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Comments 7

teribeth May 31 2008, 14:08:35 UTC
If you consider it your right and privilege to make some underpaid kitchen helper stay an extra hour away from their kids so you can get lo mein whenever you want it, you are mistaken.

Amen.

I've found that I'm much more inclined to be nice to anyone in customer service (especially if they're only making minimum wage or less) having been in several customer service jobs myself. Luckily I was never high enough in the totem pole so if a truly tantrum-inclined customer came in, they got shunted to my manager.

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kenshusei May 31 2008, 14:43:42 UTC
I enjoy dealing with unpleasant people. I get better at it every time I do it.

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fatfred May 31 2008, 14:55:16 UTC
Oh Bravo!

I can have my mom adopt you.
Her maiden name was Chen.

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rosewildeirish May 31 2008, 15:18:22 UTC
I've told people who come in right at closing, "Oh, you just made it in!" It possibly cheers them on and gives them a sense of accomplishment, plus lets them know that no, we're not technically open for very much longer.

I'll let a person have ten or fifteen minutes past closing. I know I probably radiate "time to go, time to go, time to go" because I suck at hiding things like that. But I'll try to give them a small amount of time to look. And then I'll let them know - we closed at 7 and the boss stops paying me then.

(He only stops paying me if I choose for that to be the case. But it gets people out a damnsight faster than just about anything I can think of, with a sense of more urgency and somewhat less obnoxious than most that I can think of.)

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kenshusei May 31 2008, 15:28:33 UTC
lol. I bet the pay thing is a really effective tactic. It makes me smile because I can imagine it working, but it makes me sad that what Americans respond to is the claxon call of the pocket book.

In Kenshusei world, you'd value peoples' time more than their bottom line. I suspect most customers don't.

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rosewildeirish May 31 2008, 15:32:52 UTC
Ehh, I can see your point, but at least at that point they're telling me that they value me as a person, because they recognize that I'm no longer a cog in the workplace but someone extending a courtesy, and are doing their best to honor that courtesy as well.

Or so I tell myself. :) Possibly that's why I get offended by the people for which that particular tactic fails to work.

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thedooz May 31 2008, 19:23:05 UTC
yeah I agree completely. I hated that in retail. Many people even know you are about to close. They just don't care. They don't attempt to empathize or understand or hurry. The whole society has just gotten less polite and that really drives me crazy sometimes. Liek I will actually carry on a polite conversation with my baggers and cashiers. This often startles them. That makes me really sad. See people as people and not as a means to your end. Thats what I wish others would understand.

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