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Post by lg on Feb 26, 2023 0:08:10 GMT
Oh the things I saw “adults” doing and saying when I worked at McDonalds… if you think self checkouts for baskets only is bad try telling someone their burger will be a two minute wait 😂 and that was twenty years ago!
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Post by gracieplusthree on Feb 26, 2023 0:28:47 GMT
So you're ok with young 16/17 year Olds being screamed at by unruly customers??? No I disagree.., the behavior given by a huge percent of customers now shouldn't be spew at teens in what is probably their first job experience. Well, I think a lot depends on the business itself and the management team. Thing is they'll be another hateful customer in 15 minutes. And another. Rinse repeat. Doesn't matter how great your management staff is, they keep coming. It's mentally difficult to be cussed at, yelled at, etc over and over. It's the behavior of these customers that has caused places to not be able to keep help. Its gotten SO bad since covid. I've had my job 11.5 years and I promise you it wasnt like this even 5 years ago. Yes the pay should be more too, but in small towns like mine all the retail and restaurants all pay about the same and you have the same horrid customers at them all. It's getting mentally old. No one deserves it, teen or adult. But people think these places can't find workers now? Have this continue. It's gonna get worse.
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Post by gracieplusthree on Feb 26, 2023 0:52:15 GMT
So you're ok with young 16/17 year Olds being screamed at by unruly customers??? No I disagree.., the behavior given by a huge percent of customers now shouldn't be spew at teens in what is probably their first job experience. That’s not what I said……if everybody worked a customer service job at some point they would become adults who treat customer service staff way better than a lot of people do now. But at what cost though? Just rip the teens mental state to shreds for years while they mature into good customers(even though they're not the problem) in the hopes that society will improve? I don't know the answer here. But the more I work with the public the less I think it's jobs the teens should deal with, not all of them can handle it. But I don't have any answers as to how to make the customers better, I've saw our mgmnt totally back cashiers, remove people and their transaction, completely step in for cashiers etc etc. I myself have stepped in to *save* cashiers from the behavior because I'd rather they spew it at me than a young girl.. It doesn't take long and there's another one. Thankfully we also have some really great customers!! Your focus just gets stuck on those bad ones.
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Post by crazy4scraps on Feb 26, 2023 6:36:32 GMT
Well, I think a lot depends on the business itself and the management team. Thing is they'll be another hateful customer in 15 minutes. And another. Rinse repeat. Doesn't matter how great your management staff is, they keep coming. It's mentally difficult to be cussed at, yelled at, etc over and over. It's the behavior of these customers that has caused places to not be able to keep help. Its gotten SO bad since covid. I've had my job 11.5 years and I promise you it wasnt like this even 5 years ago. Yes the pay should be more too, but in small towns like mine all the retail and restaurants all pay about the same and you have the same horrid customers at them all. It's getting mentally old. No one deserves it, teen or adult. But people think these places can't find workers now? Have this continue. It's gonna get worse. I agree that no one deserves to be treated that way regardless of their age. The thing is, the bad behavior has to be nipped in the bud or it does continue. If there are never any consequences people will just go on with their bad self, and that’s absolutely a management issue. It’s the JOB of management to step in when people go off the rails, and it’s also the job of management to listen when their employees tell them that this is what they’re experiencing so the employees can be empowered to handle it themselves in whatever way necessary to shut down the situation and make it stop without having to worry about getting canned. The problem in my scenario was that I was a 19 year old bank teller who was afraid I’d get written up and possibly lose my job if I broke protocol, because that was what I was told would happen if I didn’t keep that line moving, especially during the busy lunch rush. If I would have been instructed by my supervisor instead to do what I said I’d do the second time (not be afraid to step away and call management over to remove the customer to a private area and deal with them away from the general public), I would have been more empowered to handle the situation better than to just stand there to be screamed at. It would have taken two minutes for me to go get someone to lead that hateful witch away, and I could have continued on to do what I was supposed to do, which was keep that line moving. It would have taken even less time than that for the manager to walk up and remove her himself the minute she raised her voice loud enough to be heard over all of the other ambient noise. As soon as she started literally screaming obscenities, all the other activity in the bank stopped and all anyone could hear was her loud cursing. The branch manager was a spineless weasel to let that go on as long as it did. If I worked at a place for over a decade where that kind of behavior from customers was a regular occurrence, I would first ask management what they plan to do about that because it is NOT ok. They could either empower me to handle it myself in whatever (professional) way I deemed appropriate in that moment or I’d be flipping my light on every single time someone got way out of line and let the manager deal with it. My experiences in retail have definitely helped to teach me how to be a more considerate human being *because* I know what it’s like to be caught between wanting to provide excellent customer service while being held to nearly impossible standards. Sometimes a customer isn’t worth saving but oftentimes that’s what these companies expect you to do. If the management staff is actually great, they either give the employees the tools to handle behavior like that or they step in and take care of it themselves.
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Post by Gem Girl on Feb 26, 2023 20:23:05 GMT
Almost makes you want to post a sign on the door saying, "We treat our customers as they treat us."
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Post by KelleeM on Feb 26, 2023 21:04:01 GMT
Yesterday I made an online order for curbside pick up scheduled for 3:00. When I arrived it took 8 rings for the phone to be answered. The worker explained that they’d had a rush and needed to cook chicken (Boston Market) and it would be about 20-25 minutes. I told him I’d be waiting. At 3:30 I called, again several rings, same young man, very apologetic but explained the temperature the chicken needed to reach and I told him I’d be waiting. At 3:55 he came out, apologized, explained that an item was out so they made a substitution, asked if he could give me anything else, told me that they gave me a brownie and apologized again.
I was hungry, tired and wanted to get home. I could have canceled and found a different option. I knew that they were short staffed (every place is around here and there was a big help wanted sign on the door). I honestly wasn’t surprised by the wait. I think my expectations have lowered dramatically since Covid. I honestly don’t know what people gain by being miserable.
Earlier yesterday I spent a few hours with my sister and some other folks serving lunch to people who may be homeless or have food insecurity. So many of them thanked us repeatedly. They showed genuine appreciation. One of the men stays to put the tables and chairs away. Yesterday a couple women helped him. It really doesn’t take a lot to just be kind.
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Post by OntarioScrapper on Feb 28, 2023 16:19:21 GMT
I think people, in general, in all locations and in all walks of life, have become less considerate and caring of their fellow humans. From what I noticed, it started with a certain USA political office. I don’t want to turn this political, but that is when I personally noticed things changing. I think people thought, ‘If he can say this and get away with that, so can I” and things have gone downhill from there. It is really sad to me. I would have thought the isolation of the pandemic would make people happier to be out among others, but it doesn’t seem that way. And I have always considered Canadians to be very polite. That is their reputation. And if the rot has now reached Canadian citizens, heaven help us. Something big needs to happen to turn things around. It is just so sad to me. It's because we share so much media wise. Last year we had a Freedom Convoy in our captial. It just got worse with some people thinking they had the right to be downright rude in public. Yesterday was the first day we no long had plastic bags to sell. It's Federal mandate to stop single use plastic. This year is the grace period. We were one the few store that still had them. I had one co worker get yelled out because it's all HER fault he couldn't buy plastic bags. Dude, we work minimum wage, we don't make these decisions. She wasn't the only one dealing with self entitled idiots. I had several customers say to me "Well what do I do now?" Um.... What do you do when you go to any of the many stores that don't sell plastic bags?
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Post by OntarioScrapper on Feb 28, 2023 16:22:57 GMT
I think that most people are operating under much higher stress levels than they did before Covid. This could be caused by lingering ill health, or financial troubles, or frustration at the general drop in the staffing levels of the services they use, or whatever - but it seems pretty universal. I worked in a supermarket before Covid and 97% of the customers were anywhere between neutral and delightful. That final 3% were the devil's own spawn, and they were the ones that stopped me sleeping at night. Now I work in a doctors' surgery and the proportion of nasty to nice is definitely higher. I have more confidence these days though, and have no problem pointing out to the shouters that if it has taken them too long to get through on the phones, that is specifically because of attitudes like theirs. Not one of us is paid to get shouted at, and if we decide we can get more respect working elsewhere, that means even fewer people to answer the phones and longer waiting times. It's the patient's choice. Take it out on us and drive the staff away, or be kind and make it a nicer place for people to work, and therefore gain experience and be better at it. Compassion, people. Compassion. And hugs to you OntarioScrapper . Thank you! Though at my work place, management backs us supervisors up if customers are down right rude and in the wrong. So it makes it bareable. Just gets a bit overwhelming at times. When I'm in the office and on stressful days, I buy chocolate for me co workers and hand them out. Cheers them up a bit!
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Post by OntarioScrapper on Feb 28, 2023 16:26:50 GMT
Most of the shops here don't enforce self checkout limits or express lanes. There's signs up saying "15 items or less" or whatever but when someone cruises up with their cart full of items not a single employee will say a word. It's frustrating as a customer but I get it. It's not worth the drama it causes with such entitled assholes. We don't have the room for carts. So it can be a problem. Though there are times when a customer decides to grab hand baskets and ditch their cart. Problem is when they have too many items. Several times I've had to deal with the "Why isn't there more room here?" Well.... maybe if you hadn't hauled your 50+ items in here... 15 and under for a reason.
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Post by OntarioScrapper on Feb 28, 2023 16:31:52 GMT
I paid my retail management dues for many years and have had countless rude customers. As a customer if someone is yelling at a cashier I stand up for the cashier. There is no excuse to treat a hardworking person so awfully. Covid is no excuse for rudeness and horrible behavior. I think there should be a zero tolerance policy for rude behavior in retail, food service and similar occupations. On the other hand, if the staff member is rude I also speak up. I get that someone might be having a bad day, but that's no excuse, EVER from either side. I have your back, OntarioScrapper .
Zee , nurses really bear the brunt of this stuff. People at their worst don't understand that you can't magically fix them or their loved one. As you know, I have a special place in my heart for nurses, because you are true heroes! I love the way you handled your heart patient. It's hard to be angry at someone who let's you know how much they care. Yes, I know people still get angry, but you handle it w/applomb! I know people in the healthcare field and they do get it much worse than us in customer service! I've actually had several customers lately who are regulars have told me "Thank you for being here." I'm sure they have seen the uptick in nastiness and I don't blame anyone not wanting to intervene. We had someone pull out a knife recently. I had a very rude customer recently who just started yelling at my cashiers when I was the supervisor. I just looked at him and said "And this is why we DON'T have enough cashiers." It did stop him and he was quiet for the rest of his transaction. There are just some days my snark gets the better of me.
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Post by OntarioScrapper on Feb 28, 2023 16:40:37 GMT
Oh the things I saw “adults” doing and saying when I worked at McDonalds… if you think self checkouts for baskets only is bad try telling someone their burger will be a two minute wait 😂 and that was twenty years ago! I used to work for a popular donut shop Tim Hortons... Which I think prepared me for this job. And that's kind of sad. I guess at least I'm not getting coffee thrown at me. When we would get big orders at drive thru, we would have the customer pull up into a parking spot. We had one customer who REFUSED. And their order was HUGE. Honking started. Customer dug in. Sigh.
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Post by Lexica on Feb 28, 2023 20:36:25 GMT
I think people, in general, in all locations and in all walks of life, have become less considerate and caring of their fellow humans. From what I noticed, it started with a certain USA political office. I don’t want to turn this political, but that is when I personally noticed things changing. I think people thought, ‘If he can say this and get away with that, so can I” and things have gone downhill from there. It is really sad to me. I would have thought the isolation of the pandemic would make people happier to be out among others, but it doesn’t seem that way. And I have always considered Canadians to be very polite. That is their reputation. And if the rot has now reached Canadian citizens, heaven help us. Something big needs to happen to turn things around. It is just so sad to me. It's because we share so much media wise. Last year we had a Freedom Convoy in our captial. It just got worse with some people thinking they had the right to be downright rude in public. Yesterday was the first day we no long had plastic bags to sell. It's Federal mandate to stop single use plastic. This year is the grace period. We were one the few store that still had them. I had one co worker get yelled out because it's all HER fault he couldn't buy plastic bags. Dude, we work minimum wage, we don't make these decisions. She wasn't the only one dealing with self entitled idiots. I had several customers say to me "Well what do I do now?" Um.... What do you do when you go to any of the many stores that don't sell plastic bags? I am assuming that customers have had plenty of notice that you won’t be selling plastic bags anymore, since it a Federal mandate and not just a store policy. Do you have cloth bags for sale at the registers? I guarantee if they need to spend a buck or two for cloth bags every time they shop, they will start bringing their bags in with them. They stopped allowing people bringing in their own bags during Covid in California, and I’m sure that messed with the progress people had made with using their own bags. Did they do that in Canada also? I am assuming that ban has been lifted by now. I have tons of cloth bags and even reusable thin mesh bags for vegetables, but they are all still packed up on the moving pods. I did break down and buy three more small cloth bags, even though I won’t need them for long. I just hate using plastic.
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Post by katlady on Feb 28, 2023 21:32:50 GMT
They stopped allowing people bringing in their own bags during Covid in California, and I’m sure that messed with the progress people had made with using their own bags. Trader Joes was the only store I shopped at that had this policy. You couldn't bring your own bags in, but they still charged you if you wanted a paper bag! I would just say no and then pack my bags when I got to my car. Eventually, they let you bring in bags, but they had to remain in the cart, and you could pack them at the little table by the exit door. ETA - Oh, there was another store that wouldn't let you bring your own bags in, but they didn't charge you to use their plastic bags.
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inkedup
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,837
Jun 26, 2014 5:00:26 GMT
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Post by inkedup on Feb 28, 2023 21:44:18 GMT
I've said it before and I'll say it again - EVERYBODY should have to work customer service as a teenager to see how it really is!! So you're ok with young 16/17 year Olds being screamed at by unruly customers??? No I disagree.., the behavior given by a huge percent of customers now shouldn't be spew at teens in what is probably their first job experience. Many teenagers are already working these types of jobs. cakediva, I agree. I feel like a one season requirement to work retail or restaurant service would make the world a kinder place. Many people seem to forget that there is a human helping them out.
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RedSquirrelUK
Drama Llama
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Posts: 6,783
Location: The UK's beautiful West Country
Aug 2, 2014 13:03:45 GMT
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Post by RedSquirrelUK on Feb 28, 2023 22:30:51 GMT
I think that most people are operating under much higher stress levels than they did before Covid. This could be caused by lingering ill health, or financial troubles, or frustration at the general drop in the staffing levels of the services they use, or whatever - but it seems pretty universal. I worked in a supermarket before Covid and 97% of the customers were anywhere between neutral and delightful. That final 3% were the devil's own spawn, and they were the ones that stopped me sleeping at night. Now I work in a doctors' surgery and the proportion of nasty to nice is definitely higher. I have more confidence these days though, and have no problem pointing out to the shouters that if it has taken them too long to get through on the phones, that is specifically because of attitudes like theirs. Not one of us is paid to get shouted at, and if we decide we can get more respect working elsewhere, that means even fewer people to answer the phones and longer waiting times. It's the patient's choice. Take it out on us and drive the staff away, or be kind and make it a nicer place for people to work, and therefore gain experience and be better at it. Compassion, people. Compassion. And hugs to you OntarioScrapper . Thank you! Though at my work place, management backs us supervisors up if customers are down right rude and in the wrong. So it makes it bareable. Just gets a bit overwhelming at times. When I'm in the office and on stressful days, I buy chocolate for me co workers and hand them out. Cheers them up a bit! We do that too! Chocolate goes a long way to patching things up temporarily.
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Post by tealpaperowl on Mar 1, 2023 15:48:14 GMT
How awful! Some people don't understand.. they seem to think other people don't exist When Covid first started my son was 16 and a cashier. They had a limit of 1 case of water. So a customer came to his register and he had to let her know she could only get one. She took the divider stick and hit him in the arm with it. Lucky for her I wasn't there cause I would have called the police, that's not ok! I'm sorry ![:(](//storage.proboards.com/5645536/images/mYSUyHtG9Jrcmm_ydVcK.jpg) I hope things get better where you work!
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Post by OntarioScrapper on Mar 1, 2023 18:29:56 GMT
It's because we share so much media wise. Last year we had a Freedom Convoy in our captial. It just got worse with some people thinking they had the right to be downright rude in public. Yesterday was the first day we no long had plastic bags to sell. It's Federal mandate to stop single use plastic. This year is the grace period. We were one the few store that still had them. I had one co worker get yelled out because it's all HER fault he couldn't buy plastic bags. Dude, we work minimum wage, we don't make these decisions. She wasn't the only one dealing with self entitled idiots. I had several customers say to me "Well what do I do now?" Um.... What do you do when you go to any of the many stores that don't sell plastic bags? I am assuming that customers have had plenty of notice that you won’t be selling plastic bags anymore, since it a Federal mandate and not just a store policy. Do you have cloth bags for sale at the registers? I guarantee if they need to spend a buck or two for cloth bags every time they shop, they will start bringing their bags in with them. They stopped allowing people bringing in their own bags during Covid in California, and I’m sure that messed with the progress people had made with using their own bags. Did they do that in Canada also? I am assuming that ban has been lifted by now. I have tons of cloth bags and even reusable thin mesh bags for vegetables, but they are all still packed up on the moving pods. I did break down and buy three more small cloth bags, even though I won’t need them for long. I just hate using plastic. We've had flyers up. We have different sizes of reusable bags. We now have small ones that are the same size as the plastic ones. But they aren't 5 cents each. These ones are 40cents each/ However are our cheapest bags. We have the smallest ones at self checkout. Our Federal government has a ban on single one time plastics. COVID hit before the ban was going into affect so they extended it. Last year single one time plastics needed to stop being made. This year is the grace period to sell them off. We have another grocery store of our chain in the west end of the city and they ran out of plastic bags a few months ago. I work in the east end one. Even Walmart had no plastic bags about a year ago. Just so weird how some have been throwing hissy fits over the bags. What do they do at all the other stores they shop at that DON'T have the plastic bags?
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tincin
Drama Llama
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Posts: 5,368
Jul 25, 2014 4:55:32 GMT
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Post by tincin on Mar 2, 2023 3:25:47 GMT
I am sorry the customers are being horrible. I don’t think a store could pay me enough to work with customers.
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