cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16725859
Rule
Alt text: a text post that reads: Work in retail long enough, and you’ll eventually realize the rules for dealing with Customers are exactly the same as dealing with the Fae:
- Avoid eye contact.
- Never reveal your full name.
- Accept nothing They offer you.
- Never verbally agree or disagree with anything They might happen to say.
- To apologize is to acknowledge a debt owed.
- Under no circumstances are you ever to thank Them.
- Remember that They are incapable of reading signs in human languages.
This is the reason why retail is dying.
I mean, that might be true if you don’t have any customer service skills. I did my time in food service, retail, and hospitality and I was good at my job because I broke pretty much every one of those rules.
I can see these rules being applied if you worked at a fast food min wage or a supermarket as a stocker in a bad store. I’m referring to places where Karens abuse fresh wide-eyed teenagers hoping to change the world. In my city right now, there’s a bunch of places like that, like a Wendy’s in the hood or a Supermarket that has to lock up mouthwash. Its depressing.
How long ago and in which country? Because it seems particularly the US is seen as a bad place for that and especially recently.
It’s in the US, and it’s been a minute, but things have always been bad regarding customers. You just gotta know how to handle the bad ones.
No amount of soft skills will get people to read signs though
Now that one is true
Facts
I haven’t read your post, but you are obviously wrong!
The key is to know which rules to break with which customer though. That’s the hard part.
I’m trying to come up with a dialogue that follows these rules, but it gets weird fast.
You ghoulishly sloush around the aisles, avoiding eye contact at all cost, but still a customer talks to you:
C: “Hi, excuse me. I’m looking for tomatoes.”
You: “We are out for today.”
C: “Oh, that’s unfortunate.”
You: “” (still avoiding eye contact)
C: “Well, how about I come back tomorrow?”
You: “There will be a new shipment of tomatoes by tomorrow.”
C: “Okay, great! Then I just come back tomorrow?”
You: “If you come back tomorrow, there will be a new shipment of tomatoes.”
C: “Are you alright?”
Avoiding eye contact, you silently slither away.
Uh-huh. What’s wrong with that? Seems perfect.
I don’t know why, but I can only read this in a robot-like monotone way. Which makes it so much better.
Describes my typical retail experience, i wouldn’t call that weird at all :D
This seems accurate
Is that a US thing? Not here atleast.
It is a US thing, although exaggerated for comedy. At least when I was in retail, I did several of those things.
