A Farewell to Customer Service

So the thing about customer service is that it's a universal. I can talk about my job with any person who has ever worked customer service and we will always have something to talk about because we will have all the same customers. Not necessarily the same people, but since we all know that customers aren't people the archetypes will be the same.

Everyone who ever works with customers will have the psycho who can't understand why you won't violate state or federal law to get what they want. They'll have the person who wants you to bend space and time to get them something that you physically have no control over. The people who yell at you over company policies like you have some control over them. The people who expect you to be psychic about their special things (allergies, the fact they don't want the handles of their soda cases punched in). The people who hand you copies of Watchtower magazine and give you Chick Tracts. These are universal truths.

I had a customer today who I have never had before in my years of working a register. This one was a special breed all her own.

I first encounter Dingbat because it's 15 minutes to close and she is standing in the juice aisle bent over in half not moving. I ask her if she maybe needs help because I'm kind of worried she's not entirely okay. She tells me she's fine, she's just reading the juices to see which one is on her WIC. I am a little perturbed but tell her that the Juicey Juice is all okay.
Finally, a couple minutes after I make the finally "we're closed!" announcement, she gets to the register. I look through her vouchers and realize she has a pound of cheese on the voucher she didn't get. Since I am a good person, I ask her if she wanted the cheese. She's starting to freak me out, because she's mumbling to herself a lot but she goes off to get her cheese. She walked down an aisle and bumped in to the meat case and just stopped and started staring at it. The manager went and got her and told her where the cheese was and she finally came up and I got everything rung up and put through. This took 15 minutes. Then she stood there for another 5 minutes asking us why we didn't

Crazy People are Everywhere

So, the thing about working in customer service is that 90% of the people you will come into contact with on a daily basis are crazy.

Take, for example, this true life anecdote from my day:

I am coming off of break and a woman at the self-checkouts waves me over and asks for help. I am aware that I probably won't be able to do anything unless it's a stupid question, but I go over anyway.

"These were supposed to be buy one get one free, but they're not being taken off!"

"Okay, well you see how they were both $2.80 and after you scanned each one, it took $1.40 off?"

"Well, that's not really buy one get one free!"

"Well, this way you get the same discount if you buy an odd number of the products. It's the same price."

"But that's not right! It's NOT buy one get one free! I should get one free!"

At that point I managed to excuse myself and run fast for my register where at least the crazy people usually don't notice when things are rung up differently than they expect.

But it's not just customers. Sure, the customers are absolutely fucking psycho, but my coworkers are just as bad. I've already done a post on my whacko boss, so I'll leave him out of it for now. My coworkers are just as bad. I've had one normal coworker since I started at Food Mart. A bagger/cashier with spina bifida who actually did his work quietly, chatted between customers, was friendly to a fault, and got paid a dollar less an hour than me after 3 years with the company. He ended up transferring to a higher paid department and was replaced by Sexy Bagger who transferred in from a different store long enough to cause every teenage girl who works the front end to become absolutely smitten with him and then transferred to a different department. We finally ended up with BigTall, who has yet to get a better job so he's stuck with us.

I work in what we in the business call "the front end" which basically means we're the lowest paid people who have the most contact with the customers. Everybody who spends the majority of their day between the candy racks and the plate glass windows is considered the front end. We mostly spend our time getting yelled at and trying desperately to avoid actually dealing with the customers. That's right, everything you've ever suspected about the people behind the register? It's all true. We really ARE thinking sarcastic things about you even as we smile at you. Well, that's not ENTIRELY true. Basically, you just don't want to be a memorable customer. That's not to say we don't have good customers who we enjoy very much and remember from day to day, but unless you're particularly funny or have really cute kids or have the word "HOOLIGAN" tattooed across the side of your shaved skull, I'm not going to remember you unless you were a terrible person who I made a mental note to avoid at all costs.

There are lots of ways to be an asshole I'll remember you for. You could be the creepy 50 something who insists on leaning over the counter and whispering things in my ear and whispering to the girl who may or may not have FAS that you'd like to take her on a date. That'll cause me to close down my register whenever I see you walk through the door, but it'll make you memorable. You could be the dude who tried to trick me out of $50 by trying to get weird change. Or you could do what the majority of people opt for and be a raging bitch.

All this crazy customer interaction tends to drive us targets into using our own language to communicate with the customers and with eachother. For example, me smiling like a crazy person while talking and leaning forward while moving back means "holy shit you're insane and I'm just going to get as far away as possible before you start throwing things oh my god oh my god oh my god where the hell is the manager?" I am including a sample interaction for your convenience.

The Scene:

I am doing a WIC transaction with one of my favorite regular customers. A youngish hispanic lady with 3 little boys. They're quite charming and she's friendly and has the prettiest accent and always gets in my line when she sees me, so I generally just love working with them. There's an older white woman standing in line behind her with a full cart. For those who don't know, WIC is how the government makes sure pregnant women and children under 5 (too young for school lunches) get their basic nutrition needs met. They're just vouchers that get them free eggs, milk, cereal, peanut butter, juice, beans, and cheese. You can also get formula. The problem is that our local office is crazy strict about what exactly you can get. You can only get ONE size of eggs, a certain type of cheese, a specific size jar of peanut butter and everything only applies to certain brands. The office just decided that the women can no longer get extra large eggs and have to get the large ones. This is a rather recent development, so on this occasion I had to send a bagger out to get the right size eggs for my customer. It's worth noting that I was already in a pissy mood and was an hour late for my break at this time. Favorite Customer and Mega Bitch were my last two customers before I could leave.

Mega Bitch: WHAT exactly is taking so long?

Me: I had to send him to get her eggs. It'll just be a moment. (translation: shut up, you stupid bitch)

Mega Bitch: And you can't just ring her up?

Me: ...no. (translation: I COULD tell you about how WIC works, but you'd probably complain about the government giving freebies to Mexicans, so just go fuck off now)

Mega Bitch continues to fume, I finish up with my customer and send her on her way. I then finish up Mega Bitch's order and she realizes her coupons are missing. I then smile and feel gleeful while she spends more time than she had to waste waiting for the eggs to show up digging around her witch's bag looking for her coupons and then one was from a different store and another was expired. Hehehehe. Karma!

I was planning on telling about BigTall and "eyes up" but this entry got out of hand, so that will have to wait for tomorrow or later.

Stay sparkly.

I owe my life to Coke!

Damn skippy! Take THAT health Nazis! "Ohhh but soda is sooooo bad for you! It stunts your growth and gives you wrinkles!" yeah whatever. I'm 5'9, so anything it wants to stunt I am very much okay with.

Regardless, I have a brand new food allergy. As in, I was eating some Chewy SweetTarts (From the Wonderful World of Wonka! What will they think of next?) and drinking a regular Coke, minding my own business and suddenly my throat seized up, my neck was itching and I couldn't breathe through my mouth. My initial reaction was "shit! Did I inhale some dust or something?" since I'm incredibly allergic to cats and dust, if I managed to get some stirred up and inhaled it, I'd be itching all over and making this cool little whistle when I breathed.

But no, wait, my eyes didn't itch and my nose was clear. I could breathe through my nose just not my mouth. Then I started choking and I could kind of feel little bits of candy shell. This is what we in the industry call Very Bad because I had no allergy meds in the house and my cell phone battery was dead. At this point if it gets worse, my best bet is to stumble out my front door and bang on the door across the breezeway and pray somebody is home and finds me before I die. Not great odds. Then sudenly, as though my uvula was Moses reincarnated, my throat opened. I could actually feel it relaxing.

Well, that was scary.

So I jump over to a forum I frequent and ask some food allergy questions, omitting my copious Coke (the -a Cola, not the -aine) consumption prior to the throat-spasm. A few people reply discussing friends and relatives who had the same type of thing happen and they had been given coffee or tea because the caffeine made it relax.

I'm thinking, no effing way. No way do I owe my life to a soft drink. So I popped online. Caffeine releases theophylline. Theophylline is a low-level anti-asthma drug which prevents bronchial tubes closing.

Dr. William Walsh connected anxiety and severe allergic reactions. Dr.Walsh maintains that allergic anxiety stems from a choking sense, and loss of air; not a psychological deficit (24). Caffeine converts into many byproducts, including theophylline. Theophylline keeps the bronchial tubes open. Allergic individuals are less likely to suffer respiratory collapse, during an anaphylactic reaction.

Source: CAFFEINE ALLERGY: Past Disorder or Present Epidemic?

Dude, I TOTALLY owe my life to a soft drink. That passage I just quoted? From an article on the dangers of caffeine. Not exactly the kind of source that's going to be telling me to drink more soda.

So yeah, I hopped on down to the CVS and bought some Dye-Free Benadryl to celebrate and tomorrow I'll call around to a few doctors and buy a case of soda from work until I can get an appointment.

So far, my allergens are most likely Red 40, coconut oil, or egg protein. There's also the outside chance it's related to Carmine, because these were Wonka candies and Wonka uses carmine in most of its products.

Until then, I'm going to be eating a lot of rice and chicken just to be on the safe side.

This is my personal bubble, you are currently inside of it

So I'm fairly sure my new boss is insane. I only recently started this job after leaving Ice Cream Palace for greener pastures when one of my co-workers got me the interview for my current job as a cashier for Food Mart. I like my job. I like being a cashier. I'm good at being a cashier. I get to engage with people for approximately 5-10 minutes and then they go on their way and sometimes tell me nice things about myself. Some of my favorites:
"You have very good customer service." Aww thanks! Customers like this are one of the main reasons I don't randomly decide to give up worldly posessions and become a nun!
"You know, you're really quite pretty." Um, thank you man I just met who whispered this to me and leaned in as far as he could. That's...only mildly creepy!
"Girl, you're a trip! You've got a great personality!" Lady, you're quite possibly crazy according to one of my co-workers, but you're fun and I love you!
"That's a great...necklace!" Uh, thanks. Now please take all your purchases and leave the store and stop coming back through my line. And for God's sake, stop staring at my chest, dude!

Those are just a few of the gems. You also have the people who get irrationally angry at you because they couldn't find the Nesquick or their brand of beer because it was out of stock.
"They blamed it on the vendor, but you know, the vendor doesn't own the store!" Well shit dude, neither do I! If I owned this store, do you really think I'd be dealing with your sorry ass?

Whatevs, I have my rage. Everyone who works in the service industry does. Or else they go slowly insane. Anyway, so now I'm working at Food Mart which is a nice large corporation. I'd forgotten how much different a chain store is from a small business. My manager is seriously starting to freak me out. I haven't really worked a full shift with him since I started, but last night I closed with him. He kept making calls for "Security" to scan the store and "rollback cameras." The thing is, we don't actually have a security team. And I've never seen a control room for the cameras. He does it every 30 minutes or so. Last night, though, he called for them to report back to him. Then all of a sudden he's got his phone to his ear, but he was standing not 10 feet away from me the entire time and I never heard it ring or saw him answer it. I suspect he was talking to nobody.

Maybe I'll get offered a better job by one of my nice customers.