I Don't Agree With That in the Workplace (2/2) By 'Ull un

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Other beauties are being blatantly ignored or worse still, ignored in favour of a customer that came after you, what an ego shot eh? The irreversible logic of the shop is another classic as your query is met with an answer that indicates that the laws of time and space do not apply in the building in which you stand. I could list more but my absolute favourite has to be the don't know, don't care and won't try ethic; a plague on so many businesses now that it isn't even funny.

On the flipside, customers are more than guilty of demonstrating some of the most disgusting language and treatment and I can assure you, I have certainly been on the receiving end of my fair share of that.

Take a call centre job for instance. You know the game, you're receiving in-bound calls from customers enquiring, nay, screaming for answers about an aspect of the service or billing they've received from the company you work for. I stress work for because I believe it is vital to remember that when people call in to such places for advice they are not calling the CEO or the human resources department or in fact anyone who played a part in the concerned businesses role in annoying the customer in the first place.

They are calling an ordinary worker that has likely received inadequate training from said company and who is also being harassed on an hourly basis by relentless supervisors who know the unattainable targets they are setting but clearly don't care. So Joe customer spends twenty minutes on hold before being transferred through to an actual person and is all the more livid for it.

I've known customers to not even introduce themselves or ask a relevant question about their situation to the operator that has been assigned to help them. Hilariously, the customer is standing in his home with a bill in his hand repeatedly shouting, What's this? offering no further details as if the worker can actually see the document. There are countless more examples of such lunacy but it starts to get serious when customers waste no time in beginning the insult tirade.

Before a worker has even had the chance to prove whether they are personally inept or not, they (male or female) can be called a bitch, motherfucker, arsehole, bastard, fucking bastard (for that extra punch you know?), lying shit-face and yes, even the one last culturally unacceptable insult: The C word. Stir in all of the other threats from legal to actual physical harm and you have to have some sympathy for those guys and gals that are taking that kind of abuse on a daily basis. I spoke to three impatient idiots on the bounce and I felt like I needed to reach through the phone. These impulses need to be quelled.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is, come on people you know, have we really degenerated as a species to such a point that we can't even speak to one another in a civil fashion? Regardless of which side of the fence we happen to be on at the time, can we not remember to apply a little more patience and decency to our exchanges with our fellow human beings? It seems to me that it's a double-edged sword; workers allow themselves to become complacent and lack pride in their work and consumers understand that their getting a service but decide that it is all they want to see. People need to remember that they are dealing with real people, not just a voice on the end of a line or a shirt with a company nametag on it.

I offered you some of my experiences from both sides of this particular topic and while it's obvious that I am not perfect in any regard here, I am trying to be more tolerant and I think we all should think a bit further than our own situation when we're dealing with other people. If you're a customer and you feel your temper flaring, or you're a worker and you know you could have done a better job, think about it you know, consider what you would want for yourself and if your good nature is not reciprocated, don't take it personally. Life's too short.

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