Customer Service, Anyone?
I work at a video store, as I have already mentioned.
Have you ever seen Clerks? Clerks is probably the most accurate depiction of what customer service really is ever produced. It is, in fact, more accurate than the real thing in many ways. It achieves this by way of archetypes; it makes the customers into neat little categories that are instantly recognizable by anyone who has EVER stood behind a counter. It compiles hours and hours of real-life awful into two hours of condensed awful-in-a-can, and manages to feel completely authentic. The man who enthusiastically grabs at a film and exclaims "Oooh! Navy seals!" is real. I have seen him dozens of times. So too is the woman who asks the price of things while standing in front of the sign. People are ludicrously stupid, and my job is to reward them for that. I indulge them in a fantasy-world where it's acceptable to think "Little Nicky" and "Battlefield Earth" are okay things to like, and that they don't actually deserve to be sterilized just for looking at the box. I lie a lot. They ask me how "Unbreakable" was, and I tell them I haven't seen it. I leave out the end, that "I haven't seen it because I would rather have my genitals removed than watch Unbreakable, and I want to murder Bruce Willis desperately." They are small lies, lies of omission, but they chafe me. It's hard to pretend I'm retarded for eleven hours. There are old people who try to tell me that the DVD is broken because it doesn't fit in their Beta VCR. There are people who seriously expect me to make their movie free because they didn't like it. And then there are the demands they make for movies. They invariably want to watch the same terrible films on the same night, and John Q. Public gathers his massive bulk from off the sofa and lets forth a thunderous DUUUHHHH, which is by far the most common thing for John Q. Public to say. As one voice, they call out "DUUUUH, do you have JACK FROST TWO?" and I shudder, and I get it for them.
The only thing that makes it tolerable is working with two cute girls most of the time.
Have you ever seen Clerks? Clerks is probably the most accurate depiction of what customer service really is ever produced. It is, in fact, more accurate than the real thing in many ways. It achieves this by way of archetypes; it makes the customers into neat little categories that are instantly recognizable by anyone who has EVER stood behind a counter. It compiles hours and hours of real-life awful into two hours of condensed awful-in-a-can, and manages to feel completely authentic. The man who enthusiastically grabs at a film and exclaims "Oooh! Navy seals!" is real. I have seen him dozens of times. So too is the woman who asks the price of things while standing in front of the sign. People are ludicrously stupid, and my job is to reward them for that. I indulge them in a fantasy-world where it's acceptable to think "Little Nicky" and "Battlefield Earth" are okay things to like, and that they don't actually deserve to be sterilized just for looking at the box. I lie a lot. They ask me how "Unbreakable" was, and I tell them I haven't seen it. I leave out the end, that "I haven't seen it because I would rather have my genitals removed than watch Unbreakable, and I want to murder Bruce Willis desperately." They are small lies, lies of omission, but they chafe me. It's hard to pretend I'm retarded for eleven hours. There are old people who try to tell me that the DVD is broken because it doesn't fit in their Beta VCR. There are people who seriously expect me to make their movie free because they didn't like it. And then there are the demands they make for movies. They invariably want to watch the same terrible films on the same night, and John Q. Public gathers his massive bulk from off the sofa and lets forth a thunderous DUUUHHHH, which is by far the most common thing for John Q. Public to say. As one voice, they call out "DUUUUH, do you have JACK FROST TWO?" and I shudder, and I get it for them.
The only thing that makes it tolerable is working with two cute girls most of the time.