greeter

[Yogimus]

Two hours into my first day of work as a WalMart greeter, an ugly woman came in with her two kids.

Hearing her swear at them, I said, "Good morning, welcome to WalMart. Nice kids, are they twins?"

The mom answered, "Hell no, they ain't twins. The oldest one's 9, and the other one's 7. Why would you think they're twins? Are you blind or stupid?"

I replied, "I'm not blind or stupid. I just couldn't believe someone slept with you twice. Have a good day, and thank you for shopping at WalMart."

My supervisor said I probably wasn't cut out for this line of work.

[randy]

Heard it before but still a good one

[308Mike]

They'd be better off as a cashier for a government agency, one which deals with angry customers on a regular basis. LOL!!

Actually, that's the kind of person MOST of us have dealt with at the local government cashier's booth.

[toad]

Yogimus would make an excellent airline steward, yes very excellent.
He reminds me of the story about the middle aged and somewhat chunky airline stewardess who was a terror of an airline. She had in the past gone above and beyond for the airline in the past and management had given her a kind of super senior status. She pretty much had her choice of routes. The problem with her was not lazyness but her tolerance for what she considered "stupid" was very low and while she did not use profanity she would use sarcasm and drama on anybody pilots, flight staff, and passangers. Perhaps the most famous incident occured when she had tagged one of her first class passengers as "troublesome". He called her over after she had served the meals and told her, "This chicken is bad." She looked at the chicken, lifted up the plate eyeballed and sniffed it, then picked it up by one leg and started spanking it saying, "BAD Chicken! Bad, bad, bad!" she then placed the chicken back on the plate and told the passenger he should have no more trouble with it. The passenger just kind of sat there with a stunned look on his face for the rest of the flight.
I could so picture Yogimus doing something like that.

[Jericho941]

Yogimus would make an excellent airline steward, yes very excellent.
He reminds me of the story about the middle aged and somewhat chunky airline stewardess who was a terror of an airline. She had in the past gone above and beyond for the airline in the past and management had given her a kind of super senior status. She pretty much had her choice of routes. The problem with her was not lazyness but her tolerance for what she considered "stupid" was very low and while she did not use profanity she would use sarcasm and drama on anybody pilots, flight staff, and passangers. Perhaps the most famous incident occured when she had tagged one of her first class passengers as "troublesome". He called her over after she had served the meals and told her, "This chicken is bad." She looked at the chicken, lifted up the plate eyeballed and sniffed it, then picked it up by one leg and started spanking it saying, "BAD Chicken! Bad, bad, bad!" she then placed the chicken back on the plate and told the passenger he should have no more trouble with it. The passenger just kind of sat there with a stunned look on his face for the rest of the flight.
I could so picture Yogimus doing something like that.

In all seriousness, "the customer is always right" is one of the most toxic sayings in our society.

[Yogimus]

Yogimus would make an excellent airline steward, yes very excellent.
He reminds me of the story about the middle aged and somewhat chunky airline stewardess who was a terror of an airline. She had in the past gone above and beyond for the airline in the past and management had given her a kind of super senior status. She pretty much had her choice of routes. The problem with her was not lazyness but her tolerance for what she considered "stupid" was very low and while she did not use profanity she would use sarcasm and drama on anybody pilots, flight staff, and passangers. Perhaps the most famous incident occured when she had tagged one of her first class passengers as "troublesome". He called her over after she had served the meals and told her, "This chicken is bad." She looked at the chicken, lifted up the plate eyeballed and sniffed it, then picked it up by one leg and started spanking it saying, "BAD Chicken! Bad, bad, bad!" she then placed the chicken back on the plate and told the passenger he should have no more trouble with it. The passenger just kind of sat there with a stunned look on his face for the rest of the flight.
I could so picture Yogimus doing something like that.

In all seriousness, "the customer is always right" is one of the most toxic sayings in our society.

Toxic all the way to the bank.

[Aglifter]

Eh, not really...

Oddly enough, customers are happier, within reason, when they have less choices - less buyers remorse, and decisions are simpler.

If you try to accommodate everyone's whims, you end up w. a mess. Pick something which 90% are happy with, and 5% will tolerate, and ignore the 5% that demand silliness - NO ONE likes the A-holes, including your other customers.

Its best to just fire them.

[Greg]

Eh, not really...

Oddly enough, customers are happier, within reason, when they have less choices - less buyers remorse, and decisions are simpler.

If you try to accommodate everyone's whims, you end up w. a mess. Pick something which 90% are happy with, and 5% will tolerate, and ignore the 5% that demand silliness - NO ONE likes the A-holes, including your other customers.

Its best to just fire them.

Indeed. It's a guiding principle, a rule of thumb. It's NOT an absolute rule carved in stone that permits zero deviation with zero tolerance.

You default to treating the customer as if he is right (because hey, the customers are the ones who bring you the MONEY you need to SURVIVE) up to and until he gives you reason to overrule that default. Because there are bad, predatory or just plain crazy people out there, who do not mean well and cannot be reasoned with. And you need to protect yourself and (Aglifter seems to be one of the few who get this) your other customers from that.

It's just that "it is wisest for the overwhelming majority of customers to be given the benefit of the doubt and treated as if they are correct in the overwhelming majority of cases" doesn't have much of a ring to it, the human mind needs something a little more... snappy. (Sound bites and slogans exist for a reason.)

[Jericho941]

Eh, not really...

Oddly enough, customers are happier, within reason, when they have less choices - less buyers remorse, and decisions are simpler.

If you try to accommodate everyone's whims, you end up w. a mess. Pick something which 90% are happy with, and 5% will tolerate, and ignore the 5% that demand silliness - NO ONE likes the A-holes, including your other customers.

Its best to just fire them.

I'm not talking about asshole employees. I'm talking about asshole customers. This business of bending over backwards to accommodate every infantile whim of every random jerk who darkens your doorstep is what "the customer is always right" gets us.

You default to treating the customer as if he is right (because hey, the customers are the ones who bring you the MONEY you need to SURVIVE) up to and until he gives you reason to overrule that default. Because there are bad, predatory or just plain crazy people out there, who do not mean well and cannot be reasoned with. And you need to protect yourself and (Aglifter seems to be one of the few who get this) your other customers from that.

It's just that "it is wisest for the overwhelming majority of customers to be given the benefit of the doubt and treated as if they are correct in the overwhelming majority of cases" doesn't have much of a ring to it, the human mind needs something a little more... snappy. (Sound bites and slogans exist for a reason.)

Which is part of what I'm getting at. The soundbite by itself has basically resulted in a society that feels entitled to scream at clerks because basic math is beyond them, and whatever they determined in their head is on sale is on sale (among many numerous transgressions, like "I ordered this thing that sounds like something that's on the menu but isn't actually something you offer, so when you brought me the similar-sounding thing I WANT YOU FIRED YOU STUPID CUNT"). And the vast majority of the time, these people are not ejected from the business, they are not given a stern warning on what behavior will be tolerated if they wish to do business, they are rewarded with coupons for free stuff and other ways of being "comped."

There seems to be a dire shortage of businesses these days that both value customers, and know where to draw the line.

[Greg]

Eh, not really...

Oddly enough, customers are happier, within reason, when they have less choices - less buyers remorse, and decisions are simpler.

If you try to accommodate everyone's whims, you end up w. a mess. Pick something which 90% are happy with, and 5% will tolerate, and ignore the 5% that demand silliness - NO ONE likes the A-holes, including your other customers.

Its best to just fire them.

I'm not talking about asshole employees. I'm talking about asshole customers. This business of bending over backwards to accommodate every infantile whim of every random jerk who darkens your doorstep is what "the customer is always right" gets us.

Actually he's talking about customers, too. Business owners can fire customers.

You default to treating the customer as if he is right (because hey, the customers are the ones who bring you the MONEY you need to SURVIVE) up to and until he gives you reason to overrule that default. Because there are bad, predatory or just plain crazy people out there, who do not mean well and cannot be reasoned with. And you need to protect yourself and (Aglifter seems to be one of the few who get this) your other customers from that.

It's just that "it is wisest for the overwhelming majority of customers to be given the benefit of the doubt and treated as if they are correct in the overwhelming majority of cases" doesn't have much of a ring to it, the human mind needs something a little more... snappy. (Sound bites and slogans exist for a reason.)

Which is part of what I'm getting at. The soundbite by itself has basically resulted in a society that feels entitled to scream at clerks because basic math is beyond them, and whatever they determined in their head is on sale is on sale (among many numerous transgressions, like "I ordered this thing that sounds like something that's on the menu but isn't actually something you offer, so when you brought me the similar-sounding thing I WANT YOU FIRED YOU STUPID CUNT"). And the vast majority of the time, these people are not ejected from the business, they are not given a stern warning on what behavior will be tolerated if they wish to do business, they are rewarded with coupons for free stuff and other ways of being "comped."

There seems to be a dire shortage of businesses these days that both value customers, and know where to draw the line.

Common sense is not common. Judgement and experience take time to gain and are not all that common, and so therefore are expensive.

For sufficiently large businesses, it may be cheaper to appease the occasional retail 'height-challenged Austrian' than it is to find people to work their retail establishments who have actual sense and judgement. Maybe. But when you offer to bend over and take it without lube from a bad customer, it does make the good customers who play by the rules feel left out and ripped off. Anyway... Also, giving employees initiative to act on their own sense and judgement is, for whatever reason, contrary to contemporary management methods.

In general zero tolerance (which is what taking "customer is always right" literally is a form of) is easier for a clueless nitwit to implement, and involves less work and less personal risk - "I was just following the rules". (I'm pretty sure I've said those exact same words at least once, probably twice before on this forum.... )