It's That MITLA Time of the Week, Folks....
“I realize that your standing in this fair community pretty well guarantees a venality in sincerity and a rather irritating method of expressing yourself. Stupidity, however, is not a necessarily inherent trait.”
- Special Agent Albert Rosenfield, Twin Peaks
There were a lot of jackasses in my store today. I mean, more than usual. My customer demographic is mostly comprised of highly paid, time-poor professionals who are used to getting their own way, and getting it yesterday.
So my team and I? We’re pretty used to the slings and arrows of outrageously behaved adults who need their bums spanked. Water off a duck's back and what-have-you.
When I am feeling particularly whimsical, I fancy myself as a sort of gateway between the jobs my team members had at high school and the rest of their careers. I’m one of those extraordinarily pathetic people who actually loves their job. I love my team.
One of the hardest things I have to teach these kids as they flit through my hands (normally at the speed of the university degree the job pays for), is how to deal with that particularly bastardly brand of shithead without resorting to Fawlty Tower-esque arse-smooching. My store is a Grovel Free Zone.
I fully understand and accept that we work in a service related industry, and that a small minority of hardcore tanty-chuckers will always exist. I am also completely willing to concede that everyone is entitled to a bad day.
But here’s the thing:
I’d like to say THANK YOU to all the assholes out there who lost their temper today at a kid who was doing their best to help them out. And I’m absolutely serious. ‘Cause when you lose your shit like that in MY STORE? It means I have a perfect opportunity to discuss your sorry ass with the team member in question. It means that kid gets to think of all the nasty things they wanted to say to you, and they get to say them to me instead.
If you’ve had genuinely bad service in my store, then I will CROSS HOT COALS to get you back in my door. And the team member who gave it to you? They get performance managed accordingly. With the facts and values and respect.
But if you walk in my door and you try and cut one of my guys down because you earn more than they do, and you’ve never shifted a pallet or driven a forklift or had to say “excuse me, can I help with you with anything?”…..then THANKS.
You’re helping me teach these kids about PERSONAL INTEGRITY, and you’re helping me make them BULLETPROOF.
So bring it on.
J
And yes, YOU SIR, with the world’s most offensive tie and the appalling manners, are the winner of this week’s Most Impervious To Logic Award, for thinking that the more awfully you behaved, the more likely you were to get what you wanted.
THINK ABOUT IT.