Saturday, October 10, 2009

The Secret Garden of customers we hate




It's unavoidable, they are everywhere and they keep coming back...


Yes, you guess it, customers - annoying, rude, arrogant customers. Age and gender doesn't matter, nor does race, height or size; they come in different forms and share the same mind crushing characteristics. They enter the "DO NOT ENTER" zones, they pull, push, fondle with things that clearly says "DO NOT TOUCH", they demand that they get their money back after opening and re-taping back their products, and they always want things to be accommodated to them.

I really feel sorry for cashiers, I swear they have it the worst because it's dealing with money. I work as a front desk clerk so I feel their pain, it's exhausting trying to deal with them. And how we deal with them is a even bigger headache, of course we can't yell at them or just bang their heads against the table, no that's unprofessional. All we can do is talk to them in a reasonable manner which is torture!

Things would be so much easier if there was a guidebook about how to handle these things, a little black book that has step by step instructions on how to talk to the patients calmly and not offending them so that they will leave immediately, how wonderful would our lives be if that existed? Unfortunately that is too good to be true and life would be drama-less if we had one of those books so that's why we have to learn to deal with these kinds of things the hard way.

One time I was working at the clinic and this woman demanded to see Rosie, for those of you who don't know Rosie is my boss/mother's dog and she is just precious. Rosie usually sleeps in her bed right next to my desk where patients are not allowed to come in. So this patient decides that she wants to pet her while she is sleeping and comes barging in to the employees only area, so I stopped her and said "I'm sorry but this is an employees only area," then she gives me the most coldest look and says " I only want to see the dog, I'm not doing anything." Usually my older sister who is more masculine handles these kinds of situations but she is in South Carolina for her training at the Army Base. So for a good 5 minutes I repeated the sentence over until she gave up and sat down. Then the next week she came back for her treatment and she does it again! Why? Why does this woman keep doing this? Honestly I don't know, but what I do know is that there are unreasonable people out there who have absolutely no common sense. We can't control the peoples' stupidity, all we can do is control ourselves and perform the appropriate actions to the customers. It's frustrating, I know, sometimes I want to slap them upside the head and most of the time I imagine that in my head and it helps me to put a smile on my face while I deal with them.

Bad customers are a pain in the neck and from personal experiences, do whatever it is that make you feel better but never NEVER use ice cream as an outlet for your feelings - they go straight to the thighs.