To feel sorry for people who have to work with the public?

[SomeoneStoleMySausageRoll]

Last week I was in a cafe and I was queuing up for the hot drinks and to pay. There was a woman in front of me who seemed to be in a bit of a bad mood anyway as she kept tutting and sighing.

When the woman got to the till she asked for just a black coffee. The lass at the till charged her £2 for it and this is when she got a bit stroppy and pointed out the sign in front of her and snapped "it says it's £1.50 there for an espresso, are you trying to rip me off?" The cashier then explained nicely that an espresso was just a tiny shot of coffee and if she wanted a full coffee it was an americano and that was £2. At which point she started raving and ranting away at the cashier telling her "it was a bloody rip off!" and "you should make it clear!". Still the cashier remained polite and cheerful throughout.

Then when she got her coffee she snapped "where's the bloody sugar?" and again the person at the till pointed out politley where it was (it was right in front of her) but instead the woman picked up her tray and went to the other till to look for the sugar. And again when she couldn't find any (there was more sugar on that side, again right it front of her) she again snapped "where's the bloody sugar?" only this time she sounded much more aggressive.

Then when again the girl pointed out nicely where it was, the woman then stormed back over to her, picked a handful of sugar up and threw them in her face before storming off to sit down with her coffee. The poor girl was like this and so was I.

She did tell me though that this wasn't the worst she'd had to put up with either.

My sister used to work in retail and the amount of abuse she had to put up with was astounding.

Seriously, how do you cope with all the idiots?

I worked in a supermarket while I was a postgrad student and the number of people who told me I was stupid because I worked behind a till was astounding. Not one of my cashier colleagues were stupid. Not one. Students, mothers returning to work, some with learning difficulties for whom a job was a very big deal, older folk, not a single one was stupid. One poor lad had a prosthetic lower arm/hand and the abuse he got for being 'slow' at putting shopping through was just vile.

I was blamed for the weather, it was my fault the store was busy on Christmas Eve, a foul old man spent 20 minutes spouting awful sexual innuendo at me.

Whoever said that everyone should spend time in a customer facing role is so right.

People with low IQs need services too, so of course some of them aren't going to be too bright. I understand that it's frustrating, but that is really a part of the job. It's also the case that using customer services over the phone is as dehumanizing for the customer as it is for the customer service rep. So by the time people are talking to someone thy're probably already on auto-pilot and expecting a script they won't really understand, which won't help either. The whole set up of phone customer service is almost always poorly executed for customers and the agents doing it.

I worked in a supermarket all through my A Levels and uni.

Middle class women, middle aged men in suits and the well to do elderly were the most unpleasant. Every single time.

BoomBoom - the people i deal with are mostly very wealthy, live in big houses and have very good jobs - I doubt if they have low IQ but they certainly have lack of common sense. I don't work in a call centre role and there is no script

I work in A and E so have had much abuse from patients and relatives. I have had knifes pulled out on me, kicked in the stomach, punched in the back, kicked in the legs, pushed up against a wall, spat at, sworn at and threatened and that is not by people with dementia etc.

I've had relatives that were extremely abusive and loud in the dept come up to me, lean over the desk and tell me in a very threatening manner how they were going to wait for me to finish and 'get me, I'm going to do you over' all because I had the audacity to ask them to stop shouting and swearing. I was 6 months pregnant at the time and felt very vulnerable.

Working with the public can be bloody awful. I had far less abuse when working in a pub though and I was at least bought drinks rather than vomited on now

My son works in retail management having previously been a publican. He always says that it is a miracle that some people have got to the age they have without waking up lying on the ground with a crowd gathering around them and an ambulance called. It's as if they truly have no sense of how to behave appropriately . He's witnessed so much rudeness and so many downright bizarre reactions and says the most extreme examples are usually over completely trivial things.

In our store I've noticed that the rudest customers are mums with young kids/babies in tow.... I try to cut them some slack but it's wearing a bit thin now

Also, what's with this attitude whereby people constantly accept discount for the slightest thing!?

Accept?? No I meant expect

I have worked with the public for years and the stupidity and rudeness of some never ceases to amaze me.

Having said that, I don't think companies have helped as they have regularly undermined their staff. When I worked for Boots we knew that no matter how rude or unreasonable a customer was and no matter how closely we had followed company procedure in dealing with their complaint, they would get an apology, a refund and a goodwill gesture of points if they rang customer service. They would then come back and abuse us again just to show they had "won"

I don't like to stereotype but have to agree with Alis that the well-to-do elderly were the rudest in my experience. The week of the Pensioners' Conference was always a very challenging one to work!

I'm a nurse dealing with non-hospital patients. Agree, wealthy pensioners and middle aged men are by far the worst.

My other ds worked for a very short while in customer service for the private banking arm of a well known bank and said that the well-to-do-elderly were appalling to deal with!

They were already receiving the sort of monthly income that most of us could only dream of and yet if their investments produced even a few pence less, the abuse that they handed out was beyond belief! This was another organisation where, no matter how insulting and abusive, the customer was always right.

I think people go out in a foul mood and look for someone to abuse who can't easily fight back, and shop assistants etc are a handy target. Pathetic of them really.

Captain

Yes to that.

There was one woman in particular who would come in and pick on a member of staff every single time. She was banned on numerous occasions.

She was on TV a couple of years ago, she's a lecturer at university in business services or similar. I nearly fell off my chair. and had to fight the urge to make a complaint to her employer out of sheer spite. Absolutely hateful woman.

We just take the piss out of them after they have gone.

The customer in the OP would have been chucked out of my cafe though.

I'm a optician, I've been called a liar, incompetent, and yelled at for things completely outside my control (no surgeon in today, no free sight tests for people on DLA etc). I have patients every week that think I'm being nosy when I ask them about their general health, or am telling them they need new specs to increase my (non existent) commission, or clearly don't know what I'm doing because little Jonny (the malingering little sod) would never lie and definitely needs specs. I've been patronised too - "I have cataracts, do you know what they are?" "Shouldn't the optician be doing this?" Yes fucknugget, I do know what a cataract is, and I am the optician you sexist idiot, the man you saw walk by actually has less qualifications than me even though he has a penis!

I think the biggest arseholes though are the ones that bitch and complain to the reception staff and then are all sweetness and light to me because I have a few letters after my name.

That turned into a massive rant, sorry

At Burn....

Must be awful to be confined to a small room with them to boot.

burn absolutely identify with everything you have said there.

nncy I was responding to Wish and Another who are describing call centre operations and how "stupid" some customers can be. I was not refering to most of the descriptions of people being rude - having a low IQ doesn't make you rude.

that should be nancy75 . Sorry.

I've worked in the resturant industry for 14 years now, I've have rather a thick skin.

One dinner time, our head chef unfortunately had a epileptic fit. He fell while fitting and also cracked his head open. We were all trained in first aid but he needed ambulance. Thankfully they got there really quick and took him to hospital. In the middle of all this I went round the customers informing then want had happened, and because of the accident and the ambulance we had to shut down the kitchen untill eveything was sorted. Most people were fantastic, they either had refunds or decided to wait until we could carry on. But there was two tables, two lots of older couple who kicked right off. Shouting and storming around, saying that they needed their food!. One of the men got right into my face. In the end I gave them their money and told them to go, they weren't welcome back. Absolutely disgusting behaviour.

My ds1 has just started working for one of the big 4 supermarkets. On his first day stocking up the fruit and veg , a lady told him "the leaves are not fresh enough for my rabbit"

I love working with the public and I love working with the rude ones the most yes I'm odd!

I worked in a large bookstore as a student. I had books thrown at me. I was physically threatened because the publication date of a book had slipped. I was screamed at by an older gentlemen who thought that the birthday card his wife was (happily buying) was over priced and that's just the ones who stood out.

It doesn't cover those who sigh or tut or rap their bank cards on the counter. And never ever say thank you.

My experiences have made me a really, really good customer though.

People in Retail as a career deserve medals!

Ha ha. When I worked in a shop at the weekends (aged 15/16), one guy asked me "If you dropped that [item], how long would it take to reach the floor?". I told him that objects in free fall accelerate at 9.8 m/s2 but that we would have to make allowance for air pressure. He didn't like that, funnily enough.

I worked in retail for many years and I believe it should be like national service, everyone should have to work in a customer facing role for 6 months.

My favourite ever cunt though was many years ago when I worked for a high end department store. It was huge and even had it's own credit card.
We had just all be called together that morning told that the store was closing in 3 months time and we had all lost our jobs.
After the news got out we were inundated with phone calls about when our sale was going to start. One woman ranted down the phone at the staff member who couldn't say anything about the sale, because we had only found about it that morning.
The woman said 'But I am an account customer - I demand that you tell me.' To which the staff member replied 'just because you buy it on tick love it doesn't make you special.