I did something at work today that I’ve
never done before in my nearly six years working at the sandwich shop. Let me first say that I’ve dealt with angry and
unpleasant customers before without much trouble. Such as the old fellow who was outraged that
I was unable to accept his $100 bill for lack of funds in the cash drawer, or
the woman who couldn’t seem to understand that Italian bread is
white, or even the other woman who
complained about getting the end of the bread for her 6 inch sandwich, and (my
favourite) the guy who got upset because the Swiss cheese had holes in it. But this one just takes the cake.
This particular woman has come in
before, and she has also been snippy with me in the past. No big deal; I’ll just go quickly to get her
out of the store as fast as possible. I
began making her sandwich, but forgot what cheese she had said, and so asked
her to repeat it. She responded with a
definite edge in her voice, “Cheddar.”
*sigh*
We moved down the line (there were no
other customers in the store); she told me what vegetables she wanted, and I
put them on with all haste. Then she
asked for mustard. I asked, “What kind
of mustard?”
She looked at me with a grimace and
repeated forcefully, “Mustard.”
I told her, “We have three…”
The woman cut me short, “Mustard. Just mustard.”
After a slight pause to gather myself,
I said, “That could mean any of our three kinds, which is why I’m asking…”
“MUSTARD!” she said with pure acid in
her voice, then commented to the man with her, “See? This is why I came in here with an attitude;
he always tries to start s#!t with me!”
The dam holding back my anger cracked,
and I said firmly, “You can leave.” I
then dropped the sandwich into the garbage, fixed her with a sardonic expression,
and said with my voice full of irony, “Goodbye.” With that, I turned around, stripped off my
gloves, and tossed them smoothly into the garbage can as I disappeared into
the back area. Once there, I told my
boss (who had been washing dishes during this) exactly what had happened. I could barely take a drink from the water
cup I had back there for my shaking hands.
The story doesn’t end there. About half an hour later, our regional
manager called us asking what had happened.
My manager informed her of everything I had said about how the situation
had progressed (or digressed, depending on how you want to see it), and she
said that she’ll have to call the woman back after checking the
video/audio. She also told us what the
woman had said. Apparently, she had omitted
the part where she was yelling at me and using profanity, skipping directly
from her telling me that she didn’t know what kinds of mustard we had (which
never happened) to me throwing away the sandwich and telling her to leave. Frankly, I think she was mostly angry because
her punching bag talked back and refused to take her verbal abuse.
My point in telling this story is that it
seems some many people think it’s perfectly acceptable to abuse low-level
employees, be they food service, grocery baggers (which I have also done), retail
cashiers, and others. Why does this
attitude prevail in a society that claims to be so obsessed with not making
anyone “feel bad”? How is it OK to treat
anyone like that?
The way I see it, there are three types
of people who you should never mistreat, for obvious reasons:
1.
People who handle your money
2.
People who watch your kids
3.
People who prepare your food
One final word I have on this subject
is to admonish you to think about that fast food worker, or that bank teller,
or that sales clerk. They have a sucky
job, and it makes it a bit more tolerable if you just demonstrate a little
human decency. I hope that’s not too
much to ask.
On the plus side, that woman will
probably never come in again.
