How do you guys feel about service workers?

I never have this problem with service workers, shop assistants or call centre workers. Have you tried using the self service tills in shops then you don't have to interact with anyone the machine does it all for you.

 

I honestly expect you, right after that, took your line manager and told him what actually happened and not to threaten you again.

 

Maybe you act in ways you don't even realize conciously or are completely neutral to you, but not to others. Who knows, maybe it really has to do with your ADHD; I know too little about it to say anything meaningful in that regard. So, for example, if you walk into the store very fast (although it seems just fine to you), an already annoyed service worker interprets that as "Oh great, another customer who is in a rush and therefore grumpy to me". I'm not saying that it's right for them to let their frustration out on you, but I can understand it. I would do the same thing, if I were in their shoes. This kind of jobs is unfortunately often very stressful because customers are absolute dicks. It's no surprise that they have enough of that shit at some point.

So, would it be great if service workers would always be nice even when they are annoyed about customers? Of course.
But try to understand where their emotions are coming from. Ask if you wouldn't do the same thing. I think you'll find it easier to accept it. And who knows, maybe if you are understanding and nice to them, they will also be nicer to you.

 

I almost never come across service workers that are rude in any way. In fact I'm pretty sure that their job demands that they be polite and nice even towards difficult customers. Maybe it's possible that by some astronomically unlikely coincidence you have come across a lot of rude service workers, but please do consider the fact that you might be either reading something to their behaviour that isn't there or that you might be the one who makes them rude by first being an asshole in the situation. Again, it could be that that's not the case, but do some introspection over it.

 

Have you ever worked in one of these positions? Maybe you should do it for a bit, so you can put yourself in their shoes.

I can say one thing, when I worked at a department store, I got to work one day to discover that I was the one scheduled to cover customer service while the customer service person went on their breaks that day.

Thing is, nobody had ever trained me in customer service. I knew absolutely nothing about how to do that job, but I was apparently expected to do it. Their excuse was "oh, probably nobody will even come back here until they're back from their break." Which is an idiotic excuse, because the whole point of me being there is in case someone DOES come back there and needs help processing a return or doing something else.

Anyway, it was a mess. I was absolutely freaking out, because I have a good work ethic and I want to do a good job, and they put me in a position where it was going to be impossible for me to do a good job, because I had about a two-minute explanation from the customer service person before they went on their break about how to do it. It was insane.

And most of all, I was not annoyed for myself, but for the customers, because they (rightfully so) expect that someone in customer service is going to know how to do their job. But it wasn't my job, and nobody had taught me how to do it, so it was a disaster.

I'm not saying this is everyone's situation, of course. Some people are just lazy or bitter or grumpy. Or they are just having a tough day and you've caught them when they're in a bad mood.

But what I'm saying is, sometimes it's not their fault at all. A lot of times, it's the company's fault for either not training them right, not giving them adequate time to do their work well, overworking them, etc.

Another example, I used to work as a housekeeper at a hotel, and I was the housekeeping supervisor there for a while as well. We started work at 8:30 and we HAD to be out by 5, period, no over time allowed.

The manager said we should have 30 minutes to clean a room, which was absolutely NOT enough time to do all of the things on the official list of things we were supposed to do. And then on top of that, they would sometimes give us 20 rooms in a day... 8:30-5, minus breaks and ten minutes at the end of the day to stock your carts (which was also a mandatory part of our job) is 7 hours and 40 minutes. So with absolutely NO wiggle room at all for anything potentially going wrong, like the laundry staff not having enough blankets clean so we can't do our job properly (which happened regularly), and not factoring in time for us to have to go back and forth from ththe laundry room all day, or help guests when they need it, that would be enough time for 15 rooms (and even then, only enough time to do the basics, not everything on the list). 20 rooms is absolutely impossible.

They also decided that 30 minutes was enough for a checkout room, but if someone is staying over, you only get 20 minutes. But a lot of the time, they stayovers were the exact same amount of work, and sometimes even harder because people had their stuff all over and made things more difficult.

So yeah, needless to say, my girls were quite simply just not possibly able to do the job they were supposed to be doing. That's one of the many reasons I couldn't wait to leave that job, because I was really sick of being given impossible tasks, working my butt off to try to complete the impossible tasks, then getting upset at myself when I failed, because it was impossible to begin with.

So yeah. Long story short, I understand your annoyance, but also, cut people some slack and don't assume that whatever problem you're have is automatically the fault of the person you're dealing with directly. It's definitely not always their fault, and they very well may be just as upset as you are about it.

 

In short, don't forget that the big bosses that are high up in the company just want money. More often than not, they don't really care about the day to day of their employees. They want to get the most money they can, which sometimes means pushing their employees to the absolute brink of what is possible (or in my case at the hotel, over what is possible) because they are too greedy to hire some more people to make things easier on everybody.

I've definitely worked with my fair share of lazy people. I had a few girls at the hotel who drove me a bit nuts, because they just did not listen and didn't want to do their jobs, strictly because they were extremely lazy. But most of them were not that. Most of them were hard workers just trying to do a good job with the hand they were dealt by incredibly out-of-touch management.

Instead of getting irritated at the lower level employees, I think more often we should wonder what about the company might be making it difficult for them to do the good job they probably want to do and aren't being able to. Which, by the way, is a great way to lead people into being bitter and grumpy and even a bit lazy.

Tbh, working at the hotel, after a while, I got so tired of beating myself up everyday for not finishing the impossible work they gave me, that I eventually said you know what? Fine. I'll just do the half-assed job they expect me to do, then, and then maybe they will see that they aren't giving me enough time to do the work properly.

So maybe you've caught someone at the tail end of that cycle, where they have eventually just given up and said whatever, this is impossible, so what's the point in even trying.

 

You could have just said this you know.

 

Why would you like my comments and then say this? Geez louise, dude. I wanted to share my experience. Sorry I annoyed you by speaking.

 

You could have just left this unsaid you know.

None of us are speaking here because to do otherwise wouldn't be possible, I reckon.

 

I don't understand what you're trying to get at, my man.

 

Quite the smart statement, is that from reddit?

 

Can you guys just stop? I left a comment that was thorough, and I wrote it that way for a reason. I wanted to share my personal experience so the OP could have a different perspective. So no, my comment wouldn't have had the same effect at all if I just shortened it down to a single paragraph, because that's not what I was trying to accomplish.

Then Mr. Priest decided to come along and be rude for absolutely no reason, picking on me for writing a long comment when, in his opinion, it should have been shorter.

So Shady accurately pointed out that just as he said I could have said less, he, too, could have said less... in fact, he could have said nothing at all. But no, he had to toss out a completely useless criticism for no reason, just to be rude. And now you're picking on shady for calling you out on being rude?

Just stop. This is so ridiculous.

 

Ngl, that sounds a bit like a you problem my friend.

No.

 

Please remain civil and on topic, wouldn't want to see this thread degenerate, thank you

 

I didn't mean it to be rude, regardless of your personal experience, the take-away of the experience was summarized in that last statement you did, so that statement alone would have suffice to get the point across, without the need of rest. I even liked your posts because I agree with what you said.

You just got too defensive and interpreted my words in a tone that possibly wasn't the right one.

When it comes to Shady, trying to make a smart remark often leads to someone doing the same back at you, simple as.

Is funny how the interpretation of words, tone, etc, can make things escalate easily, without no real reason for it, and I bet, to roll back on topic, the same happens on the interactions between customers and service workers.

Sure

 

ADHD isn’t easy to deal with, but that shouldn’t be an excuse for being rude to people. I assume that happens too because you shouldn’t be getting rude service workers multiple times a day.

Remember that these workers are typically underpaid, overstressed, and face constant assaults both from their management and from customers. The fact that they stay professional in most situations is respectable.

 

Bloody hell, what a weird and completely pointless thread

 

Gaslighting at its finest, my dude. Your comment was rude and unnecessary. I was not "getting too defensive." I merely pointing out the fact that your comment was rude and unnecessary. If you don't like people saying that to you, then don't post rude and unnecessary comments that are needlessly negative. It has nothing to do with interpreting "tone." I didn't assign any specific tone to your comment. I simply read the words you wrote, which were needlessly negative and nitpicky. No tone was necessary to deem that rude.

That's really all I have to say about it. You're the one who started crap by saying something negative for no reason, and all I did was say that it was a little rude.

 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I have ADHD too and idk how that would make you have a harder time being respectful of others. It's not like ADHD makes people into jerks or something.