A response
Here’s a response to my letter (and a couple of others) in the Times the other day:
November 22, 2003
Customers Can Be So Rude
o the Editor:
Re your Nov. 19 letters about self-service systems in stores:
I used to work in retail. My spouse continues to do so. When he comes home from work upset and fed up, I understand why.
Many customers are rude: they talk on their cellphones in front of the
clerks trying to wait on them, toss money or credit cards onto the
counter rather than putting it into the clerk’s hand, speak to the
clerk as if he or she is a total idiot, blame the store’s staff for
product problems, and then react nastily when the clerk can’t solve
their problem.
If customers want to have a better shopping experience, they can hang
up their cellphones upon entering the store and treat the staff like
the human beings they are. They will be surprised at how helpful the
staff will be. They might even learn to prefer human help to automated
help.
ELEANOR S. HUDSON
Austin, Tex., Nov. 19, 2003
Eleanor’s right. But what do you do when the clerk has dealt with
the jerks all day and won’t respondly humanly when you initiate some
sort of human contact? What if I say “Hi!”, refuse to talk on my
phone when I’m checking out (my mother raised me to be much more polite
than that), hand the card nicely over, say “Please” and “Thank you,”
and still get treated pretty shabbily? What am I supposed to do
then? Any more ideas?
Ecto blogging software
25 November 2003 at 6:15 pm.
Isn’t this the chicken and egg conundrum?
I see Eleanor’s point, but there are problems. It’s all very well and good to say that many customers treat staff badly (and of course, they oughtn’t to), but when this serves as an excuse for staff always to be rude and unhelpful, regardless of the customer’s behaviour, then her argument fails.
And let’s be frank; it all boils down to the ‘do unto others…’ argument. If I’m nice to a staff person who’s had a shitty day, then he can damn well swallow his bile and paste on a smile and behave like a proper person for the duration of our interaction. My life’s no picnic, but it doesn’t mean that I default to rudeness; I simply cannot see why this should not hold true for others.