People Are Stupid; Throw Rocks At Them

Somewhere, Marshal Field and Gordon Selfridge are rolling around in their graves as millions of employees curse the day the two coined the phrase, "the customer is always right."  There is rarely ever a time a customer is right.

The increase of insanity with customers can be attributed to their dwindling amount of money in their bank account. This is understandable considering people look for the best deal or little pieces of sanity after their long workday.  However, this is not an excuse for people to treat other people like they are beneath you. 

If you work in customer service, the most common thing you have to deal with is company policies that you cannot change.  Exhibit A: business hours.

There are only five minutes left till the store closes and the last thing you want is for a customer to walk in to the store.  Well, too bad, they have walked in. Now it is your fault that you are out of the special for that night.  You are now being yelled at and the customer has asked to speak with a manager. Don't take offense to this since, after all, "you are stupid, incompetent and the reason why [the customer] will never come here again!" 

This occurrence and several others like it is something employees deal with every day.  A customer is allowed to be rude, get free things and wreak all sorts of havoc just so long as they mention to your boss "the customer is always right."

Exhibit B: children. The customer is even more entitled to this crude behavior when they have their child with them.  After all, they need to prepare their children for the "horrible service" they will endure in the future.

A child and their parent enter the store.  The parent, oblivious to the world around them, allows their child to poke their fingers in every nook and cranny of the store.  The kid manages to break a few things. As you try and tell the "cute little kid" that he needs to be careful, the parent gets angry.  They are not willing to pay for the damage that their darling little angels made. 

How sweet.  The parent stood up for their child's mess. They have successfully managed to corrupt their child who will forever think that this is ok.  It's all right though; the little ma and pa shop can handle paying for someone else's mess.

Exhibit C: No means no.  This isn't statement was not only intended for rape cases.  No means no is short, sweet, and straight to the point.

If there isn't something that you want, don't put on a pouty face and think that by begging you will get what you want.  No means no.  You are lucky that the employee hasn't tried bashing your head into the wall. You are not the first person to walk in and think you are so cute for getting angry.  You wouldn't treat your mothers that way so don't treat an employee this way.  They are not responsible for what policies the company chooses to enforce.

The backlash that came from these words are far from what Field and Selfridge expected when they coined this phrase. The original intention behind the statement was to make the customer feel special by training employees to act as if the customer is always right.

"Act" is the key word in that intention.  The statement was never intended for literal use.  If you are a reasonable customer, then yes, you are more than welcome to try and find a middle ground with the manager.  If you have a serious problem can be attributed to someone other than yourself, then yes, by all means, call the corporate office. They are the ones who you should be angry with not the innocent employees who are simply doing their job. 

Today, people find themselves trying to please these ignorant people who seem to abuse the power of the statement.  Just because you can jump off a cliff doesn't mean that you should jump off a cliff.  In the same sense, just because you can be rude to the person just doing their job doesn't mean you should be rude to the person doing their job.

As an employee, you are to suck it up.  However unfortunate it may be, just realize that your manager is there to back you up.  The next time someone starts to yell at you, you remember those five devilish words, you apologize, and you try to keep the urge of screaming deep inside of you, just remember what miserable lives those foolish people live