Lately customer service feels like you’re waiting for someone to stop sending selfies on Snapchat before they’ll help you. Or you’re stuck in a line that takes forever at a not-so-fast-food location. What about the “add a tip” for a person that did nothing but take your money? What society expects, nay, demands, has really shifted over the past few decades. The way people treat each other has become less polite and even cruel at times. Especially for the people who experience the unadulterated joy of working with the general public.
In customer service, your only job is to keep a group of people you don’t know happy and spending money. I mean, it says “serve us” right in the title. Which sometimes means you have to cater to individuals that feel they have the right to be demanding, condescending, or downright rude, simply because they are purchasing something and you are helping them execute this process. Or maybe you have a job that places you in front of people who then feel like they know you, and therefore feel they have carte blanche to say whatever they would like to you.
When I was a radio morning show host right after college, complete strangers would say things like “You are a lot uglier than I thought you’d be.” Oh my goodness, thank you! That’s so flattering - please tell me you’re single because rawr…. And for many years I allowed the negativity to weigh heavily on my psyche. But I am now trying to view the interactions as comedic instead of sobbing in my iced coffee post-insult.
I am the owner of the yarn store, Low Country Shrimp and Knits, and most of my customers are amazing. However, there some that complain the moment they enter. And, yes, sometimes life is very life-y and they may be wearing their stress like a straight jacket. So they trauma dump on any poor fool (like me) that greets them. I hear things like: “there’s nowhere to park,” “could you be any more difficult to find,” or my personal favorites “‘there’s not one thing that I like in here’, and ‘I can get this cheaper at Walmart.’” Wow - thank you and please come again soon! You’ve been such a joy. Perhaps next time you can make triggering comments from high school that I mentally relive nightly?
I had one woman inform me she works at “the competition” and then asked me if I was intimidated. Why? Are you going to punch me or something? This is yarn, not the Hunger Games. Let’s not forget about the individuals that usurp an inordinate amount of your time, energy and your will to live - then spend their money elsewhere. As a small business owner, these are things that make you question all of your life choices. Then the condescending Mean Girl that lives in your head laughs and reminds you how stupid you were to follow your dreams. “Should have stayed in the corporate world, little Miss I-Can-Run-My-Own-Business. Won’t this yarn taste delicious when you can’t pay your bills? Full of fiber!”
Recently I received a voicemail from a woman who was looking for project labels. A Google search brought her to my webpage. She left me the following message: “Hi, I was searching the web for knitting patches and your company popped up so I checked it out. I cannot believe your prices. That’s ridiculous. There’s no way that I’m going to order from your site. Goodbye and have a good day.” Most people would just keep scrolling, but not this woman. She went out of her way to look up my phone number just to tell me that I am dead to her. That’s some serious commitment to the burn.
I had a passive aggressive woman who kept trying to correct me by saying the word louder. Yarn comes in different weights and one is fingering. Now, I haven’t spent much time digging into the etymology but fingering weight is likely derived from the French “fin grin” which means fine grain. It’s a word that is uncomfortable due to its connotation, but it is the correct terminology, and no one raises an eyeball at it in a yarn store. I mentioned that the lace, fingering, and DK weight yarn is kept in the front of the shop. “Um, fingerling. Could you please tell me where the FINGERLING yarn is?” Fingering weight is here (and I point to it). This is sock, I want FINGERLING!” I wanted to say, “You may want to check out Kroger for the fingerlings. They’re between the Yukon Golds and the Russets.” But, I can’t because, customer service.
One time a woman was all fired up because my daughter wouldn’t give her an employee discount. Girl, we don’t even know you. You have two choices - you either have to pay full price for that cashmere or get a job here - and we are not hiring your brand of crazy.
While it does seem that getting good service is an exercise in futility some days - it may just be that the customer right before you stomped on the employee’s last nerve in soccer cleats. Or maybe their dreams of leaving that crappy job and becoming an Instagram influencer aren’t panning out. Since you cannot control their behavior, you might as well look at it comedically. Just don’t BE the reason that they go home and trauma dump on their ficus. That would be so awkward when it wilts and dies from the venting about your behavior - especially when it’s a silk plant.