To think that gen Z is completely disengaged in service industry

[Hocuspoc]

...and to just stop hoping I will get any value for my money.
No offense, generalisation is never good, but just this last week:

• Clarks, shopping for toddler shoes, usually there is this older lady there who knows exactly what are the bestsellers, what works for little ones depending on age size etc... anyway - nowhere to be found, the floor is cover by two youngsters. Neither approached to help, on their phones, I had to chase the girl around to notice us (empty shop) so I can get DS foot measured. She measured him 2 sizes up (took us some time to establish that) but long story short - every answer is 'I don't know' and shrugs. Started explaining school shoes - I reminded her he is 2. Didn't know what is discounted, what is in stock, one can only dream of some initiative like trying a similar style to confirm a size and than order...

Anyway - completely clueless, borderline rude and no indication that she cares or sees herself working there longer than a month.

Then, the other day... Entering a train station, my usual platform closed, I asked the young bloke operating the gates about it - he was literally shocked he is being asked anything, looked like I woke him up from daydreaming. Also glancing at his phone.

I will stop here, but same everywhere. No cutlery pre-set or brought with your food, rolling eyes for asking for a coffee in a proper mug because it is to stay in, I can go on forever.

Just rudeness everywhere, no professionalism, no taking pride in your work, just abysmal...

Sullen teen/early 20s employees in crap service/retail jobs have been a thing for my entire lifetime. If you really think it's unique to Gen Z, I would wonder if you were perhaps going a bit senile and had forgotten the '00s, the '90s or the '80s.

I also assume anyone who fixates on whether retail staff are performing emotional labour to a high enough standard is actively looking to find fault. How much interaction do you even have with them on a daily/weekly basis? 99% of my interactions with staff in shops are brief and perfunctory - I ask a simple question and they answer, or I pay for my shopping and leave. And 99% of those interactions are fine, neither memorably bad nor good.

I feel like a lot of posters expect a certain amount of deference simply because they're the ones spending money. And a lot of people don't feel like they have much power so the minute they get a sniff of it, they want to wield it and make sure the person on the other end knows their place. And they get terrifically offended if the other person couldn't give a shit.

If employers trained and paid employees better we wouldn’t be in this situation. They usually push any teenager on min wage out on the shop floor and hope for the best.

If the people at the top don’t care then why should staff at the bottom care?

The woman in Clarks who knows her stuff and is running around trying to help is probably paid the same as the teen who shrugs her shoulders. Why do more than you need to?

They were certainly a thing in literature all through the twentieth century. In the fifties they sported such horrors as "painted nails" and listened to unpalatable music. In the twenties they might have "brassy hair" and their minds on their sweethearts. Young people have usually managed to pretend a polite interest in their elders as required, but always with the odd lapse ...

Blimey, people really don't like the idea that there isn't an endless supply of serfs willing to serve them for poor pay and conditions while being treated badly and told by society they're too lazy/uninspired/thick to do anything else.

We've got the service we've cultivated as a society. We've devalued service by devaluing the people doing it and placing no worth in it or on them, while worshipping those raking in the high salaries as aspirational. And then get all offended and surprised when people don't want to do the jobs and service levels drop.

I feel like a lot of posters expect a certain amount of deference simply because they're the ones spending money. And a lot of people don't feel like they have much power so the minute they get a sniff of it, they want to wield it and make sure the person on the other end knows their place. And they get terrifically offended if the other person couldn't give a shit.

Absolutely spot on.

Not read the full thread but I’ve been thinking about this. I’m half “it doesn’t take much to be polite” and half. “Why should they perform emotions on such shite wages”

I was bloody brilliant at customer service, if I do say so myself. But I knew my wages were paying for my clothes, treats and nights out at the end of the week on top of my rent. Friday was a great day with excitement at the end of it. As was Saturday!

😆

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Why the fuck are they around, then?

YANBU, OP.

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.

I agree with you. It’s dire.

"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?

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.

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

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

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.