My Love/Hate Relationship With The General Public

So today, I finally got round to meeting up with an old school friend for a cup of tea and a chat.

The conversation ended up being about our jobs. She works for a ferry company and I work in food retail. Because the pair of us spend 99.9% of our working lives dealing with customers, our jobs end up being quite similar.

The main topic that kept us going was rude people and the joys we get when we either outwit them or not let them get to us.

I have amazing customer service. I've been told by colleagues, my manager and other customers. I like to make someone's day that little bit better, because lets face it, the majority of people don't want to be shopping. But there is only so far my customer service skills can get me. There is only so far I can be pushed until I reach breaking point. Fortunately, I have never reached breaking point, but I've been pretty close on some occasions.

Now we aren't the cheapest shop, nor are we the biggest. We aren't going to stock as many lines as Tesco, nor will we match them on prices. People point this out to me on a daily basis. I explain why we aren't as cheap, but they continue on their tirade of drivel until I have to make up an excuse to leave the conversation, before I insert the tin of beans I've been trying to put out for the last 10 minutes, into any orifice to shut them up. If I go into a supermarket and ask something, I usually accept the answer and walk away.

Maybe it's because I have a shirt and a tie, people feel that I have some 'power' of what happens in the store. These people don't realise that companies like these are all controlled by 'the powers that be' somewhere on the mainland. They seem to think that we are expensive because we have the monopoly of stores in the town. I have explained that if an Asda opened over the road, our prices would stay the same.

My main hatred is rude people. The way some people feel the need to be vile, condescending and downright mean to a member of staff, just because we haven't got the right kind of tinned prune in stock on the day they want it. I've been spoken to like shit, because people believe it's acceptable to do so in a shop. If they did it in public, I'm pretty sure I'd have thumped them.

Then you get the customers who appreciate what you do for them. They understand that we are not going to have full shelves every day for 365 days a year. They carry on with their lives, because it's not a big deal.

When a customer thanks me for assisting them, it makes me feel so good. Even if I didn't manage to sort out the issue they had.

So please, if you ever feel the need to have a go at a member of staff in a shop, because you didn't get what you wanted, think how you'd feel if someone had a go at you, for somethingyou probably have no control over.