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?

The girl I worked with was once shouted at for being racist by a really intimidating tall man. She wasn't being in the slightest, he was just a bully. All the customers piled into to defend her which was nice, but then they started getting aggressive as well

And we both got roundly told off by a lady waiting for her prescription for there being a new sign on the shop floor and (because some representative was coming round for demos) for not telling our boss off for her. We apologised a lot. Then we got told off for apologising when we shouldn't be apologising, our boss should be.

Oh and there was a family who used to come in often and their kids would rampage around ruining the displays, and they'd talk to us like "I want this, I don't like this, put this back", they were very funny, I used to look forward to that :-D

My husband once defended a colleague who was being abused by a customer. A short time later the customer came back with two policemen - she was accusing him of racism. He was really upset. The police were able to see at once she was a loon but I suppose they had to follow up the complaint. This in a library which has some of the nastiest customers imaginable.

As a member of the public, I get frustrated by many of those who serve me. Eg the mobile phone person who can barely grunt/string two words of comprehensible English together, the deliberately slow and surely post office worker, the waitress who never smiles and who thinks it is a privilege to be served by her. Worst of all the useless staff at my bank, who tell me to go to the local pub for change/try to sell me crap I don't want.

I'm actually wondering if I was the person at the till in the OP . I did have a customer throw a handful of sugar at me last week and yes the whole thing did start because she simply didn't like the price of the coffee and she couldn't see the sugar which was right in front of her on both occasions...

I work in one of three locations of a family-run business. I have worked in all three locations, so I know the individual quirks of each shop, and also the things that all three have in common.
I had a customer come in who I recognised as a regular at one of the other stores, so I started up conversation, asking him what he thought of this new store etc. He immediately went off on one, and said "Why don't you have xxx product?" I apologised and explained that we didn't stock that particular one in this location, but I could call another store (fifteen minutes drive away) and see if they had it. No, this wasn't good enough, and he went on a huge rant about how it was ridiculous that we didn't have exactly what he wanted, even though we have a daily rotation of products, and don't have all the same items every day (which he knows).

It then went on and he was fully shouting at me about the increase in price of some of our products. "Why did only these items go up in price, why not all of them? I know why, you're trying to scam us!" I explained about the cost of ingredients going up, which seemed to make him angrier. He was leaning over the counter, pointing his finger at me, really shouting, and when I tried to speak at this point he shouted "No! No, don't you try and tell me excuses, I've lived here longer than you, you don't know anything!" (I live in a resort known for temporary workers, however I have lived here for years, and he would have no idea how long I had lived here.)

I was shaking for a long time afterwards. I spoke to the owners about it, and they were happy with how I dealt with it (despite wanting to cry and tell him to fuck off, I was plesant, calm and apologetic the whole time). I was really disappointed to hear that in order to pacify the customer and not get a bad reputation from the whole thing (he is well known and 'high up' in our small town), they offered him two free loaves of bread a week. It really bothers me that that is how customer service works. Obviously I understand it, but we would never teach our children to behave this way, they would actually be punished for it.

I've had to deal with many rude people, who have obviously never worked in customer facing roles. They think they are better than you, and therefore think it's okay to treat you like shit. It's awful to see their kids start to do the same thing, when they hit 10+ years old they begin copying what their parents do, and talk to you like utter crap.

The customer is not always right

'Why do you work here though?'
I work in a resturant, yes it's my full time job, I'm gaining qualifications whilst it pays my bills... That's why.

Had a customer not so long ago, ordered cod and chips.. Took him cod and chips and he sat in his seat insisting that what I had given him wasn't cod. He got very very aggressive about it, I smiled through it and said that, yes it was cod (to which I receive yelling and disagreement) but I'm sorry that he didn't enjoy it and I would refund his meal (didn't want a replacement as he'd been put off by this 'non-cod'). So I refunded and apologised profusely. WE ONLY DO COD, no other fish!

The customer near by called me over and told me that he thought I did an amazing job at handling the difficult man and that he would have just told him to fuck off! I like that the majority of people are starting to see that the phrase 'the customer is always right' is not necessarily true

I work in the back end of retail, and the things I've seen and been told about...the well dressed women befouling the clothes they try on, the shoplifters dragged off uttering threats of rape and murder, the people who scream abuse because Rice Krispies have gone by 10p.

And the stupidity! People who ring up the depot of Supermarket A because a vehicle from Supermarket B cut them up. People who dent tins at the check out and try to haggle. My favourite though is the security camera footage I was shown of a woman pouring ketchup over the head of her DC, who tried to persuade the manager to give her 50 quid not to sue because he'd banged his head falling out of a freezer.

Wait. I hate that too. People who shout and are rude will get discounts but people who are nice and polite don't. It's not how it should be.
When I worked in a opticians and I was dispensing glasses for someone really nice I would honour the discount voucher that they had 'left at home'.

A couple of years ago I went in to a store and went up to the register to pay and had a chat with the owner of the store. After I paid, she handed me a little box with a pretty little bracelet in it and said that when she got to work that morning she had decided she was going to give a gift to the first customer who was nice to her. This was at 3pm in the afternoon. Sad, very sad.

I was helping my DP out last night as they had a big show at the venue he looks after and not enough staff.

All the greeting and showing to seats and banal banter was easy as pie. Fortunately a lifetime of customer facing roles means I can deal with problems before they arise (them: "I think we're too close to the stage, I don't want to be picked on" me: don't worry, right under their nose is literally a comedian's blind spot") joke and generally be a nice person.

Later I did waitressing and finally, I helped behind the bar. I don't know that particular bar well. I can't don't the rum in 2 seconds flat because it's not on optics, every individual bottle is moved every time we pour a shot.

Last night, I had a man in a reasonable suit just poorly tailored with a 6ft 3, model figured, spray on dress wearing woman on each arm throw a £50 at me because I was "bloody useless" at finding the girls their martini and the bar didn't stock the bottled beer he preferred.

I took a £50 to the face.

...I possibly left it on the floor and popped out back from the bar to have a quick drink (and tell DP/manager!) before coming back, looking shocked that he was furious faced and asking what the problem was "oh I thought that was a tip"

Gave him change

And when he complained to the boss... DP told him to treat the staff with some common courtesy... Possibly exaggerating the word common!!!

Pipbin I try to give free things to nice customers. I once served the loveliest family, three young kids who were so polite and well mannered. The parents bought a treat for each of the kids, and they all sat down to eat them. I heard the oldest child (maybe about 7 years old) ask his mum if he could have another treat. She said he could buy it from his pocket money and keep it for after dinner. So one at a time, the kids came up and bought another treat with their own money, carefully counting it out and handing me the cash. And each one of them, without any influence from their parents, picked through their change and popped it into the tip jar. They had to reach up on tiptoes to even reach the jar. It was the sweetest thing. Just before they left I went over and spoke to the mum and said that they were the nicest family I had ever served, and that she should be very proud of her children. I gave her three large cookies for the kids (on the house) and she burst into happy tears.

Makes all the shitty encounters worthwhile.

When I was a rep I was sworn at, poked in the chest more times than I can remember and spat at. One colleague was punched and another had an airport luggage trolley thrown at him. Just awful.
I met so many lovely people but unfortunately it is not them that I remember.

Sidge, similar to yours, on a ward behind a closed curtain doing CPR on a patient when a very irate relative stuck their head around DEMANDING a glass of water for their relative.

I also spent many years in retail and have been shouted at, sworn at, spat at, threatened and had things thrown at me.

I had two people treat me like shit today for no reason other than they thought they had to be shitty to the receptionist from the off to get what they wanted. They didn't.

Was having a tough day for personal reasons so it wasn't great for me

The general public can be really crap.

YANBU

I have worked in a few shops and while 99/100 people are perfectly fine, you sometimes get a customer that you just want to strangle because they are either so rude or so unreasonable or both.

When one of my daughters was about 14/15 - 15 or so years ago - I took her to John Lewis to buy her some bras.

It wasn't easy as she was/is big busted and we were having difficulty finding something with a good fit that didn't look like something her granny would wear.

The assistant was going back and forth finding different bras and every time she came with another bra my daughter thanked her.

We eventually found something suitable and went to the checkout to pay.

As we were leaving the department we hear the assistant calling after us. When she caught up with us she told me that she just had to tell me what a pleasure it had been to serve my daughter 'as an awful lot of young people can be so rude'.

It did make me wonder just how horrible the general public is that this woman felt moved to tell me what a pleasure it was serving someone who was polite to her.