And by that, I mean that everyone should be required to work two weeks in a customer service environment - in a supermarket, in an inbound call centre, or in a coffee shop.
The basic level of communication skill and empathy I’ve learned there has set me up reasonably well in life - and it’s remarkable how far you get with another human on the other end of a phone or teller screen by just “playing the game”, “appreciating that there’s tickboxes needing to be checked” and “not being a cunt”.
I’m not saying the solution is perfect but fuck me, it would solve a lot of entitlement problems.
I worked in retail only very briefly in the 80s and never had any major issues. I consider myself very lucky for that.
Even before covid, people seemed to be treating retail staff as some kind of lower life form far worse than I remember, but it’s absolutely gone insane since.
It gets so annoying trying to explain just basic inflation to idiots saying minimum wage doesn’t need to be changed. Not to even get into actual increases since we’re producing so much more now than we used to.
For those that don’t understand… $1.00 in 1950 has the same value as $13.04 in 2024. So if we take the $0.75/hr minimum wage from 1950 and just calculate for inflation alone, we would be at $9.78 to have the same buying power. That assumes prices didn’t actually increase at all, just matching inflation. So anyone making minimum is making 26% less than they would have in 1955.
And that doesn’t take into account ANY increases in actual prices of products or basic necessities like food and housing, or education, beyond basic inflation. We all know that nothing has increased in price by only inflation over the last 70+ years. Basic necessity pricing has shot up way more than inflation in the past couple years alone.
And it’s nearly impossible to explain to those same people how a progressive tax structure works. No, you aren’t making less money overall just because a simple raise moves you into a higher tax bracket. There are certain situations that could, but you would have to have a very specific and strange portfolio for that to be the case. Something a regular average worker wouldn’t have.
And the most common excuse when you point that out..."at least it's something". Which while true, since not everyone gets raises at all, is still robbery.
I’m still sour a decade later over some customer interactions. One of the most notable was during my time as a barista. It was a busy weekend and quite loud in the shop with a line out the door. The line was to the left of the register and it’s important to know I only have about 50 percent hearing out of my left ear so most people are on my “bad side.”
Now this isn’t a big deal, since if I’m looking at you I hear just fine or if it’s quiet I can pick up on sounds from that side no problem. In a loud busy cafe, it’s pretty bad. So I go to help the next customer and say “hi how can I help you today” or something. The Karen replies that “I was very rude to her, she said hi earlier and I didn’t reply.”
She was a regular and I recognized her but we didn’t have a rapport or anything but I would have definitely greeted her had I heard. I apologized and explained I’m pretty deaf in my left ear and just didn’t hear her. Story should have ended there but she goes ballistic and starts calling me a liar and that I made it up. Luckily a more friendly regular was also in line and backed me up.
Still pisses me off. Everyone should work a service job just to learn how to treat people.
If it helps any, people that jump to the conclusion that you are just arbitrarily lying to cover yourself usually assume that because it’s how they approach life, never taking responsibility for themselves.
A lady asked me how to get service on her landline phone. At the department store I was working at. It was very confusing, I did actually give her info on a local service that ensures the elderly on fixed incomes always have service, at no ongoing cost at least. She just RAGED at me for being so incompetent I couldn’t turn on her phone service from the department store, or wouldn’t personally go out and install it. I’ve never been called so many names in my life. And yet I still feel sorry for her. Customer service really is a constant exercise in empathy and checked projection, you can’t get mad at customer 6 just because customer 5 was a horrorshow lunatic.
I get what you’re saying, it’s capitalism vs socialism, not Democracy vs socialism, however my issue is that they don’t even like our Democracy. I got banned for even supporting it.
They were slamming how terrible our liberal politicians were, so I made a few comments about it and I got banned for defending them. It’s frustrating…but whatever…
I don’t work a customer-facing job now, but back when I did I thought I did a pretty good job. But one day a couple straight-up lied about me to my company! Out of nowhere! Still salty about that. It’s one thing to want to get free shit, it’s another to potentially get someone fired! Hope they step in wet puddles every time they are in socks…
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