You know you can sit there behind your screens and tell us all about the policies our companies should have to make our pay better reflect what we have to put up in the line of duty. Some of you actually have some really good ideas.
But you are wasting time and effort, because our companies a) won't see your suggestions posted here, and b) won't care regardless. They are going to continue to do exactly what they need to do to keep their company viable, and we as staff have a choice to make. Toe the company line and stay employed, or go out there in this recession and look for another job. Another job where there will probably policies that are just as problematic, if not exactly the same.
So here's a suggestion from me. Instead of sitting here listing off all the things that the shop assistants "could" (but actually can't) do, and all the things the companies "should" (but never ever will) do, to make these sorts of situations better, how about looking at what you CAN control? Your own behavior?
Take responsibility for your own actions. Read the opening hours. Check your wristwatch/phone for the time. Time your journeys better. Understand that no shopping trip was ever completed in two and a half minutes all told. Remember that the people behind the counter vastly more often than not don't actually have terrible attitudes or chips on their shoulders, but they're tired and have been on their feet all day.
You all want to walk into a store and get great service. That's fair enough. I think, when I'm employed to provide customer service, I should absolutely be doing everything in my power to make sure that the customer leaves happy. But I also think at some point, I should get to clock off and relax and tend to myself and my family, and I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that point to be, the highly publicized opening hours of the store I work at.
I signed a contract saying, you work until X o'clock at which point the store closes, and you work until X:15 doing things like closing down the registers and last minute tidy-up etc. Nowhere in that contract is a provision for when customers decide that closing time doesn't apply to them. I don't get paid after X:15, period.
You may be right in saying, it's only a minute. But when the store is closed, it's not your minute you're wasting, it's mine. And it's only a minute to you, but you're one customer. If every customer decides that it's "just one minute", how many unpaid minutes do you think I end up working over the course of a week? How many "just one minutes" are my family spending sitting at home waiting for me, when I should be, and have a right to be, at home?
I'm not a bad person, and I like to think none of you are either, despite my heated comments before. I want to give people the benefit of the doubt. But saying things like "best not to bite the hand that feeds you" makes light of me, the work I do, and the effort I put in. It makes it sound like the customer is doing me a huge favor, letting me serve them. We work in service industries. We are not servants.
You have the absolute right to expect good customer service. While the store is open.