So darn it, turn that frown upside down. The whole point is to be grateful of having a job. Mr. Phibbs I would be willing to bet you weren’t paid for your 30+ hrs of overtime like the rest of us but i guess that’s not the point. Were supposed to work for fun not for money.

(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.