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 havent worked retail for many years but did do the requisite student jobs
and developed that skin needed for dealing with unselected members of the public

Although I got mistaken for a shop assistant in a large store yesterday - bu a rather obnoxious woman who barged up to me and demanded I help find item x: Smiled and said - 'no idea' and she got a bit stroppy about how useless an assistant I was
pointed out the pram/baby combo I was pushing and cheerily said ' its not bring your kids to work day love' which seemed to inflame the situation further

seriously, I have no idea what she was thinking

So may of these stories are awful. Whe I worked in retail we had to ask every customer if they wanted to open a store card (the credit fuelled late 90s ), the rudeness we'd get back sometimes. Now when the bank cashier tries to sell me life insurance, or shop staff want an email address (err no thanks Mothercare) I refuse politely as I know what it is to have to ask something stupid because management tells you to and you'll get in trouble if you don't.

I'm at a bit though at posters who've said "I was only working in retail while I funded my degree, I was really very clever and this was not my career" (I paraphrase). That's irrelevant, and a bit superior TBH. Nobody deserves to be bullied or even assaulted for just doing their job, whether they've got a Masters or a couple of GCSEs. Some people spend their entire working lives putting up with this crap with little or no prospect of career advancement. Anybody who keeps getting out of bed in the morning to do that deserves respect in my book.

Hobby you get called a cunt in a craft store!?!? That has blown my tiny mind.

I used to work on reception in a couple of posh hotels when I was at university. The worst thing, of many shitty things, was getting a series of really obscene lewd phone calls from a particular guest, really quite sick stuff about what he'd like to do to me, and my manager insisting that I absolutely had to be polite to him and engage him in conversation like I would any other guest.

Later that night I had to take his room service order to his room. I was shitting myselF. My evil bitch of a manager refused to take the order herself to spare me, and when I came back in tears having been sexually assaulted, she laughed and said good customer service is more important than anything else.

I worked in retail after uni & would regularly get sexually abusive phonecalls or silent calls. We were told to put the phone down but often the caller would stay on the line so we couldnt call out.

My friend works in an admin role in an HE institution & is regularly subjected to verbal abuse by students & teaching staff

I work in my dhs bar one day at weekend, just to help out and because it's fun and gets me out the house.

People always assume I'm an idiot because I'm waitressing and ask me 'what do you want to do with your life'. I take great pleasure in telling them this is my Saturday job and that during the week I'm a scientist. I also tell them my husband's 'bar job' has taken him all over the world as guest of some of the luxury brands as he's extremely well respected in the trade.

Years ago when I was working behind another bar I was told by a nob with cheap suit and bow tie that he felt sorry for 'you people who have to work in bars'. I asked him what he meant and he said because obviously I had no qualifications. I asked him what qualifications he had and he said a degree. 'That's nice sir', I said, 'I've got three of those and I'm working here because I want to'.

The best are people who phone up at my main job and say if I don't do what they want they're going to 'notify the chief exec'. 'No need', I say, 'I've got a strategic meeting with him in a minute, I'll notify him for you if you'd like and see what he says. He's likely to ask me then what I want to do about it because I lead that area'.

Ha ha ha! In. Your. Face.

And yes it's always the posh people who are the idiots

DH is a Barista and snaps right back at customers who behave like that. His store does have a policy that they can refuse service for any reason. He does take advantage of it. Which makes him the barista that gets the most complaints, but also the most compliments to management. Really, he's a great guy, he just doesn't put up with bullshit.

I've worked with customers before, it's simultaneously good and bad. I only really had a few idiots. I also had a manager that told me I could refuse service for any reason. It was a commission and tip based job so it really was at my discretion if a person was worth the meager commission price to put up with or not. Most were nice to me though.

I worked at mcdonalds for eight years during high school and uni. I was verbally abused on a regular basis by customers.

I previously worked in retail and now frontline NHS. I've developed a pretty thick skin and have to say that nothing surprises me anymore.

What I will say though, is that having a bad day is not an excuse for vile behaviour. How many threads have I seen where someone has posted about their DH/DM or whatever being vile to them, and the op getting told they don't have to put up with that and having a bad day is no excuse. The same is (or should be) true for those of us in public facing roles. I've had some pretty horrific days and still not acted like a twat in shops or abused people.

I used to get a lot of abuse from well to do older people in the department store I worked in. One lady was swearing so much (I believe she called me a stupid cunt at one point because we didn't have the shoes she wanted) I eventually said " I'm sorry I can't understand what you're saying, you're swearing too much" and walked off. That got me in trouble with my manager who said I was getting paid (minimum wage) to just take it! Fucker. I left a month later.

fay I mention that T was a student while I worked in Retsil to show that a) I was very young so not as able to deal with abuse as I would be now
B) I only worked there for a short time period but still have many horror stories.
C) it was a while ago and I don't work there now.

There's no superiority implied, I would (and have) told the story exactly the same way to people who know what I do for a living now.

I think the issue is that some people assume people in the service industry are thick & unqualified, when that is not true. The nature of the hours & shift system can suit many people at different stages in their life.

I had done my time as a waitress while at Uni & fortunately people were pretty nice to me - but that was a long time ago.

My friends daughter was on the tills while she decided what she wanted to do with her life - straight A student, offers for medicine, but not sure. So it is richly ironic when a patronising customer says to her 'I bet you wish you'd worked harder at school, dear, and you wouldn't be doing this now'.

She reports that in general, the 'really old' are lovely and so kind. If they are in during a quiet period she can chat away. The baby boomer 'old' are the most vile. The young people are great & share a friendly word & smile.

Grokette that's awful

I was a chambermaid in a small hotel and we had one guest with MH issues. He'd shout at himself in his room using different voices, answer the door naked and leave his wank tissues everywhere. We were told by reception to always do his room in pairs, i.e, never be alone with him. The new manager saw me doing another room and asked why I hadn't done this guys, explained that we had to go in pairs and he demanded I did it alone and now. I refused..told him to do it himself then.

It really helps to have the back up of colleagues when you work with the public.

I really, really enjoyed working in customer facing roles, and actually miss it now. Yes, there are people who are rude and aggressive, and others who are just terribly ungrateful, but in my experience, the really bad ones are few and far between. Most people are actually really nice.

A lot of customer service in this country is terrible, though. People aren't trained properly and don't seem to know what good customer service is.

Ds is a chef and got called out of his kitchen the other day by smirking staff to explain to a customer WHY THE BAKED ALASKA WAS FROZEN IN THE MIDDLE!!
He said it made his day!

I think everyone should work in such a role. I worked in a chippy whilst in secondary school. It's why I went on to study accounting, so I could work in an office department and mostly avoid dealing with the public at large.

Some of these are awful, particularly the sexual and verbal assaults.

My family had a retail business tor forty years and my dad always said the worst part was of retail was the customers! I worked in the business on Saturdays and school holidays when I was younger. When I was about 16 the person who ran one of his shops went on holiday during my half term so my dad sent me there to run it. It was a lot of responsibility as I had to open and close up, handle money and so on, but I loved it. One older couple objected to something (can't remember what now-something beyond my control) and the man started ranting, asking to speak to the manager. At which point I said "yes" and waited politely. He was not amused by that so asked to speak to the owner. So I picked up the phone sand said "dad, a customer would like to speak to you". I didn't hear the conversation but I believe my dad told him to get bent. The moral of the story is that at least with your own retail business you can pick and choose who you serve.

I just thought it was funny. Never ever took it seriously. It was unsettling/upsetting if they got abusive and started picking at personal things but I knew it wasn't about me, they were just being a twat. The only time I was quite seriously upset by something was when it was somebody who I knew was actually aiming their stuff personally at me, but I think I'd have been unsettled by them if they'd seen me in the street anyway.

I still swap mad customer stories with my ex-colleagues and my sister :)

Personally! Not seriously.

I worked in a bookshop for 1y6m and my husband worked in a supermarket through Highers and University... We have talked about making sure our DD gets some sort of work experience in retail to see how hard it is as no matter how polite and well-brought up you are, you need to see how it is in the other side...

Yes, some days I am tired and in a rush and wnat to tut and huff but then I remember the days I was on the other side...

And we now both have professional jobs and all the people who insulted us when we were retail probably wouldn't have believed we had the brains...

What worries me is that everyone who has ever worked in a public facing role will have a story of customers being utter shits. So how many people must there be out there who treat people like this?
Who are they? Are they our friends or partners and we don't know?

Not customers as such but the clients for the job I used to have were solicitors. Most were ok but some were VILE, unfortunately, they were usually the females too.

After almost skipping out of that job I swore I will NEVER work for another solicitor, I'd rather starve and loose the roof over my head.

Sarcasim....

I work in a call-centre based role. I don't speak to that many customers nowadays, but I run a team of 30 and those around me do.

We get lots of abuse but without doubt it is middle-aged men that are the worst. Aged about 40-60.

If ever there's a 'shouter' or someone being very PA/outright aggressive or abusive the first thing someone will (quietly) ask the rep is 'a mid life crisis again?' because 90% of the time it will be a 50 odd year old man.

Some people are bastards. Over the years, when I was in a customer-facing phone role I was called every swear word you could think of.

Some will send in letters full of abuse - one we had this week said they were flying especially from Europe to the UK so they could come and find the head of the department the rep had spoken to (ie - me) and 'fuck them up so bad it will make them think twice next time about not upholding my complaint'.

I'm a secondary teacher and people always assume the kids are obnoxious, rude and abusive. This applies to very few of them, most are lovely and I reckon I can forgive the occasional outburst from a child.
Some of the parents on the other hand are rude. One that springs to mind is a parent who phoned to speak to me after school had started one morning. The office explained I was teaching all morning but would call her at lunchtime. She then phoned every hour and got more abusive every time the office said I was teaching. At 11.30 she threatened to go to the papers because I wasn't helping her!
I called her as soon as the bell went for lunch and she screamed at me until I told her I would hang up unless she spoke to me properly. Turns out she had called the wrong member of staff anyway and needed to speak to her son's science teacher. It was immensely satisfying to tell her that I'd ask him to give her a call but it might not be until after school if he was teaching all afternoon!

I worked in a supermarket years ago on the checkouts.

One of the girls who worked there was 6 months pregnant and at the end of her shift she informed a man who joined the end of her queue that she would be unable to serve him, and could he possibly join the queue on the opposite till.

He swore at her and threw his 3 litre plastic bottle of cider at her and stormed off, she burst into tears and didn't come back to work again.

At the same place I refused to serve a lad a bottle of whisky because he looked underage and didn't have ID.

10 minutes later he was back in the queue with a similar aged girl who loudly announced to the lad ''If she doesn't serve me with this now I'm gonna smash it in her fucking face''.

Being a tiny shitbag I scanned it through no bother.

I've worked as a GP receptionist, a restaurant manager and in Woolworth. I'm now self employed...
I've been sworn at, followed home, threatened and had my children threatened. All of that took place at a GP surgery btw..
Anyway the best ones happened in the restaurant - at the time I looked very young and the amount of times I had people refusing to be served by 'a child' and demanding to see the manager made the shit pay and long hours worth while, the faces when I told them I was in fact the restaurant manager were priceless.
The day I was dragged over the bar wasn't particularly fun though, I'm 5ft tall and at the time was 8 stone soaking wet, if it hadn't been for another customer who 'accidentally' elbowed the raving weirdo in the face I would have gone flying.
Weirdly I loved working in Woolies, still shit pay and long hours but it was fun and the customers were usually lovely.