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Customers Behaving Badly

by Susie

When I go shopping, out to eat, or really anywhere that I have to deal directly with the employees, I try my best to be a good customer. I've been through a few different jobs, and I know how easy it is to ruin a cashier/coffee shop worker/bookseller's entire day by being an asshole. Try as I might, I don't always succeed, but I think I come pretty close. In my days as a part-time employee of various establishments, I have encountered three kinds of customers: generally good customers, neutral customers, and chronically bad customers. I am yet amazed at the fact that some people can be so rude and inconsiderate as to always treat the employees of their favorite haunts like crap, no matter how nice we (or they) may try to be. I thought it might help some people reform their ways if I brought to light some of the most annoying behaviors of customers.

1. Leaving things sitting around which you are perfectly capable of returning to their proper place.

Now, I realize that human beings are inherently lazy, but would it really hurt you to walk three steps to the trash can to throw away your cup, or to walk back to the magazine rack and put away your fifty magazines? Or, at the very least, put your magazines in a neat pile so that we don't have to extract them from among all the books you (and others) piled up as well? We may be paid to straighten up the books, or the cafés, or the grocery store, but we aren't your personal servants. If you get something, put it back. As your mama probably said, "Are your legs broken?"

2. Insisting that we are lying about something completely absurd.

At my school, we have ID cards. These cards have two accounts, the meal account, and the augmenting account, the PLUS account. Now, the store where I work ONLY accepts Plus account. Our system is not configured to accept the meal account. It's like trying to jam a square peg into a round hole, it ain't happening. Nonetheless, I have had people INSIST that our machine took money from their diner accounts, even after the situation has been explained. Some people will look my manager straight in the eye and tell him that our machine took money from their diner accounts, when we know that simply did not happen. "The customer is always right" is a phrase which gets us into trouble--come on, people, use a little common sense.

3. Coming into the store five seconds before we close.

Yes, I know our hours say, open till 11 (at least, the last two places I worked), but again, use some common sense--we're supposed to CLOSE at 11, and if you come in at 10.59 and go to buy a book or order a drink, we won't get to close at 11, will we? Furthermore, we've done all of our cleaning, etc, by then, and having to drag everything out at one minute until closing is irritating as hell. People who chronically come in at two or three minutes till we close give me an earache; it's totally rude.

4. Being loud and obnoxious.

I don't have to say much here--you're in public, so act like it.

5. Patronizing the employees.

I'm not your "hon," your "sweetie," your "sugar," or your "darlin'." I have feelings, a mind, and some intelligence. Working a 9 to 5 job during college doesn't make me any less of a person, so please, treat me like one.

6. Making unreasonable demands.

This is something with which I recently had direct experience. As a customer, you MUST understand that the employees can only go as fast as their technology goes. To insist that I have your French Vanilla latte ready before I'm even finished steaming the milk is absurd. To rage about a customer getting his hot chocolate before you get your latte, which requires more time because it has a shot of espresso in it, is absurd. Expecting a fast food restaurant to get your meal out to you in 2 minutes when you changed your order five times is absurd. These kinds of demands do not win you any favors with the employees of your favorite establishment. As an employee, if I have genuinely wronged you, I will be more than happy--falling all over myself, even--to make it right. If you're being a whiny, unreasonable bitch, I'm likely to entertain the thought of spitting in your coffee. (I won't, but I'll think about it real hard.)

Well, I hope we've all learned something from this column. The bottom line is: the employees at your local hot spot are human beings, living and breathing and sentient, just like you. Treat us like you would be treated, or you can get the hell out of my store.