Customer Service

Pete

Repete
Allow me to opine. It seems not a day goes by that there is not a thread or a post wanking about bad customer service in Southern Maryland. After being stationed all over the country for the last 25 years, and a few foreign countries, I am at a loss because I don’t see it. In my experience from Maine to San Francisco and Key West to Phoenix the customer service here is on par with that everywhere. Certainly I have gone to places where the service wasn’t exceptional and even a few that were downright pretty bad. Everyone has a bad day and shiat happens. :shrug: But as a whole I would have to say customer service is adequate if not good.

I was wondering why so many people have so many bad experiences yet I am yet to be offended or pizzed off? Could it be I am more understanding? I hardly doubt that as my red Kramer comments show regularly. I think it safe to say I may be an unyielding a-hole. Are my expectations not as high? Perhaps that is it. Let me explore;

I would rather be Mike Rowe’s stunt double for jobs that are just too damn nasty and dirty for him to do than to work in the service industry. You see I think we as a nation have become a society of spoiled, tantrum throwing, gimme-gimme, obnoxious son of a biatches with little civility. Now before you kirk out and gird up your loins to blast me, I am not talking about you specifically, well maybe I am, but people as a whole.

From the pimply kid working the counter at KFC making $6.75 an hour, who gets a blast of shiat and attitude because someone wanted slaw and not mashed potatoes with their #3 combo to the poor customer service person at the cable TV company who gets unloaded upon every time the phone rings by a mouth frothing lunatic who has not had cable TV for 2 whole hours because they didn’t personally run out and stop the tree from falling over the lines, or take off the headset and with a Swiss Army knife and a roll of duct taps drive immediately to the site of the problem and splice the wires themselves. Can you imagine reporting for work every stinking day, putting on the goofy ass paper hat, tucking in your ill fitting company provided polo shirt, the cost of which was deducted from your first measly check, and busting through the swinging double doors to face a freaking angry obnoxious mob everyday? Not I buddy, you get shiatty with me over a simple mistake or something that is out of my control and you would be picking cole slaw out of your nose for a week and I may be in the county detention center but I will probably be smiling and you will smell cole slaw for days.

We are stuck in a degenerative feed back loop. We have become sadly to say, an entitlement culture. Not the entitlement culture you think IE welfare and food stamps, but a culture of people who feel the world, and all those that inhabit it must kiss our asses 100% of the time and if they don’t we are justified in pitching a tantrum of epic proportions, and press the tantrum increasing it exponentially until the rat bastard who has “wronged” us relents and showers us with freebees or at the very least genuflects and offers themselves for public execution at our own hand.. A great many kids are raised this way and the first wave of them are now those who are the “offenders”. So now we have competing egomaniacs who face off and want the others lips planted firmly on each others asses and the worker because they are now in a “service” position are forced to acquiesce first because back in the break room there is a poster that says “The customer is always right” and more so because they really need the $6.75 an hour job for new rims.

I am sure the waitress (I refuse to be politically correct and “server” sounds retarded) just loves to wait on you hand and foot, tip toeing to avoid the shriekfest sure to breakout if you are not pampered and then clean up the 4 inches of paper, smashed crackers, silverware, crayons, French fires and drool your spawn deposited there during the course of your 40 minute stay all while you looked on and did nothing. I am positive that the night manager at the pizza place, covered in flour, loves spending hours making pizza and trying to keep your teenagers making pizza’s and not in the cooler playing stink finger instead, and making sure they wash their hands after they come back from break and then getting a phone call from some rabid person about a driver how left a spin mark in their dirt driveway because Jack is rushing off to make the next 5 deliveries so he can make an extra $20 because his other shiatty job pumping septic systems doesn’t quite make ends meet. I am sure that the person at the county transportation department is sitting there right now with their hand hovering over the handset waiting anxiously for it to ring and taka blast of shiat from a bubble mommy who’s precious baby has to walk 60 feet to the bus stop on the corner now because it is more convenient and efficient to stop once and pick up 3 households kids than to stop 4 times in 60 feet.

Service is service. They owe us “the norm” and that doesn’t involve purple robes, a crown and bowing. If I go out to eat, show up within a few minutes, take my order, keep my glass filled and be sure I get what I ordered. If it isn’t we can work it out without causing an international incident or causing some deep rooted psychological injury to either of us. If my cable craps out, tell me what the problem is, guess about how long it will take and be nice and I promise not to insult you or your parents. You be decent to me and put forth the effort and I will make sure when Boy and I get up to go home you don’t have to spend 30 minutes cleaning up the hideous mess we made so your next customer can sit down and we will all be good.
 

Vince

......
In today's age I think alot of the younger generation was brought up with the "I want it and I want it now" attitude. Not enough patience and not enough of a forgiving nature when it comes to folks just making a simple mistake. The wrong pizza, a bad day, churning a little gravel, etc. Someone may have just had a bad day and made a mistake. So get over it. Life is toooo short and so am I. :biggrin:
 

MMDad

Lem Putt
Pete said:
Are my expectations not as high? Perhaps that is it.

:yay: I'm rarely disappointed by the service I get because I sort of expect it to be mediocre. When I actually get decent service I get happy because it is better than I expected.
 

mv_princess

mv = margaritaville
I worked as a waitress for 5 yrs. And let me tell you the horror stories of people that came in there....They want you to do everything and even if you did wait hand and foot on them. They would still claim you were the worst ever. Why because they feel you are under them.

Don't always judge your service based on the servers actions. 99% of the time they are playing off your actions. You come to me being mean and nasty, chances are you are going to not get a so nice and friendly server.
 

migtig

aka Mrs. Giant
Actually I rarely have poor service anywhere. It does happen and then I let my tip reflect in the case of waitresses or I refuse to give that establishment my business in the future. Simple.

Actually the only establishment I will never give my business to is Jiffy Lube and that's a nationwide chain.
 

cattitude

My Sweetest Boy
Pete said:
Allow me to opine. It seems not a day goes by that there is not a thread or a post wanking about bad customer service in Southern Maryland. After being stationed all over the country for the last 25 years, and a few foreign countries, I am at a loss because I don’t see it. In my experience from Maine to San Francisco and Key West to Phoenix the customer service here is on par with that everywhere. Certainly I have gone to places where the service wasn’t exceptional and even a few that were downright pretty bad. Everyone has a bad day and shiat happens. :shrug: But as a whole I would have to say customer service is adequate if not good.

I was wondering why so many people have so many bad experiences yet I am yet to be offended or pizzed off? Could it be I am more understanding? I hardly doubt that as my red Kramer comments show regularly. I think it safe to say I may be an unyielding a-hole. Are my expectations not as high? Perhaps that is it. Let me explore;

I would rather be Mike Rowe’s stunt double for jobs that are just too damn nasty and dirty for him to do than to work in the service industry. You see I think we as a nation have become a society of spoiled, tantrum throwing, gimme-gimme, obnoxious son of a biatches with little civility. Now before you kirk out and gird up your loins to blast me, I am not talking about you specifically, well maybe I am, but people as a whole.

From the pimply kid working the counter at KFC making $6.75 an hour, who gets a blast of shiat and attitude because someone wanted slaw and not mashed potatoes with their #3 combo to the poor customer service person at the cable TV company who gets unloaded upon every time the phone rings by a mouth frothing lunatic who has not had cable TV for 2 whole hours because they didn’t personally run out and stop the tree from falling over the lines, or take off the headset and with a Swiss Army knife and a roll of duct taps drive immediately to the site of the problem and splice the wires themselves. Can you imagine reporting for work every stinking day, putting on the goofy ass paper hat, tucking in your ill fitting company provided polo shirt, the cost of which was deducted from your first measly check, and busting through the swinging double doors to face a freaking angry obnoxious mob everyday? Not I buddy, you get shiatty with me over a simple mistake or something that is out of my control and you would be picking cole slaw out of your nose for a week and I may be in the county detention center but I will probably be smiling and you will smell cole slaw for days.

We are stuck in a degenerative feed back loop. We have become sadly to say, an entitlement culture. Not the entitlement culture you think IE welfare and food stamps, but a culture of people who feel the world, and all those that inhabit it must kiss our asses 100% of the time and if they don’t we are justified in pitching a tantrum of epic proportions, and press the tantrum increasing it exponentially until the rat bastard who has “wronged” us relents and showers us with freebees or at the very least genuflects and offers themselves for public execution at our own hand.. A great many kids are raised this way and the first wave of them are now those who are the “offenders”. So now we have competing egomaniacs who face off and want the others lips planted firmly on each others asses and the worker because they are now in a “service” position are forced to acquiesce first because back in the break room there is a poster that says “The customer is always right” and more so because they really need the $6.75 an hour job for new rims.

I am sure the waitress (I refuse to be politically correct and “server” sounds retarded) just loves to wait on you hand and foot, tip toeing to avoid the shriekfest sure to breakout if you are not pampered and then clean up the 4 inches of paper, smashed crackers, silverware, crayons, French fires and drool your spawn deposited there during the course of your 40 minute stay all while you looked on and did nothing. I am positive that the night manager at the pizza place, covered in flour, loves spending hours making pizza and trying to keep your teenagers making pizza’s and not in the cooler playing stink finger instead, and making sure they wash their hands after they come back from break and then getting a phone call from some rabid person about a driver how left a spin mark in their dirt driveway because Jack is rushing off to make the next 5 deliveries so he can make an extra $20 because his other shiatty job pumping septic systems doesn’t quite make ends meet. I am sure that the person at the county transportation department is sitting there right now with their hand hovering over the handset waiting anxiously for it to ring and taka blast of shiat from a bubble mommy who’s precious baby has to walk 60 feet to the bus stop on the corner now because it is more convenient and efficient to stop once and pick up 3 households kids than to stop 4 times in 60 feet.

Service is service. They owe us “the norm” and that doesn’t involve purple robes, a crown and bowing. If I go out to eat, show up within a few minutes, take my order, keep my glass filled and be sure I get what I ordered. If it isn’t we can work it out without causing an international incident or causing some deep rooted psychological injury to either of us. If my cable craps out, tell me what the problem is, guess about how long it will take and be nice and I promise not to insult you or your parents. You be decent to me and put forth the effort and I will make sure when Boy and I get up to go home you don’t have to spend 30 minutes cleaning up the hideous mess we made so your next customer can sit down and we will all be good.


I think this is a good post but I'm ADHD and had to stop at the first paragraph.
 

Gwydion

New Member
:yay: Excellent post.

I came close to punching some ##### at wawa the other day who threw a tantrum to the cashier and then stood in line forcing the rest of us to wait while the manager came up and talked with her because......now get this...

There were no Cobb Salads in the pre-made bar.

After about 2 minutes of the manager telling her that there was nothing they could do except have her order one from the Made to Order counter (But she was in a rush and couldn't wait) some guy in the back of the line screamed "GET THE #### OUT OF LINE"

It was quality.
 

yankee44

New Member
I would almost bet that if every person that was biatching about the service that they were getting would think back they were probably on the other side of that fence at least once. People need to remember that you always get better service when you act nice and polite than you do if you act like an ass.
 

Mikeinsmd

New Member
Pete said:
I would rather be Mike Rowe’s stunt double for jobs that are just too damn nasty and dirty for him to do than to work in the service industry.
I think you'd make an excellent geoduck (gooey duck) harvester!!!

Oh and my geoduck is bigger than your geoduck. :razz:
 

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Pete

Repete
Mikeinsmd said:
I think you'd make an excellent geoduck (gooey duck) harvester!!!

Oh and my geoduck is bigger than your geoduck. :razz:
And you know about my geoduck how?
 

virgovictoria

Tight Pants and Lipstick
PREMO Member
I'll buy into some of that Petey. Any one person in any given industry isn't required to give us the "norm" per se, but the industry standard.

Being human should be a given, being mindful in any position should be a must. If you have little tolerance for infants or demanding people, but need to supplement your income, don't work in restaurants. Try a nice quiet paper route.

Agreed, there are many variables in any given situation that light fires under the asses of even the most noble of men; everyone will lose their calm. I simply feel that the nobler of men, perhaps like yourself, are a dying breed.

I have found that my interaction with local business, even Pizza Hotline, to be usually quite pleasant. I had ordered dinner for someone in the Mechanicsville area who is quite unable to prepare dinner for herself. I talked to the driver, explained that the door was unlocked and asked if he had the time and inclination to help her set herself up for her meal, including bringing her paper products and fixing her a drink with ice, etc. This young man was incredible. He was, of course, tipped accordingly.

But I have also had the experience, on more than one occasion, where the young (and cheap) have been hired and their professionalism and enthusiam showed. Well, I simply won't return to a place where an 18 y/o eating while taking my order, then chewing gum when I pick it up (with chipped nail polish) is the first and last person I see, thus representing the place - and this is a place you love.

And, like you, sometimes I wonder if it is HOW I react with others. I try to empathize and be considerate of what they're going through; I laugh with the gal on the line at Metrocast or when dealing with some other issue, etc. At least I try to, for the most part. But I think that there is a metastasizing tumor of apathy that's just not going away.

FYI -Did not spellcheck or preview.
 
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