The giddy joys of working in Customer Service. A job that can sometimes be so thankless is kills us.
If you’ve ever worked in a shop, cafe, or anything that needs frontline cheeriness and amiable banter, you’ll recognise all of these problems
You place bets with your co-workers as to how rude a particular customer will be
“Woman, aged about 40, wearing a wax jacket and Hunter wellies. Bet you £20 she uses the phrase “young man” in a really patronising tone when she doesn’t get her own way”.
You take it in turns to hide when *that* customer comes back in again
Or anyone else who has been rude to you in the past. Whoever draws the short straw has to deal with them over and over again.
You have to be able to deal with 17 different queries at once and not pass out
There’ll always be a queue of people who all need everything two minutes ago. It always happens when there’s only you on the counter and no manager available.
You want to respond to everything with sarcasm
“What kind of idiots do you have working here?”
“Ones who don’t get paid enough to deal with snotty inbreds like you. Madam”
Just when you think you can sneak off…
Some utter UTTER idiot will want something from you.
People just…tire you out…
You’re normally a social person and love being around people, but suddenly you find your capacity to deal with them is zero. Zero. Totally zilch. Nada. Nothing. You just want to go home and sit in the dark, crying for your mum.
When you rush to the counter because someone needs serving…then they amble off
Look, you either need my help, or you don’t, ok? Don’t dilly dally about it.
You’re sick to death of hearing the same songs on Retail Radio, over and over again
The instore radio station plays the same songs, that make you so stabby you want to cut all the size labels out of the clothes and let everyone have a free for all in the entrance.
Pleasantries are no longer pleasant
“Have a nice day” “Take care” and “Great! No problem, anytime” all start to sound like “I wish I was dead” inside your head.
Before you start work, you wonder how casually you can dress without breaking company rules
Like, “it’ll be totally OK to sit on the front desk in my just my pants, won’t it?”
You really really REALLY don’t care anymore
When you’ve answered the same queries in the same cheery voice for the 9 millionth time in a day, you really start to lose the plot and wish you were anywhere else. Like Guantanamo Bay.
You fake concern
You pretend to understand your customer’s frustration, but all you can actually think about is “how long is it till I can retire?”
