flavour

@Auburngal what flavour yoghurt was it

Yeah, folk are barking. Absolutely barking mad! I voted YABU because working in retail I feel you should have noticed this by now. My colleague and I have a saying (not in retail but also public facing), 'Smile and nod, smile and nod'.

Those slagging the bloke of need to calm down as clearly the man is suffering from some medical truma

If I were prime minister …. National service options would be 12 months working in retail/with the public in a service role, a care home, some sort of public cleaning/maintenance job as well as actual military type stuff.

Sod the military stuff, I would just have them work in any customer-facing role!

At the end of the day, everyone we deal with face to face, arent the ones who make the rules, we at the customer face are just the ones trying to work policies into real life happenings

Im so sorry that whilst you are extremely stressed, you are having more stress added. But thems the rules that you have to abide to ( im not having a pop just saying ) and its bloody crap when no one is saying " oh there's been a loss , lets wise up". The system doesn't allow for personal circumstances

If I were prime minister …. National service options would be 12 months working in retail/with the public in a service role, a care home, some sort of public cleaning/maintenance job as well as actual military type stuff.

The worst jobs I have ever had, retail and waitressing I have never forgotten. They have been character forming in a way that I think it is the lowest form of bad manners/bed character to take your bad mood/planning/intellect out on the person who can’t tell you to ff off.

I am feeling very angry with the dwp staff at the moment but as a doormat I probably won't do anything about it. My brother died a couple of weeks ago and because of that and him being very ill I didn't work as much as usual. I had told them that. Anyway I had to have an appointment with them - my first in a couple of years - as my earnings were too low. They firstly made a face to face appointment for a time when I work ( they know my hours) and then changed it to a phone appointment for 10 minutes after I finish! I was stressed about it because sometimes it is difficult to leave work exactly on time. I rushed home and waited and waited. No phone call. Looked at my journal online said appointment at 1410 still no phone call. After an hour I wrote in the journal how long should I wait - very politely and about an hour after that they put a message on the journal that some of their staff were sick and I'll have to have a face to face next week. If I had missed the call I would have faced sanctions but it was okay for them to mess me around.

I think it’s really important to remember that you just don’t know what is going on in a person’s life. To you it seems like this man lost it over a yoghurt being discontinued but the reality is that a person of sound mind with no major life issues would be able to handle that information and move on. This man clearly wasn’t in that position. It could be that the yoghurt issue was the latest in a long list of things happening to this man that make him feel completely out of control. He could have lost his partner recently, he could have been diagnosed with a serious illness, he could be a carer for someone who will only eat that particular yoghurt. You just don’t know, so treat people kindly and assume the best of them.

Please tell us the yoghurt flavour, op.

It's not identifying lol

Why was it so hard to reply about the biscuits?

Seriously I'd reply, "how on gods earth would I know the answer to that? I know Im bloody brilliant but even I cant work that one out " and then prompt the customer - chocolate, cream, plain, ?

Dont be feared of customers. They are human, they have the same fears and worries as us. They also have the same sense of humour ( usually, I have had a complaint ) but what all customers want, is to be heard . They want their displeasure to be heard and understood. They want you to say yep, I get it, I hear you, I get what you are saying, I totally agree. Then you swing it back to them - but I just work here and unless you tell head office, what you tell me is ignored . Get them on your side and believe me they are more then happy to be heard and come away knowing its the BIG BOSSES fucking their lives up

Its a yoghurt, a poxy yoghurt, But to that customer that simple yoghurt probably brought a wee bit of joy to their lives and your customer only wanted someone to hear that

It's always your choice to leave retail. But do you not think that anyone in a customer facing position does not put up with crap, if not every day, every week.
Society consists of all intelligence and education levels.
Society consists of all entitlement levels.
Society always has bad attitude or criminal people - and people don't get nicer or mellow with age.
If you work in a supermarket - you're there dealing with all categories of people.
You're going to meet unacceptable people. We all do. But at work, you need to pull in supervisors to deal with them.

Dd1 went to return some unopened underwear as she had picked up the wrong size. After ranting at the poor customer service lady at m & s for about 5 minutes ( yes she takes after my ex dh) she realised the underwear was from Morrisons. Cue apology and embarrassed retreat.

I hope you dont feel like I was accusing you of lying, I just wanted your definition of flipped

I never allow a customer to go from neutral to shouty.

In this case id have said , yep, its a pure shit, I love those yoghurts myself, but this is where we are, we count for nothing ( IE getting the customer to understand its not personal, we are all in the same boat ) so Ive been trying these and they really are pretty bloody good, have you tried them?

Yes id be lying and gritting my teeth , but I do not go into work to take abuse so I have learned how to deflect. I get the customer to know I am a customer, the same as them, let them know I too am getting it hard and disappointing and before you know it, there's a trip down memory lane - the good old days, and you have a friend for life. None of this take long, id still be working but chatting away

Yes I may be weird , I love customer facing roles ( NHS, Bar,Shops, Reception. waitressing etc)

But then I have learned how to deal with "difficult" customers and as I say, I have never in 45 years been reduced to tears, nor had a breakdown due to the customers.

Staff and management - different story

@Auburngal you mentioned his age... possible dementia/Alzheimers? Let this one roll off your back. Sorry you had a bad interaction, though. Customer service is bloody hard. 💕

I used to work for a senator in California, so basically customer service.
A young couple came in and I set them up with social services, food banks, etc, etc.
The next day the guy came back and threatened to kill me because I didn’t give him any “free money.”
It was frightening because I worked alone.
The state police finally caught up with him at another state office (he was threatening them too) and arrested him.
To his great surprise, the police explained that there is no free money.

I had a customer have a go at me because l didn't know if a particular Sainsbury's had something in stock or not.
I don't work for Sainsburys. And l said (honestly) that l didn't know where that particular Sainsburys is.
Whereupon l was informed that l 'must, it's just up the road.'
I now live 100 miles from my home town. I work 12 miles from where l live now.
I only know the immediate area. I've never been anywhere near where this Sainsburys apparently is.
My fault entirely, for not having an encyclopaedic geographical knowledge of Leeds, though....

Sadly, with healthcare crisis mental health issues are falling through the cracks. I also think we are stretched too thin with col and various demands in our lives. Hasn't been this bad in decades.

@Auburngal

Again, tou have been asked numerous times, when you say "flipped: what do you mean. Explain to us what "flipped" means to you means

I for example think bursting into tears on the shop floor is excessive, as is having a "Mental breakdown" after being shouted at, because you are not giving perspective or explaining what you mean by your terms

Yes i had a breakdown, many years ago, but was it the manager saying something perfectly in order but in the wrong tone that sent me spiralling or was it the fact that I was so under pressure from all angles and was juggling way more then I personally could handle for way too long?

You dont explain clearly what you see as aggression and flipping after being asked time and time again

What flavour yogurt was it op?

I used to love hazelnut yogurts - haven't seen them for years........