To think that gen Z is completely disengaged in service industry

Men are the worst. They literally can’t see the wood for the trees.

Have you ever worked in menswear and seen the hissy fits when they try something on and it won’t go round their massive beer belly? They get really angry. Why doesn’t this fit. I’m a L, not XL. Your sizes are all wrong. They go beetroot red.

Have you tried maternity wear Sir? 😂

It’s all your fault it doesn’t fit, not the fact that they eat shit, drink loads of beer and look like Babapapa.

Customer service staff aren't there to relieve the load of overloaded people, they're not the whipping boy of society for other people to load their frustrations at life onto so they then feel better.
People need to learn to deal with their own emotions and feelings rather than just see an opportunity to offload it onto someone who they think can't retaliate because they're in a service position.
Absolutely pathetic.

Dd was a barista at David Lloyd and said the entitlement of some customers was unreal. Someone was being really rude to her once when she was busy serving someone else. Dd explained she’d deal with her once she’d finished with the other customer.

Rude woman ripped into her and called her useless and thick. Dd turned round and said “you’re being really fucking rude”

obviously went down badly. Dd did immediately apologise. Customer made a complaint. The manager was actually really nice to dd and said he knew dd wasn’t usually like this and that the customer must have been out of line initially.

I do think service staff should have an annual f bomb allowance to use against customers 😁. Because some deserve it.

And the problem is people think that putting up with being treated like this, and apologising to the customer, giving them that and another drink free is what constitutes good customer service

People clearly don't know what it's like working in these places. I worked in a chain pub and if my manager found out I was giving free drinks to customers who ordered wrongly he would have kicked off. Either that or he would have taken it out of my (measly) tips.

Presumably none of the human beings “screaming” at staff are happy go lucky individuals deciding for the fun of it to be rude and shitty. Presumably they are overloaded people who would benefit from well mannered service.

Or lie about waiting long. Had a customer who stood in an area which was not the queue. She was complaining about waiting 40 mins to get served. I only started my shift 10 mins earlier, entered work 5 mins before that. She wasn’t in. I said, I you weren’t there. She then went screaming at me.

Manager asked her to leave. A few minutes later, the manager said to look at the CCTV footage and said look at the time stamp between her entering and standing to her starting to raise her arms. 38 seconds. Yet claims to be there for 40 mins.

I used to think that people's brains fell out of their heads when they walked in anywhere with staff because they seemed incapable of working out the slightest little thing for themselves.

Now I realise it's because they think I should be there to be their PA rather than to facilitate a purchase of goods in return for money politely. But people don't half get arsey when you're doing that for someone else and they have to wait their turn for your attention, makes me laugh because they usually spend 5 minutes more moaning about how long they've waited and then take twice as long as the customer in front of them when they could have been half way home by then.

Please, we just do not give a shit about your life. Please don’t use us as your social interaction.

Plus I got fed up with customers talking about stuff in the papers (Daily Mail) saying it’s true. I wish customers are told we are not interested in this shit

That I am.
Didn't work out bad for me, though!

And the problem is people think that putting up with being treated like this, and apologising to the customer, giving them that and another drink free is what constitutes good customer service, and it should be done that way to boost your self esteem.

Think rather the opposite myself, not putting up with being treated like that shows self esteem, but people would have you believe that being treated like that for min wage will give you a nice warm fuzzy feeling that you're doing your job right.

If someone in a couple or another family member behaved that way it'd be labelled abuse but not when it's a customer towards service staff.

"Sometimes you just feel like a number on a payroll, no one cares who you are as long as you turn up and don't complain." to be honest - fine. For these kinds of jobs that are part time, student type things, who cares?

But the OP is complaining about poor customer service. My point is that if you're creating a soul destroying work environment where employees are treated like disposable flesh robots and barked at by angry customers all day then what do you expect?

I agree with you. It’s dire.

Exactly. You said it first.
No resilience, no self denial, determination, no way to cope with discomfort, crawled under their mother's skirts until 35.
I'm very lucky I won't need them to pay into my retirement, my (boomer) husband made sure of that.

Why the fuck are they around, then?

YANBU, OP.

Absolutely agree. I work in retail. When I go into a shop myself it’s self service as far as I am concerned. I look around, pick what I want, or perhaps I’ve done some research and read reviews before I go. If I speak to a retail assistant it’s to pay or at the very most go get me a size.

Where I work I get minimum wage, do 3 peoples jobs as they’ve cut staff, and I’m on my feet 9 hours a day. Why do customers think I’ve got a PHD in whatever you want? No, I don’t know if this cotton has gone through a special machine that doesn’t use as much water? No, I don’t know if these trainers use bamboo from Vietnam or Cambodia? I don’t know the % of reusable plastic to non reusable in this bikes tyres. Also, I’m not a doctor, engineer or psychologist. Why do you think I want to know about your grandkids, your holiday or your medical issue?

Customers think shop staff are there to not only go get your shit from out the back, and process it through the till, but be a free bloody counselling session to your boring life. Please, we just do not give a shit about your life. Please don’t use us as your social interaction.

Yesterday the newest and youngest member of staff in sainsburys was called upon to speak to me and get something for me. She literally failed. She couldn’t smile or make eye contact, she could barely speak. What a total fail. Her life is going to be abysmal if she’s zombies through her days like that. What a loser. Never seen anything like it before, I see here it’s a cultural issue! The zombie stare! How tragic for them. Dead inside.

Thankless, dead end, minimum wage, 0 hours jobs. What do you expect? Pay peanuts, get monkeys.

They are not easy but they are not highly intellectual and you don’t need to prepare hard to get them unlike many professional jobs.

I don’t blame them. My daughter works in the service industry and last Thursday was screamed at and had to wipe spit off her face from a 45 year-old woman who decided to change her mind about a drink after she ordered it and then didn’t like being told that she need to pay for the one that had already been pulled.

oh and its really not "emotional labour" to present a generally positive and polite demeanour. It should be the default for the average teen who's just earning beer money. Different if you're on a zero hours long slog with no prospects for improvement / promotion etc but that's not what the OP is about.

"Sometimes you just feel like a number on a payroll, no one cares who you are as long as you turn up and don't complain." to be honest - fine. For these kinds of jobs that are part time, student type things, who cares? Outwith actual bullying / harrassment / etc, just turn up, do it, get paid. I had a horrible manager age 17 - had a massive inferiority complex / imposter syndrome and didn't like kids like me who were there whilst studying for A level / uni and on to other things. I got my head down, did what I needed to and knew it was temporary. Way too much wailing about job satisfaction - if we are talking about 1-2 year temp jobs just suck it up.

My last job. The colleagues that have been working for 30+ years, went to a larger store to get trained on various things for a whole week. Now, the manager pulls out a roller cage and asks them to put this out. Nothing about please rotate dates, nothing about make sure the ticket matches the product. Result - they put the new stuff at the front, so code checkers had to waste time in rotating stock.

Then on checkouts, a colleague shadows a new colleague in using the tills, lottery terminal etc. I was given training by the store trainer. That position went about 9 years ago.

From my experience, the younger ones don't give a toss about service. Yet some of the employers do recruit them over the older ones. It has got nothing to do with pay as these places pay the same. Also they can't hack the work.

It happened at my last work. Lads aged 19 put out a crate of loose courgettes in the cucumbers. Split up multipack bottles of water. We have to sell them cheap as the bottles have no barcodes on them. Then found a case of the normal Old El Paso fajita kits in the free from section. Even the store manager couldn't give a toss when I highlighted the fact that someone could have become very poorly. In the past, the managers used to do huddles and highlight the importance of making sure you put the right stuff in front of the right ticket.

I am currently unemployed and went to an assessment morning with a company for customer service job. A few weeks later, I drove past the place and to see two young ones that went to the same assessment morning as me wearing the company's lanyard around their necks - very distinctive colour. Then another month later, see the job advertised again. If they employed someone mature with more than the minimum experience like me, then they wouldn't need to recruit again.

These companies that seem to recruit young, barely any experience are shooting themselves in the foot for employing these over experience and maturity.

😆