(And yes, that was sarcasm, in case anyone was wondering.)

And hey Bob – I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the economy is kindof sucky right now. I’m sure those people who are called names daily would LOVE to say “I can,” as you suggest, and leave those jobs. The problem then comes in the form of bills with no job to pay for them. Staying there means saying “I can’t,” because that retail employee literally cannot afford to leave, not because they chose not to.

I’ve been in customer service for over 35 years, working as a bank teller, a waitress, at a copy shop, and in a convenience store. I have rarely had trouble with customers and believe it or not, I get along better with the “weird” customers. Maybe it’s because I understand them better, I don’t know.

But the customer is not always right and no matter how positive you are, you will have upset, rude and plain idiotic people come in that no amount of happy attitude will cure. They are not “the rare event”. In fact, at the convenience store, they were the norm.

There are a lot of reasons – first off, you’re working for a company that wants you to be loyal to the max for them, but pays you peanuts and will kick you out the door for the smallest of reasons. You give up your holidays, your weekends, your evenings, your special days with family and on occasion you miss funerals, marriages, and graduations among other thing and even risk your health sometimes for these companies. In a large company, you have the most important job of all: you are the one meeting the customer face to face and representing that company to the customer, yet you make the lowest pay, have the least power and little to no decision making power whatsoever. Sometimes you go without raises or cost of living increases while your CEO walks off with a million dollar parachute. It’s very disheartening.

Most people still attempt to do their best. I know I did. But CEOs, stockholders, managers and customers have a distorted view of reality. They say the customer is king. I don’t disagree with that, but what I have to say to them is, “The reality is there are 10 kings in here right now and all of them want to be helped first. Someone is going to have to go second and that one is going to be upset.” Also, the fact that a customer thinks he is king still in no way entitles them to swear, spit or scream at me, nor do I have to take slurs or give up my dignity to help someone.

Bob, where you and I disagree is that I’ve found the average customer thinks the phrase “customer is king” means they can do exactly as they please to any other human being in the store without any recourse to themselves, never mind whether I have a positive attitude or not. You think they won’t if I just smile and act happy.

As someone who was called a bitch at least once a night for following the rules by not selling tobacco and alcohol to minors, for example, I would like to see you do that one job and stay positive and make your customers happy at the same time. Really, in order not to go home crying or take the name calling personally, you have to take your positive attitude and good feelings and hide it in a shell someplace. That doesn’t mean you quit helping customers or being concerned that you do a good job. It just means that the reality of the situation is you recognize that most customers want what they want, they want it right now, and they want it for free, and the majority of them will act like animals if they don’t get exactly that. So you can accept that as the reality and stay sane at your job (and it’s a job, not a career), or you can keep the positive attitude, let the customers run rampant over you and end up doing needlework at the funny farm. Your choice.

Bob Phibbs, “The Retail Doctor” appears as a regular weekly contributor on our local AM radio station here in Canton, Ohio. …I was just taking a moment here on a cloudy afternoon to check out the doc’s Web site, and I got sucked into this discussion…

My own story: I worked in retail floor sales several years ago at a well-known electronics store. I did this for less than a year, although it seemed like an eternity. At times I hated it; sometimes I loved it (that’s going too far, sometimes I liked it!)

I’m grateful for the lessons retail sales taught me. I’m much happier having left retail, grateful that I had a choice to leave for something else, for something better for me. The good: retail loosened me up, taught me how to interact better with people, exposed me to the gamut of human personality types, taught me how to ask for what I need (the sale), and tuned me in to what people are looking for. The bad: the pay is lousy; if you stay in retail sales at the entry level it will never get much better than lousy.

But back to the good: you can take the lessons from entry-level floor sales and if you enjoy sales the sky is the limit really, in terms of rising up into management, or going on to some other area of direct sales, or something else sales-related. It is fun to sell things to others!

Rude customers will walk in the door. They do exist! I’m not sure the reason for your hesitancy Dr. Bob, to call a spade a spade. Retail managers, or “Retail Doctors” should help in a positive and proactive way sales people of differing personality types, who may be inexperienced , and who may need assistance, to learn to negotiate the interpersonal minefield of rude people. When dealing with rude people I agree with the comment offered above that management ideally should offer understanding and support in these rare situations. I believe rude customers are a small, small percentage of those who will walk in the door. Truly rude customers are the ones with “the problem” and with the proper support and training I believe any sales person should be able to learn with 100% success how to deal with the rude and the impolite. With help on how to tackle them, rude people are easy, they are water off a duck’s back. Bob Phibbs no doubt has a lot to bring to the table on helping sales people learn how to get past rude customers. I disagree with the suggestion though that the sales person is somehow personally “lacking” when they vent about or need to decompress from their interactions with rude customers.

The sales process gets trickier with “annoying customers.” Here is where I side with “the retail doctor.” If you are in sales, it’s your job to deal with the annoyances customers bring into the store. They are in your store because they ARE annoyed: something needs to be replaced, they need to spend some money, the would rather be somewhere else, something is not working, etc. etc.

If you can’t do it or don’t want to do it, as the Doc says you’re making yourself (and possibly others) miserable with your job choice and you aren’t cut out for a career in sales. Find something else to do!

Any chance for some middle ground on this issue, Doc, and others?

I can say without a doubt that my attitude had nothing to do with the way these people responded to me, as it was the same attitude that had earlier scored me a home made cake. Bob, rude people are going to be rude people no matter how they are approached.

That said, Bob, I would hate to work for you. You seem to be the type that blames your employees for problems rather than helping them get through things. You are the equivalent of a doctor who tells an ailing patient to “suck it up and stop feeling sorry for yourself” rather than trying to cure his illness. Taking a positive attitude is one thing — but deliberately whitewashing the world to make it *seem* more pleasant, while not actually changing any negative situations, is ludicrous. No retail worker would feel confident, happy, or valued when you belittle their concerns and blame them for confrontations.