cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16725859

Rule

Alt text: a text post that reads: Work in retail long enough, and you’ll eventually realize the rules for dealing with Customers are exactly the same as dealing with the Fae:

  • Avoid eye contact.
  • Never reveal your full name.
  • Accept nothing They offer you.
  • Never verbally agree or disagree with anything They might happen to say.
  • To apologize is to acknowledge a debt owed.
  • Under no circumstances are you ever to thank Them.
  • Remember that They are incapable of reading signs in human languages.
  • @[email protected]
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    506 months ago

    I’m trying to come up with a dialogue that follows these rules, but it gets weird fast.

    You ghoulishly sloush around the aisles, avoiding eye contact at all cost, but still a customer talks to you:

    C: “Hi, excuse me. I’m looking for tomatoes.”

    You: “We are out for today.”

    C: “Oh, that’s unfortunate.”

    You: “” (still avoiding eye contact)

    C: “Well, how about I come back tomorrow?”

    You: “There will be a new shipment of tomatoes by tomorrow.”

    C: “Okay, great! Then I just come back tomorrow?”

    You: “If you come back tomorrow, there will be a new shipment of tomatoes.”

    C: “Are you alright?”

    Avoiding eye contact, you silently slither away.

  • @[email protected]
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    426 months ago

    I mean, that might be true if you don’t have any customer service skills. I did my time in food service, retail, and hospitality and I was good at my job because I broke pretty much every one of those rules.

    • @edgemaster72
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      576 months ago

      No amount of soft skills will get people to read signs though

    • @[email protected]
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      406 months ago

      The key is to know which rules to break with which customer though. That’s the hard part.

    • RBG
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      146 months ago

      How long ago and in which country? Because it seems particularly the US is seen as a bad place for that and especially recently.

      • @[email protected]
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        36 months ago

        It’s in the US, and it’s been a minute, but things have always been bad regarding customers. You just gotta know how to handle the bad ones.

    • @Potatos_are_not_friends
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      106 months ago

      I can see these rules being applied if you worked at a fast food min wage or a supermarket as a stocker in a bad store. I’m referring to places where Karens abuse fresh wide-eyed teenagers hoping to change the world. In my city right now, there’s a bunch of places like that, like a Wendy’s in the hood or a Supermarket that has to lock up mouthwash. Its depressing.

    • @[email protected]
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      136 months ago

      It is a US thing, although exaggerated for comedy. At least when I was in retail, I did several of those things.