Take 5: How can we stop being jerky customers?
The customer may not always be right. What are some circumstances where they could be wrong?
In a recent trip to a grocery store, I grabbed my usual few items in a hand basket and took my wares to the cashier's counter. I set the basket on the table (not a conveyor belt, just a small table) and started to reach for my wallet.
I looked up and the cashier was just staring at the basket, not moving. I asked her if everything was OK, and she replied, "I never remove items from baskets."
I didn't realize that was a thing. I simply thought the effort to grab something from inside a basket was the same as it was on a table. I'm happy to learn the right way to be, so it wasn't a big deal to do as she wanted.
Got to thinking: Have I been a jerk all this time and not known? Facebook opinions were 50-50 on whether that's truly an etiquette thing or whether she was just cranky.
What else have I been flubbing up? I asked friends to explain what circumstances they wished customers understood about jobs they had. In other words, when are customers just not right?
The general truth seems to be that people who've never worked in customer service have unrealistic expectations.
Inconsiderate cell phone users during checkout, people who get mad at employees if the store is out of the product they seek, people who make a line of people behind them wait while they get something they forgot and people who treat pharmacists like they only count pills for a living were just a few quick hits my friends offered to support that truth.
School teacher Sylvia Hammons asked me to remind people that school is not a daycare. Dropping kids off early or coming to pick them up late has a ripple effect people generally forget.
"While families are 'our customers,' they need to understand that teachers have a schedule to follow, too, and dropping kids off early and picking them up late prevents teachers from getting other responsibilities done. I’d say probably the same for sports coaches," she said.
Planning for these circumstances is important. Part of planning, however, isn't giving your sick kid Tylenol that wears off in two hours so everyone ultimately has to deal with it (nurses, parents, teachers, classmates) anyway.
Former Community Press writer Liz Carey gave another example: Her husband used to work at CompUSA where a woman screamed at him for 15 minutes because his company didn't sell film for her digital camera. I'll give you a second to reread that.
For her contribution, Leslie Kohlman talked about the bane of restaurant managers: The habitual complainers who come in to get free meals. She said, "I finally told a family you cost me money every time you walk in the door."
I waited tables at Ground Round when the company had penny-per-pound day for kids meals. You'd be surprised how hard people will work to avoid paying for meals, even 65-cent dinners.
Tara Stroud had another restaurant issue. Some people don't understand how reservations/call-ahead/seating issues work. "So many factors come into play when seating guests, i.e. party size, time of arrival, closed sections, smoking/non-smoking (used to), etc. I can’t tell you how many times I had to field a customer complaint because of how they thought it should go. Everyone knows more than the employees when they want to be seated."
Now, it's understandable what most consumers deal with: Tight home budgets, too many stressors and too much to do with no time to do it. However, no one gets paid enough to be a customer's human fidget spinner.
It's sad people talk to customer service workers in manners they'd never tolerate someone talking to their own loved ones.
For the record, when I have a handheld basket at the grocery store, I now ask cashiers if they want me to remove items from those baskets. So far, no one cared one way or the other, but it was nice to ask.
The Golden Rule isn't so hard to remember.
Melanie Laughman is the digital preps planning editor for high school sports. She periodically writes a column, Take 5, on family-related issues. You can reach her via Twitter at @mlaughman or by email at mlaughman@enquirer.com.