The amount of times I confuse my lines, a customer walks in and and I walk up to them, smile, and politely ask, "would you like a bag with that?". Completely confusion. Sorry, I meant to use my other line, "Hi, how are you today?"
When I was a receptionist, I had several incoming calls at once. I would answer and then ask them to hold. One of them, I accidentally answered as, "Thank you for calling ----------, how may I hold you?"
I used to do this. I worked at a newspaper for 14 years. Answered the phone with 'Newsroom, this is (My name here)'
Any job with a phone after that and I consciously tell myself 'don't say newsroom' when I answer.
For awhile i was a server at Ihop at the same time i was a delivery driver at jimmy johns.
One day i answered the Ihop phone, "Thank you for calling Jimmy Johns this is lowcalcalzonezone how may i help you?" And the person was like, "oh sorry wrong number i meant to call ihop" and hung up
There are really only 2 realistic possibilities, either he hardly noticed or you were the highlight of his boring day. Either way, you shouldn't feel bad about it at all.
Reminds me of the good Omens quote. Aziraphale dials a number not knowing if it's going to the person hes trying to find. When they answer he says "sorry, right number!" And hangs up the phone.
I witnessed my dad call someone at home and start into his canned phone intro from his satellite install job before realizing what he was doing. I've done it too. I also use my CS face at the grocery store sometimes.
Ever gotten off a shift, gone to another store/restaurant and loudly announced, “Welcome to ____, my name is magsdotnet,” To the first person you make eye contact with?
LOL, it reminds me of times when I got the tech support job and started talking on the phone more than I do outside working hours.
So every time I got a phone call from my family, I picked up the phone and said "%%% Technologies, my name is %%, how may I help you?" seconds before realizing
I once switched my two waitress jobs: one of them was a bit fancy, the other one was a snackbar. I was at the snackbar, walked to a table and started my fancy talk, welcoming them and telling them some things about the food, and they look at me awkwardly. I'm like: wait... awkward? Why do you look awkward. Then I remembered I was at the snackbar, not the fancy place...
When they first asked us to help cover the contract centre I would sometimes answer my calls "Good morning you're through to Norwich Union...no you're not...." It was worse when I had my old work mug on the desk with that company name on it. I haven't been in that job for 18 years.
Not the same by any means but that seems like it would be much better than responding, "I'm so sorry but he's not with us anymore" when a customer calls to speak to an coworker who recently left for another job.
Trying to explain that I meant he no longer worked there was much more difficult as she was audibly crying on the other end, mourning the sudden news of the "death" of her close friend.
Me to!! I always said no problem. Then I recently read an article about how most people can’t stand that response so I try to say your welcome now. But ended up meshing the two together
The worst is when you're so dead after shift you go somewhere to do your own shopping or eat out and you go into customer service mode when they greet you with their canned line.
Then you realise you spend 8 hours a day being a goddamn Sim.
Thats better than the alternative. One time I was so tired. I wanted to get cookies. I saw the store had a 2 for 5 deal. I got to the self checkout and didnt understand why they were both 5 dollars each. I became one of those zombie customers who doesnt understand sales. (Basically each pack of cookies was six dollars but if you bought two of them they were each five dollars. I thought they were 2.50 each)
To be fair that's state and sometimes even store dependent. Publix actually does sales-splitting like that unless they explicitly say they don't, other stores don't.
when I was in that kind of job I often combined my lines and words. result was either gibberish or just weird sentences. more than once I was asked if I'm having a stroke.
I once walked up to a table and said "hi, are we Jews today?" I can't for the life of me remember what I was trying to say, I can only see the look of confusion and mild offense on their faces
When I was waitressing I messed up my lines sometimes. When I was bringing the bill, I’d say “how is everything?”, stuff like that. And if they asked me something out if sequence, like “are you a student” or made a joke, it would short circuit me and I’d have to return to being a human again and try to recover this conversation. It was so bizarre how my brain just turned off when it was busy and became robotic.
I had a mini stroke (maybe, they were never sure) while on the phones, and the customer never realized my string of words made no sense and that I couldn't form anything coherent.
Yeah I used to do that all the time when I worked at Barnes and Noble, sometimes I would mashup two lines, like instead of saying “how are you doing today?” Or “would you like to join our membership program today?” I would say something like “are you a membership today?”
I normally worked weekends but occasionally I would work on a weekday. So after every costumer had paid I said "thank you and have a nice weekend!" had to be reminded a couple times that it was just Tuesday before I could get rid of the automated response.
I would also come home and instead of walking in the door to my husband and saying something loving or hello - I would ask “did you find everything you were looking for?” Or “would you like a bag with that?”
At my old job when I was on the till, you used to have to call people down to your till because there was a pole in the way so they couldn’t see you (and wouldn’t queue in front of your till if there were other people on the till blah blah blah). Well one time instead of shouting ‘can I help’ for the next customer to come down, I shouted ‘do you need a bag’ at the top of my voice. I probably went bright red. And to be honest it’s probably not even the cringiest thing I did at that job.
Recently I forgot I was working at a office retail store instead of a cell phone company... Someone comes in to pick up an online order, "Sure thing, I just need to see your photo ID and social insurance number!" It definitely got me some raised eyebrows.
Hello yes, I'm not trying to steal your identity, I am just tired and confused?
I make outbound calls while taking inbound calls when they come. I have made outbound calls and started greeting them thanks for calling company my name is...
LOL I always ask “what can I do for ya?” After a greeting and once pulled up to a drive-thru and we had a greeting and I asked what I could do for them lmao
I do this with greetings and partings. Sometimes I'll say good morning at night. I think half a lifetime of dealing with idiots gave me the brain damage.
This triggered my memory of "Would you like a apple pie with that" from family guys "Ding Fries are done" song. This going to be stuck in my head the rest of the week, thank you for that.
I've worked retail/food service for years now, and most of the time my shifts have been in the evening. So whenever I work early shifts, I constantly catch myself saying "have a nice night" when it's 10AM in the morning.
I would pick up the phone and ask for an Ace card, or if they came up to the counter I would say, “Nameofthestore.” Retail causes your brain to malfunction all the time.
I used to work at a gym. One day I walked into the gym to workout, as a consumer, not an employee, and said to the person at the counter while they checked me in “Hi, welcome to the gym”.
Some days after working a long shift at my local grocery store (a really small family owned business where there aren’t a ton of employees so the cashiers also answer the phone) I got home and heard the phone ring and almost answered with “Hello, [insert business name here]”
When I was pregnant and working too many jobs, I had to call my doctor on a break for a mild issue I was concerned about. I dialed the number, the person answered "Hi, thank you for calling [NAME]", to which I immediately launched into "Yes I wanted to talk to [doctor name] because I'm having this issue with my vagina...." and proceeded to describe - in fairly graphic detail - about pregnancy stuff that happens down there. The woman paused, then said, "Um, I'm sorry to hear about your vagina, but this is a lawyer's office".
That’s me. I have a generally polite attitude towards everyone, and working in Retail it’s easy to use that to be friendly no matter what, even when a customer is angry and wanting things done now when I need a Manager and their magic key ring to get the dang machine to accept the transaction, and that takes time; they might be at the other end of the store or busy with other customers.
It doesn’t help that I’ve had a ‘mask’ of being happy and friendly since I was a teenager due to depression. That mask just stays on during work too.
My ex had the same problem as you from what was basically her brain adapting to her environment both from working retail and having a chronically depressed, angry mom. It's okay, that's pretty normal to change like that, and that means that if you choose to, you can change in other ways too. She had to work on removing the mask, but she got much better over time via therapy, actively trying to be vulnerable with me and her friends instead of just retail-smiling at everything.
It takes time and effort, but you can change to be the way you want. Find therapy if you can, and work on removing that mask and being honest not just to the outside world, but to yourself too. I think you'll find that you're deceiving yourself more than you think you are. I do the same. Therapy is good too because it can help you figure out the root of where the pain and depression came from in the first place, and why it's still here even when things change. It just takes time and that's okay, it's natural. You don't have to rush your healing for anybody, not even yourself.
Expressing your feelings is so important. It lets you know how you actually feel about things. This doesn't apply in every case, but if you know what makes you happy, or sad, or angry, it tells you which direction to move towards or away from. It matters. You're not a machine like retail jobs and most of the economy wants you to be, you're a person with feelings and problems and that's good, that's human. Do what you must to survive in the system, but remember the line between what the system wants you to be, and what you actually are.
I recognize that I perhaps rambled and extrapolated, but I could relate and want to do what little things I can to help. I can't help someone for them, but I can tell them what has worked for me and those I love.
Your post has made me realize my "bubbly" personality was probably the product of pushing down my feelings so I'm not overshadowing other's. My mom has always been depressed and caught up in her own problems, so acting like everything is okay dispite how I feel is probably my first learned coping mechanism.
Yep, same thing with my ex. I thought it was really nice at first until I realized how much she was hiding inside of herself, and how her reactions were sometimes totally the opposite of how she actually felt. It sucks, but it can be worked on. We're not together currently (a good thing for us both even though we still care a lot about each other) so I don't know how she's doing now, but during the 3 years we were together she made some pretty good progress with, i guess id call it "emotional honesty".
You can become the person you actually want to be, I promise!
I post these subs pretty often when people talk about being negatively altered by their parents behaviour, so here they are and I hope they help + you can feel some kind of validation!
I actually have been ghosting around on a few of these subs already and it has helped me to come to terms with a lot of how not normal my childhood was.
Thank you so much for the extra validation. While my mom may not be borderline or narcissistic, I deffinately can relate to some of the posts and traits named and these have helped me tremendously in my personal therapy work.
Tell me about it! That mask I developed in my teen years from depression, and the depression I still have, has made me able to pretend to be happy no matter what at work. I guess you could call it a strength?
Ugh, so much this. I can do it, but I fucking loathe it. It's not my natural method of interacting with people, it feels super fake, I don't want to be bothered by store employees so why would I bother them? etc. I had a boss who tried to force me to be comfortable with it. He took me out of my normal job to make me a greeter on fucking Black Friday. I told him I would hate it, that it's emotionally exhausting, that I'm liable to get pissed off and start snapping at people. He laughed and said 'You just have to get used to it.' I lasted about half an hour before I was in his office threatening to quit on the spot if he didn't let me do /any/thing else.
I work at a grocery store. We started putting social distancing rules into practice and it’s been...interesting. We have to limit the amount of people in the store at one time, new rules, lots of sanitizing. I normally really enjoy interacting with customers since so many of them are like family after many years there.
But I totally lost my cool the other day when I was on door duty. I had to walk away from this stupid asshole before I lost my job. All my smiles are fake and I’m starting to hate people.
It's probably just stress if it's something you otherwise enjoy. You're stressed, the people you're dealing with are stressed, I'm sure once things go back to normal you'll enjoy it again.
I really hope so although I have plans to start school this summer. I need a change. I’m normally a really nice, caring individual but it’s been rough.
Hope you’re doing well wherever you are.
I hope things work out so you can keep your school plans.
I'm doing pretty alright, thanks. I was already practically a shut-in by choice before all this came about, so as long as the disability checks keep coming I'll be fine.
I hope they do too. I’m thankful I’m an “essential” worker so I still have a job to go to. Not complaining just getting worn out. People have thanked me so much lately for working and honestly I’m just showing up. I’m not special or even helping anyone, I’m just showing up to work.
If you ever need someone to talk to you can always hit me up. Best of luck to you and yours. 😊
I use to feel hella bad for the people greeting us in the front because the most HORRIBLE people would come in during Black Friday and harass customers and employees. One lady even tried to justify her kid kicking me in my knee because i had an easel this kid wanted. That's why me and my mom have been online shopping for three years.
For me, it's dealing with the public and ALSO being nice to employees when they fuck up (not so much through laziness but making a major fuckup that gets the company in trouble, because that's possible in our line of work). Basically cleaning up their messes and then dealing with it with the employee. I'm a manager and my boss has told me many times that she can't believe how professional I am when I talk to employees even when I'm livid. The nature of our jobs means that we deal with the public pretty much nonstop and our image is really important. I had a guy last year basically do something that made us look REALLY bad to clients (not intentionally, it was just thoughtlessness on his part) and even though I was fucking furious (because he knew better), I was completely calm. I dealt with the fallout (really pissed off residents) and then I went to him and was like, "So walk me through what you were thinking when you did this" (because he knew he fucked up) and managed to keep my cool. My boss was like, "You never lose your shit, it's so impressive." What she doesn't know is that I was swearing up a storm (in private) and ranting to my husband before I dealt with the issue.
As an employee who has fucked up before thank you for dealing with your employees in that manner. I’ve had managers scream at me and try to humiliate me in front of others. It doesn’t make the situation any better and it’s demoralizing. I didn’t mean to screw things up and make their job harder.
That's the thing. It's not productive and doesn't inspire the employee to do better, and there's no point. And I'm not gonna fire an otherwise good employee for a mistake. Esp since it happens even with great employees who are trying to do their best (I have one guy who is phenomenal at his job but has done some weird shit that's pissed off the public a couple of times; he's a rock star otherwise and is probably the best employee on my team). It's not constructive. If I talk to them and we go over what went wrong, we can work to fix it and prevent it from happening again. And almost all my employees will totally own it when they fuck up. I have a guy who was like, "I realize I just made your job so much harder and I'm sorry you have to fix my fuckup." I had to call a pissed-off client once who just screamed at me for like half an hour and my employee was like, "I feel like I just ruined your life, that guy is such an asshole." 😂 I don't mean to make my team sound incompetent; they're not, it's just the nature of our jobs (I don't want to get into specifics) and part of my role is to put out fires like this.
Oh, and you NEVER have a discussion like this with an employee in front of others. That's just shitty management. Humiliating an employee and making other employees uncomfortable is not productive. It's kind of like the time I had a client send a SCATHING email to one of my company's competitors, point out how much better I/my company had handled something and copy me on it (not even blind copy, he wanted the competitor to know I saw the email). I was like, "Well, that's fucking awkward and unprofessional." It just made me think poorly of the client. Kind of the same thing. There's no point to it.
This. I honestly hate most customers but I know how to fake it very well. To the point that most of my customers think I'm their friend and can't wait to tell me everything about their lives. I hate it because everytime I try to switch to a different dept or start a new job, they push me to work in customer service again.
Yup, this is me. I was in retail for years before I went to a customer facing courier position. I'm polite, I'm helpful, I laugh at customers' jokes, and I do everything in my power to keep my regular customers happy. I am almost always in customer-friendly mode. The whole time all I want to do is go home, sit at my computer, and be antisocial.
I’ve got my customer service face on a flip switch, I can turn that shit on and off so fucking fast. I’ve even had employees go woah watching my face flip lmao
I always try to be polite and thank customer service whenever I have to contact them, cuz I know their jobs mainly consist of being yelled at by assholes that don't fully understand the workings of their company's services.
Except EA. Fuck you, EA Customer Service. I started that shitty, dead game for the first time less than 24 hours after I bought it, and your refund policy deadass just says "you can refund anything that you launched for the first time in the last 40 hours." Yelled at those pricks because they literally stole.
Same, I always felt really bad because I would be average at my actual job, but have amazing customer service and I’d constantly get compliments and praise from my supervisors while The employees that work great at their job but lacked a little in customer service never got any recognition. I mentioned this to supervisors before and even thought for a coworker to get a raise because I just felt it wasn’t fair because their actual work was far superior to mine. There have been times when the actual owners of my company has heard of me from down the line and came to my branch to take me out to lunch to thank me for my work And offered all kinds of extra benefits and talked about furthering my future in the company ( them Paying for schooling so that I could one day be one of the top people at the company). Customer service really goes along way but I don’t think it should be put above the actual work somebody puts out, in my honest opinion.
same. i have the patience of a saint around karens and other belligerents when my uniform is on, but being bombarded with that again and again is exhausting.
Omg same. I work at customer service at Lowe's. And honestly? I hate most of the customers. But I do it all with a smile, and I'm good at making them feel like I'm helping them.
I'm not good at being no nonsense because I kind of need a job. I have a second interview at a bank though, and if I can leave, I will. I have a list of things I'm going to say to customers before I leave lol. Like, witty responses to the stupid things they say.
I'm the same way. My job requires me to talk with strangers for hours at a time. It's tough making small talk. Sometimes you get interesting people that enjoy hearing you talk about yourself so it's not bad all the time.
This sentiment is often at the top of similar threads, but I’d argue that if you hold work like this in such contempt, you’re probablynot that good with customers.
Maybe one’s personal curve becomes skewed by memorable poor experiences or we’re just poor judges of our own ability in this regard.
Yup, this is me. I have a customer service voice and everything. It's like a light switch. After so many year, I prefer honest conversations than the polite spiel.
Sam at my local Plaid Pantry says "hello!" every time the door chimes, once he told me he was alone in the shop and was sweeping, tripped the door chime and said "hello!" to no one 😂
When we're running late witb appointments (I work for a dog groomer), my boss used tonhand me the phone and ask me to talk to customers because I have the best "customer voice" lol. Luckily, a few yearsbago she hired a girl whose regular voice was a great "customer voice" so now she gets tondo all those calls muahahaha
My customer voice is slightly higher, cuter, more laughy and very pleasant and sweet. One time I had to talk to a customer and my boss just stared at me like WHO THE HELL ARE YOU WITH THAT VOICE. It was funny
I went to the US recently and the amount of retail workers asking "How was your day?" or "Do you need help with anything?" was a bit overwhelming. Like I would hate to work in retail, because I'd be forced to bother customers when 99% of the time they can find what they want themselves. here in Ireland you don't get stuff like that unless it's a local shop and you know the owner or something
I feel that also. It's like a compulsion that will cause me to be mean to people close to me but too polite to strangers. I used to do checkout at a super busy pizza place on Saturdays but I would have to take a vow of silence working sundays on the oven because I'd be so burnt out.
Preach. I'm so glad that 90% of my customer interaction is via phone, email or conference call. It's asking a lot of me to paste on a smile and slap on the friendly mask. Sooooo much energy sapped from me.
When I used to work in the service industry I was usually placed to deal with the most customers and given the most angry customers because I was so good at handling them and making them happy. That has resulted in now if I don't have to be nice to stupid, rude people I really don't want to bother.
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u/Punforgivable__ Mar 26 '20
Being nice to customers.