Thursday, July 31, 2014

How to Deal with Nasty Employees While You Are Shopping Did She Just Cuss at Me?

Who here is sick and tired of rude out of control employees? I'm not talking about the morons you work with, I'm talking about the girl or guy behind the counter, the one that takes your money. The one that would not even have a frigging paycheck if it were not for your money!
I can almost guarantee everyone reading this has dealt with the angry employee before.
How many times have you gone into a Walmart or some other store and had an employee treat you like you were some sort of animal, when all you did was ask for a little assistance? Is this not what they are paid for?
My issues began around Christmas time back in 2005. My cousin and I were shopping for... the obvious; gifts. We were in a local Target and the entire store was in shambles. This is expected though, people are slobs, and the majority of people are out and about shopping this time of year in bucket loads. Okay no big deal, I can step around the clothes on the floor, the bouncing balls left in aisles, I can even take a detour around the area known as clearance. Clearance sections are danger zones.
What I can't get around though is the lack of pricing on shelves. I pick up a product, and I don't know its price. No problem, Target has made it convenient for its shoppers by adding in price code machines. Simply run the bar code under the scanner, and wallah, the price pops up.
These areas though, are usually filled with piles of things on the floor from previous shoppers that do not go and put the items back. Can't say I blame them, not everyone has the time to go and return things back to counters where they belong. Besides its not their fault the damn thing didn't have a price tag on it.
So my cousin and I have a wagon full of items that were not tagged, nor did they have the price on the shelf, so we found ourselves a price checker and began checking away. A lot of things were reasonably priced, where other things were not. Because we were on our way out, we placed the items near the huge mess of other items left by others. It was not much, together we had maybe placed down 4 or 5 items. We had a Christmas party to attend, and we were running late, so we honestly did not have the time to retrace our steps to return things to their proper place. Nonetheless, I should not have to make excuses. I am a customer, this sort of behavior is expected, but what happened next was totally random, and totally rude.
As we began walking away, an employee ran up to us yelling, how it is rude to leave things behind and not to put them back. That she should not have to 'pick up' after us.
We walked away and made our way over to the book section just to hide from her. Literately, we, the customers, the paying customers were hiding from an employee!
When we thought the coast was clear we made our way back over to the counter person, to check out. However this crazy employee was not done. She went over to a group of other employees, and pointed at us while saying, 'there, those girls right there left it behind.'
By now, my attitude went from annoyed, to straight up pissed off. I went over to her, and asked if she was done with her rant. My cousin then chimed in and asked 'aren't you paid to clean up? Is this not what you are paid to do?'.
She rolled her eyes and sarcastically said, 'happy holidays girls'.
We then decided we would leave our cart filled with gifts right there in front of her. 'Have a good night, do me a favor and put this all back, I wish to no longer purchase anything thanks to you, (checking her name tag) Colleen'.
A stream of cuss words than followed from her mouth.
Another huge issue I have, not once did we cuss at her, or even get nasty with her. We tried avoiding her, and still she came at us like that. It's obvious this core needed a tampon, and a boot out the door. People like this should not be working, period!
The next day I made a phone call to corporation, and also made it a point to write a letter to the company about their lovely employee. They gave me a lame apology, and that was it. I figured they would at least of given us a gift card, or some satisfaction by telling us she would be taken care of. I just don't understand why corporations are protecting employees like this, when there are loads of people looking for a job. Good people, who actually enjoy getting paid, vs ones who actually chase customers out the door.
But why, why should I have had to of dealt with this B.S right before Christmas time?
Next I take you to the lovely land of Walmart. You know that god for saken video game section, the area where they leave their crap all locked up, yet they will keep $300 cameras right out on counters... yeah that section. Why is it, when you want to buy a game no one is ever available to help you? Yet when there is someone available they are busy flirting with another employee.
This was my case on one of my many Walmart nightmare shopping experiences. I waited patiently at the counter staring her down like fresh meat. She looked back at me, and ignored me so she could get her soft core porn session back on with the young man standing there with her. I continued to stare, and seriously must have been there for a good 3 minutes until finally I grew some balls and asked her politely to ring me up.
Her reply: "Don't cop no attitude wiff me!"
That was it... I went ballistic. I basically told her I had stood there waiting while she was busy getting phone numbers from other workers. Not once was I rude out of line, or even mad...until she went on with that first reaction to me wanting to get rung up.
She rolled her eyes at me, grabbed my money, and basically tossed the bag at me. Fu** that noise. Things got ugly when I told her that if she wanted to see an attitude she sure as hell was about to. She then walked away from me.
I reported it immediately to the store manager, who had her come up front to apologize. I got great satisfaction knowing that we were not the only ones she had been rude to, and I also got great satisfaction watching the manager fire her in front of me.
Walmart may hire rude employees, but they sure as hell weed them out when the time arises, so mad props to Walmart for that.
My most recent event happened at a local deli while out with my niece for breakfast. We stopped in for some eggs. 2 rolls, one with just eggs and cheese, and the other with bacon, eggs and ketchup. I don't know who likes ketchup on eggs, but my niece does, so...
The man seemed genuinely confused. Was it his first day? I repeated the order once again, and he made his way to the back grill. I watched as he poured ketchup on one roll, and left the other alone.
Next out of nowhere my niece starts blowing a fit that she wants hers on a bagel. The guy seemed pissed, and I didn't blame him. He now had to waste the roll with the ketchup on it to make it on a bagel now.
However instead of getting rid of the ketchup infested roll, I watched as he wiped a wet rag across the roll to remove the ketchup and obviously use that roll with my order. I was shocked, but did not say anything until he gave me the bag. I wanted to be 100% sure I saw what I saw before making an issue.
I opened the bag, her bagel was fine. Eggs, bacon and ketchup, just as she wanted. However when I opened my eggs and cheese roll, and lifted the bun, sure enough I could see where he had wiped the ketchup off of it.
I didn't even want to argue. I grabbed my nieces bagel, threw it in the bag with my egg roll, and left it on the counter as I walked out. Mr. Smarty pants had the nerve to yell to me that I had to 'pay for that'.
Hah! Pay for what, my roll that had just been swiped with a dirty rag? Over my dead body.
A personal favorite of mine while shopping is the employee who looks like he/she is going to kill you because you stepped on their line. The ones that are so miserable and depressed. They don't say hi, they don't smile, and they do not even say 'have a nice day/night'.
I usually let these employees be. But when I think of it long and hard, why? Why should I let them be? They are being paid, my job in food and counter sales have all sucked, but you know what, I always said hello, I always said have a nice night, even if my smile was fake, I smiled. Yes I was miserable, but I didn't not have to let off the vibe that I hate everything, and don't even want your business.
It's obvious workers who carry on in this miserable smile free fashion are only working until they get fired, which won't take much. Workers like this are probably already not liked by management, and honestly all it takes is one nasty letter from a customer to get them fired.
Which brings me to my next point. Let all get together and weed out crap like this. We do not deserve to walk into a store to be stalked, cussed at, or treated with disrespect.
When you have an issue with an employee, always alert the highest management in the store at the time. Next ask that manager for the supervisors phone number and the corporations phone number.
Complain to all 3 of these people one day at a time. Let them know you are not giving up until you know the employee was either fired, or will be writing you a letter of apology.
Don't stop there, your next step is to then write a letter to the corporation or company. Trust me, the more people that have to hear your story the more annoyed they become, until finally they rid themselves of the problem. In easy terms, employee terminated.
However my final words are: Be fair. Do not think you need to be even Steven if YOU were the one that provoked the employee.
Some customers have bad days and take it out on employees, this is why they are miserable. Hehe. So do know if you have a bad experience with an employee that you should step back and see if perhaps you may of caused the issue.
If so, leave it at that. There is no need to alert the friggin media.
Although many company's train their employees to be nice to even the most wicked of customers, there is always that one that may burst on you, and most likely you deserved it.
Do realize the difference between a bad employee vs your own bad attitude towards them.

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