Abusive Third Level UCD Students?

FionnMatthew

Blush_01 wrote:

I don't agree FionnMatthew. A job is part of your life, not your whole life. I do think, however, that Kap might profit from wearing a hoodie over his uniform or popping into the toilet to change into a t-shirt in order to avoid unwelcome questions from people out of hours. How many people walk up to a barman on the bus home and ask for a pint, or approach a hairdresser on the street for advice on shampoo?

I don't disagree with you here, but I think you're mistaken as to my point. The specific example I was talking about was one where Kap didn't mention that he was off-duty. I fact I took him to mean that he actually was on duty, but "how was he supposed to know?"

Those people travelling on the train had ample opportunity to get the information they expect Kap to have themselves. There are (usually) timetables in the office of the train station you are travelling from. There's a €3 (iirc) nationwide table available for purchase in each station. What's stopping people from planning their journey in advance? The timetables are all available online, everyone who is literate has access to the internet these days through a number of sources. The onus is on the traveller, not their fellow traveller (regardless of where they are employed) to plan their own journey.

As a regular and efficient traveller on IE services, I use all of the avenues you mentioned there quite regularly. It is, however, impossible to foresee all eventualities, and if it is the case that you use the PT several times a day, and if your timetable is so irregular as to ensure that you are travelling to and fro at different times of the day each day, it becomes obvious that comprehensive and prior journey planning isn't always possible.

Overhead readouts are often unhelpful, unclear or lacking in important info. Sometimes you need information fast and on the spot. Trains don't wait for you, and the multiplicity of platforms in places like Connolly station mean that sometimes you really do have to ask for help. Besides which, IE services are often so irregular and prone to cancellation or platform alteration that timetables and forward planning isn't really applicable. Sometimes you have to ask.

Now I wouldn't hold it against anyone who simply didn't know, but I'd certainly get annoyed if, even though they were on duty, and didn't seem to have anything else to do, they simply shrugged and mumbled that they didn't know. Someone in that position, as I would expect myself to do in that situation, should find out, or direct me to someone who can tell me. Anything less than an attitude of helfulness and politeness as a response to a genuine and cordial request for assistance isn't good enough, no matter how little is actually stated on a job description.

I by no means wish to trivialise any difficulties experienced in Dublin with regards to Public Transport, but I'm sure you'll find that if you were to talk to someone who lives outside of Dublin, public transport becomes less of a dysfunctional machine and more of an invisible/mythical one.

I've lived in Cork, where the PT wasn't very frequent, but it was very regular and efficient.
I've heard the same said of Galway.
And that it's bad in the rest of Ireland is no excuse for it being only marginally less bad here. That's a "Two Wrongs Make a Right" Fallacy. It's all bad, and it all needs to be fixed.


PS. Iarnrod Eireann Worker

Blush_01

Well, coming from a village which has a bus shelter, and absolutely no bus service (aside from the designated school buses for which the bus shelter is not only in an inconvenient, but downright lethal location, and which is so overcrowded that in my 6 years of secondary school you had to bribe people to get them to sit on your knee so you didn't have to sit on the bus floor). So I have very little sympathy for people from Dublin. I've lived here for 4 years now. I can get to where I want to go with a modicum of planning and organisation on what service exists here. Defective, while not satisfactory, is better than nothing, I'm sure you'll agree. Although that isn't the point here, and I apologise for dragging the conversation off-topic.

funky penguin

I had to scroll up to recall what this thread was about.

hullaballoo

FionnMatthew wrote:

Job satisfaction or lack of such is no excuse for the behaviour told of in Vainglory's post. Whatever job you have, you should never take out your own frustrations on other people, especially in a professional context.

I don't recall pinning my point up as an excuse. It's an explanation.

There is no justification for being professionally rude to someone who doesn't deserve rudeness.

Are you making an assumption that everyone in the service industry is some sort of professional? If so, it's a mistaken assumption (as are most assumptions). Even with professional training, if your job satisfaction is low enough, you just won't be professional, or personable about your job. You won't even be a pleasure to be around outside of work hours. Believe me, I've been there.

I worked in a "hotel" at home for the guts of six months at one point. It was my first ever bar job. I started out nice as pie to the customers, and no amount of ignorant behaviour would shift me on my manners. That's what you're talking about below - the old be-nice-to-them-and-that'll-get-to-them trick. So, when gradually I became obviously more unhappy and unable to deal with even the friendliest customers in an amicable fashion, those who were there most regularly started to ask questions.

Some complained to my manager, but that exacerbated things (he was the problem). Others addressed me themselves, and eventually, I just told them everything. I actually sat down with them at their dinner table (at their request) and told them everything that was getting to me about how the place was being run - how the staff were treated (comforting other members of staff who were in tears in the staffroom was a daily occurrence) and how some of the other behind-the-scenes things were run.

The customers took it on themselves to sort things out and the manager ended up jobless and (incidentally) on the run from the fraud squad. (I realise that anecdote leads on a tangent, but it goes to show that there are often situations unbeknownst to us that may lead to rude treatment from front-end staff. I am no longer willing to comment on the lady in question in the Post Office. In fact, I don't think I have any right, since my dealings with her have been so brief that I have not noted her demeanour at any length.)

Again, that's no excuse. Consider the situation here. It is apparent that Vainglory's attitude as made manifest in her actions was appropriate.

If I take the word "excuse" as "explanation", I can address this point: as I said above, I'm not making excuses. It is not such a utopian world that we live on that we can quarantine incidences that have an effect on us so conveniently as your theory suggests we should. If you are once adversely affected by something in work with a customer, you can try to mask it. If you are twice adversely affected, you can hold up your mask and force yourself to be cool – and so on. But only to a point. Our patience as humans is limited, and if you have to deal with utter tripe from incredibly ignorant people for eight hours a day, the occasional 'nice' customer isn't going to see the best side of you. Again, this example may be extreme, but it's widely adaptable and scales down nicely. According to researchers in business, if a customer experiences bad service, it takes 12 right things to make up for it. Given that this is based on human psychology, I would contend that the same might work for staff who are on the receiving end of a bad customer.

Whether or not the PO lady had a general experience of students with a bad attitude, this is no justification for a similar attitude towards all students. Even if all other students are rude, Vainglory was not rude, and did not deserve to be treated like that, and it's thoroughly unprofessional and unpersonable to take systemic frustration out on someone who behaves appropriately.

You made that point above, and I can address it similarly: it would be fantastic if we could segregate the events in our lives so neatly all the time. We can't. We're only human (yes, even those of us who work the crap jobs).

In which case people who deserve to be treated badly are treated badly.

It's not necessarily treating someone badly to respond to them in the same manner that they address you. If they think it's good enough for you to be addressed a certain way – it's good enough for them. We're not living in the dark ages where social class has any role to play. You find that the small fish are the ones who find this groundbreaking statement most difficult to fathom.

Now, I don't necessarily agree with that either, because I think the best way to deal with ignorant people in a professional context is to treat them as nicely as possible. It makes them fume, and you remain in the right.

It doesn't always work. You risk giving them the impression that they can get away with that sort of treatment. I'm talking about people who treat you badly because they view themselves as above you in some way. I'm not talking about someone who is just trying to annoy you. That's an entirely separate social issue – and one for which your trick works well about 30% of the time (when the other person doesn't have the wherewithal to recognise the non-verbal communication, or the tremor in your voice).

But would you advocate being rude to any random person who walked in, even if they hadn't yet demonstrated that they were going to be ignorant to you? Because that's the scenario we're talking about here. It's nothing to do with job satisfaction, or with ill-mannered customers. This is an unequivocal situation.

I would of course yeah. In fact, I routinely bar people at random because I anticipate that at some point in time someone might be rude to me again.

I really cannot see where you pulled that question from. I think you should do your job as best you can. On the other hand, I don't think people should hang you just on the basis that you were a bit short with them when they got antsy with you for being unable to do something for them.

FionnMatthew

I'm sorry, Hulla, I just really disagree with most of what you've said.

hullaball&#250 wrote:

I don't recall pinning my point up as an excuse. It's an explanation.

Very well, but in the case where it's just an explanation, it has no extenuating effect whatsoever. We're talking about a person here - she had a choice not to carry on like that, and she still did it, and however disposed to being rude she has become because of X or Y factor, she continues to have control over her own actions. Explanations don't cut it with human beings. They're not inert physical objects that react to causal laws. To make our judgement of her actions any less harsh, we'll need an excuse.

Are you making an assumption that everyone in the service industry is some sort of professional? If so, it's a mistaken assumption (as are most assumptions).

No. I'm not making that assumption. I'm using "professional" in the soft sense, in the sense of "professionalism", and "professional conduct", as a by-word for the exemplification of particular standards of behaviour and conduct in a place of work. You don't need to be a psychiatrist or a solicitor to be professional. You just need to behave in a suitable manner for your job, and I think for the vast majority of jobs, (as in, except for jobs where you're being paid to be rude to people) the highest ideal will include civility and cordiality.

Even with professional training, if your job satisfaction is low enough, you just won't be professional, or personable about your job. You won't even be a pleasure to be around outside of work hours.

That's simply not true. I'm quite capable of being personable about my job, even under an excessive factor of stress.

Believe me, I've been there.

So have I. I worked in McDonalds in Blackrock for 2 years. A decision of questionable benefit to me, and I can assure you the job was as unpleasant as they come - my regular morning jobs included cleaning the toilet and washing out the trash-room, and a great majority of customers, when I spent between 11.30 and 15.00 on the till, were uncouth and derogatory in their attitude. Some of the senior staff, too, bullied me for not being from a working class background, with the delirious assumption that people who don't have a certain kind of accent have "never done a job's work in their life." (This said, the overall manager was a delight, and an example of how to behave.)

I began to take solace in the fact that the cycle would end with me, whether or not it made a difference, I wouldn't take it out on customers, because there's just no way to look at it in which that's in any way a defensible thing to do. And I didn't. And the more I didn't, the easier it was. And I've met a great many people, in supposedly "dead-end", undesireable, high-stress jobs who exemplfy the same standard, and are genuinely positive, optimistic and polite to everyone, without fail. So I'm not an isolated incident.

If I take the word "excuse" as "explanation", I can address this point: as I said above, I'm not making excuses. It is not such a utopian world that we live on that we can quarantine incidences that have an effect on us so conveniently as your theory suggests we should.

I meant "excuse" as "excuse". Because we're talking about the evaluation of the action of the woman in the PO, and since I'm not prepared to see her as something which simply reacts as a matter of course to pressures put on her, but actually is forced to make a choice at some point, the only thing that can compromise my judgement that what she did was unequivocally wrong, is an excuse - something that extenuates her own agency in the behaviour.

If you are once adversely affected by something in work with a customer, you can try to mask it. If you are twice adversely affected, you can hold up your mask and force yourself to be cool – and so on. But only to a point. Our patience as humans is limited, and if you have to deal with utter tripe from incredibly ignorant people for eight hours a day, the occasional 'nice' customer isn't going to see the best side of you.

Again, that's is completely untrue of me, and I contend that it isn't necessary of anyone.

According to researchers in business, if a customer experiences bad service, it takes 12 right things to make up for it. Given that this is based on human psychology, I would contend that the same might work for staff who are on the receiving end of a bad customer.

That research observes norms of behaviour, not normative forms of behaviour. That the vast majority of customers do that isn't a vindication for the fact that they do it. They are wrong, and wrong-minded to adopt that attitude, whether or not loads of other people do it, and we can take a moral position on it despite normalising research. All that research tells us is that the general public have deplorably low standards of fairness and moral conduct. So often, vindication by psychological research just boils down to an Appeal to Common Practise fallacy, and that's what's happening here.

You made that point above, and I can address it similarly: it would be fantastic if we could segregate the events in our lives so neatly all the time. We can't. We're only human (yes, even those of us who work the crap jobs).

We can segregate the events of our lives neatly, if we want to, and try hard enough.
Being human is no excuse, because I'm human, and so is Christian the bus-driver (so far as I know), and Pat the trainstation manager, and etc.
I contend that the PO woman cannot extenuate her bad behaviour by claiming membership of the human race. She might as well try to extentuate her behaviour by claiming membership of the female sex, or of the Irish nation. Any of these attempts do the same thing - they demean the group of people upon whom she is trying to offload her responsibility. "We're only human" is personally demeaning to any human being who holds a standard of conduct whatsoever.

It doesn't always work. You risk giving them the impression that they can get away with that sort of treatment. I'm talking about people who treat you badly because they view themselves as above you in some way.

Yes. That's what I'm talking about too. Even when it doesn't "work", I maintain that it's the best way to behave. It's not that they "get away with it." It's that you don't demean yourself because of something they've done to you.

I would of course yeah. In fact, I routinely bar people at random because I anticipate that at some point in time someone might be rude to me again.

Sarcastic?

I really cannot see where you pulled that question from. I think you should do your job as best you can. On the other hand, I don't think people should hang you just on the basis that you were a bit short with them when they got antsy with you for being unable to do something for them.

Unacceptable behaviour in dealing with the public is unacceptable. There are small slips, and gradients of tolerance, but what Vainglory described here is off the deep end, and there is no extenuating circumstance for it.

gubbie

Sangre wrote:

Not related but I hate people who compare Dublin's transport infrastructure with other major cities. Bottom line is because of our stupid desire for low rise buildings we have a a low population density and thus will always have a crap transport system. Of course Holland's system is so much better, they have a LOT more people to service...grrrr.

No, personally I must disagree with a lot of ye there, Dublin has a great bus service. Come on like being able to get a bus to Wicklow that comes every 20 minutes? Thats how often the most frequent one's come in Cork. Its quicker for me to walk into town then it is to wait for a bus here. OH and people in Cork do not know how to use the 3 bus lanes that we have. They park in them.

And I love CIE. Hourly trains to Cork.

I've lived in Cork, where the PT wasn't very frequent, but it was very regular and efficient.

Ah you joking me? The only efficient ones are ones that aren't regular and the one's that are regular aren't efficient

And I've never met any to be rude. Well Cork bus drivers are nicer then DB one's but thats only cos they wait for you but I suppose they're told that

Dam I've to get the bus today to work

Stabshauptmann

FionnMatthew wrote:

I think the most stupid general group of people I have to come into contact with, besides the scumbags I meet on the Nitelink, are CIE workers.

Nitelink workers are CIE workers.
CIE is the partent of Dublin Bus, Bus Eireann, and Iarnrod Eireann.

... I don't consider my general impression to be unfair or mistaken.

Thank you. I have a smile on my face I'll keep for most of the day
Are you aware of how arrogant it reads?

Granted, IE customers are equally obnoxious...

Well, that is Hulla's point that you disagreed with in a previous post.
You dont believe that job satisfaction should have a bearing on how affable a person is.
And you think that the customer should be treated with respect regardless of their actions.

Thats really the crux of it, and where ppl will disagree.

But IE employees are some of the most ignorant, uneducated, antisocial and downright rude people I ever have to deal with.

I'd hold that opinion of most of the staff in Dublin, but nowhere else.

I don't know what your job description was

Clean the trains, and occasionally some other general station work.

and I don't think much of people being highly indignant if you didn't know it off the top of your head, but I would consider it encumbent upon you to always be in a position where you could volunteer that kind of information. You should have a timetable on you, and be able to consult it, for instance.

After a week or so I got a pocket timetable because of how much of a problem this was causing. People were impatient and abusive if I didnt know off the top of my head. I know this sounds so stupid I must be making it up but perhaps then you can appreciate how frustrating some of these jobs are.
Likewise, when I worked in Dunnes Stores ppl would walk up to me with items and ask the price. I mean seriously, either the price is clearly marked and thus you should be able to find it yourself, or its not marked so dont get irate if I need to go find a computer to find out. Customers have ridiculous expectations as to what you should know off hand.

Your job shouldn't just be about your job description anyway; if you find yourself being asked regularly for train times, you should ensure that you can be helpful in that capacity; you should be looking for ways to be helpful.

That's not a problem. I dont have any problem helping customers. But customers are not always right or infallible. Customers have responsibilities in the service encounter too.

They must be clear in what they want.
They must be clear in how they communicate.
They must be reasonable in their expectations.

IE is an interesting causality question. Are customers bastards because staff are bastards, or are staff bastards because customers are bastards.

The big problems with IE are at senior management level. When a train is late its not the fault of the guy selling the tickets or sweeping the platform. But do people write letters to they head guys who made inaccurate timetables, the guys who decide to run inadequate trains the gob****e farmer who left his dead cattle on the line. No, they are abusive to the first person in a uniform they see.

If the customer wants good service, then they shouldnt treat the people providing the service like dirt, whos job it is to slave for them.
Im disgusted by parents who when they're children make a mess in a store or somewhere say "Dont do that, now the man has to clean it up"; or worse still if they go to clean it up "Dont bother, they have people to do that".

Stabshauptmann

FionnMatthew wrote:

You can't rebutt comparisons between Dublin's PT system and the PTSs of other cities by citing a supposed cause for the inadequacy of Dublin's PT system.
.....

Hence, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the idea of comparing Dublin's PTS and Holland's PTS on speed, efficiency or capacity... Holland's PTS is quite adequate.

By that logic there is nothing wrong with comparing my athletic prowess to that of someone in a wheelchair. I am much faster.

Stabshauptmann

FionnMatthew wrote:

I don't disagree with you here, but I think you're mistaken as to my point. The specific example I was talking about was one where Kap didn't mention that he was off-duty. I fact I took him to mean that he actually was on duty, but "how was he supposed to know?"

Both situations occurred.

blush wrote:

I do think, however, that Kap might profit from wearing a hoodie over his uniform or popping into the toilet to change into a t-shirt in order to avoid unwelcome questions from people out of hours.

But then Id need to produce a train ticket

Now I wouldn't hold it against anyone who simply didn't know, but I'd certainly get annoyed if, even though they were on duty, and didn't seem to have anything else to do, they simply shrugged and mumbled that they didn't know.

A)How do you know what it is I might be doing. You say you are in a hurry to catch a train, so could I. You dont know what someone could be doing.
B)What makes you think that person would have any information for you?

Someone in that position, as I would expect myself to do in that situation, should find out, or direct me to someone who can tell me.

That is being LAZY! Worker A is very busy, if he doesnt do all his work he gets an earful. Customer B sees a line at the info desk / hasnt given himself enough time to catch the train / is too important to cue and asks Worker A an obscure question (to worker A at least). Worker A is not obliged to find the answer, you know who to ask for the answer, you are just LAZY.

I have never been to a train stations where I didnt find it obvious where to ask for information. I challenge you to go to a train station and find it hard to find either the office, or in the case of major stations the information desk.

PS. Iarnrod Eireann Worker

I was expecting something scandalous

FionnMatthew

Don't have time for everything just now. Just one thing until later:

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

By that logic there is nothing wrong with comparing my athletic prowess to that of someone in a wheelchair. I am much faster.

Em. There's nothing wrong with that. WHY would you want to do that? Regardless, I actually can't see why you shouldn't compare your athletic prowess to that of a disabled person. I shouldn't be too suprised to find out that you were faster (but then, some of these special wheelchair racers are pretty fast these days!)

But this situation is completely disanalogous to what I'm talking about. PTSs have a responsibility to be fast, efficient, etc. People in wheelchairs aren't generally expected to win races.

You might say it was more like comparing your athletic prowess with that of perfectly able person, who was just inclined to be very lazy and disorganised, unless of course you want to add the further metaphorical premise that, just as people in wheelchairs are physically disabled, and we should make allowances for such, adminstrators and managers in Iarnrod Eireann are complete "mentlers", and we should all take that into account and go "aaah, god love them", when our trains are canceled. I mean, if that's a hidden premise, then your analogy is fine, but I still don't see why you said it.

hullaballoo

FionnMatthew wrote:

I'm sorry, Hulla, I just really disagree with most of what you've said.

I find that hard to believe given that you've shown yourself to be one of the most intelligent posters on this board on numerous occasions. What I will say is that I think you are flatly confusing the way things ought to be with the way things are. That was my reference to utopia: in an ideal world, people would behave as you suggest they might. In reality, human beings are not quite so strong in general.

Very well, but in the case where it's just an explanation, it has no extenuating effect whatsoever...Explanations don't cut it with human beings. They're not inert physical objects that react to causal laws. To make our judgement of her actions any less harsh, we'll need an excuse.

I disagree. If we can understand the explanation for particular actions, whether or not we regard them as right, we can still use these explanations to mitigate our judgements against such a person. Let me put it another way. People often say of others who have a poor, unfriendly, abrupt or even rude demeanour, "oh! they've had a hard life". That doesn't make their behaviour right, but it does go towards an explanation that will make most people more tolerant of such behaviour from them.

No. I'm not making that assumption. I'm using "professional" in the soft sense, in the sense of "professionalism", and "professional conduct", as a by-word for the exemplification of particular standards of behaviour and conduct in a place of work. You don't need to be a psychiatrist or a solicitor to be professional. You just need to behave in a suitable manner for your job, and I think for the vast majority of jobs, (as in, except for jobs where you're being paid to be rude to people) the highest ideal will include civility and cordiality.

I would still contend that in order to know how to act professionally, many people (especially those in the sorts of jobs we are discussing) will need some sort of formal training. Many people do not naturally know how to react to adversity in an every-day context. Many don't even know how to react to it in the extraordinary context of, say, a falling-out with a close friend.

That's simply not true. I'm quite capable of being personable about my job, even under an excessive factor of stress.

The fact that you are capable of it doesn't make it transferrable to everyone else. You see, not everyone is as convicted to their morals as you might be. Again, this is not a question of right or wrong. Such questions are overly complex for my liking. The Euthyphro Dilemma brings me to the conclusion that morals belong personally to every man. Of course, other people's conclusions will be completely different to mine. Either way, what you personally are capable of - what you believe to be true for yourself - is not necessarily true for others.

That said, I admire that you take the stance you do, as it would be in line with the moral stance that I would take. There is another view that you might simply be putting yourself through too much for the sake of nothing: forcing yourself (which puts a strain on you) to behave in a certain way because you believe it is right is certainly noble of you, but it may also be foolish. What sort of service do you expect from McDonald's when you go there? Personally, the standard of service has never even crossed my mind in there. Just as when I go to Centra for my lunch every day, I'm oblivious to whether or not they're being mannerly. I just don't expect it of them.

It becomes foolish to put yourself through so much where it is not recognised by those with whom you interact.

So have I. I worked in McDonalds in Blackrock for 2 years. A decision of questionable benefit to me, and I can assure you the job was as unpleasant as they come - my regular morning jobs included cleaning the toilet and washing out the trash-room, and a great majority of customers, when I spent between 11.30 and 15.00 on the till, were uncouth and derogatory in their attitude. Some of the senior staff, too, bullied me for not being from a working class background, with the delirious assumption that people who don't have a certain kind of accent have "never done a job's work in their life." (This said, the overall manager was a delight, and an example of how to behave.)

You've made my point there yourself: if the decision to work there was of questionable benefit, then you may have been ill-advised (if morally quite commendably strong) to force yourself to absorb the pressures rather than being a conduit for them.

That research observes norms of behaviour, not normative forms of behaviour. That the vast majority of customers do that isn't a vindication for the fact that they do it. They are wrong, and wrong-minded to adopt that attitude, whether or not loads of other people do it, and we can take a moral position on it despite normalising research. All that research tells us is that the general public have deplorably low standards of fairness and moral conduct. So often, vindication by psychological research just boils down to an Appeal to Common Practise fallacy, and that's what's happening here.

Again, we're getting into ought and is here. The worldly fact of the matter is that a lot of people are wrong - in the way they act and the way they think. But they are only wrong in the scale of right to wrong that I hold dear. Perhaps more people are wrong on your scale, and there may be people out there whose scales make us wrong.

We can segregate the events of our lives neatly, if we want to, and try hard enough.

What's the point in trying that hard if we're working in jobs that don't pay us to try that hard? Sure, if I'm paid well above minimum wage, and have good benefits and a reasonable pension, the effort will start to kick in because I want to hold on to my good job. However, I'm not prepared to put myself through some sort of insane psychological battle of morals for minimum wage and bad working conditions. If you are, it is again valiant of you, but somewhat foolish.

Being human is no excuse, because I'm human, and so is Christian the bus-driver (so far as I know), and Pat the trainstation manager, and etc.
I contend that the PO woman cannot extenuate her bad behaviour by claiming membership of the human race. She might as well try to extentuate her behaviour by claiming membership of the female sex, or of the Irish nation. Any of these attempts do the same thing - they demean the group of people upon whom she is trying to offload her responsibility. "We're only human" is personally demeaning to any human being who holds a standard of conduct whatsoever.

It is a shame that you feel that way. Why you would take personally something that is true of everyone is beyond me. However, it's important to remember that there are exceptions to general rules, and you appear to be an exception here.

Yes. That's what I'm talking about too. Even when it doesn't "work", I maintain that it's the best way to behave. It's not that they "get away with it." It's that you don't demean yourself because of something they've done to you.

Yes, this is the right attitude to have. But again, it doesn't always work. If I feel that by reacting to an asshole in a pleasant way might be more demeaning to me than reacting with a little bit of dryness or sarcasm (what they will then tell you is cheek!), then I will react in the way that is most beneficial to me (even personally, if I can get a little laugh out of it).

Sarcastic?

I tried, yes.

Unacceptable behaviour in dealing with the public is unacceptable. There are small slips, and gradients of tolerance, but what Vainglory described here is off the deep end, and there is no extenuating circumstance for it.

That is your opinion, to which you are entitled. My opinion is that there are just people out there who will be like that. No matter how much we dislike it, we won't change them. That's just the way it is, though not necessarily the way it ought to be.

Stabshauptmann

FionnMatthew wrote:

Don't have time for everything just now. Just one thing until later:

Em. There's nothing wrong with that. WHY would you want to do that? Regardless, I actually can't see why you shouldn't compare your athletic prowess to that of a disabled person. I shouldn't be too suprised to find out that you were faster (but then, some of these special wheelchair racers are pretty fast these days!)

But this situation is completely disanalogous to what I'm talking about. PTSs have a responsibility to be fast, efficient, etc. People in wheelchairs aren't generally expected to win races.

You might say it was more like comparing your athletic prowess with that of perfectly able person, who was just inclined to be very lazy and disorganised, unless of course you want to add the further metaphorical premise that, just as people in wheelchairs are physically disabled, and we should make allowances for such, adminstrators and managers in Iarnrod Eireann are complete "mentlers", and we should all take that into account and go "aaah, god love them", when our trains are canceled. I mean, if that's a hidden premise, then your analogy is fine, but I still don't see why you said it.

A possible reason was given for the PTS woes in Dublin/Ireland. These were macro factors that did not apply to your bench mark country.

The argument is that you have a flawed bech mark.
Just my wheel chair analogy is an example of a flawed benchmark.

Though the variables you identify possibly do contribute to CIE's performance, the effect of these variables cannot be measured by direct benchmark comparison in the way you have.

Here is a simpler analogy you might be able to grasp/or not be able to pretend you dont understand.
Basically, there are two fruit sellers. Both have the stated goal of profit. One sells oranges, the other apples.

Now, I personally think the orange seller is a muppet.
By looking at their respective profits the apple seller is the clear winner.
However, this doesnt prove the orange seller is a muppet. There are other factors to consider. Even though they are both selling fruit they have different costs and market dynamics.

gubbie

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

Both situations occurred.

That is being LAZY! Worker A is very busy, if he doesnt do all his work he gets an earful. Customer B sees a line at the info desk / hasnt given himself enough time to catch the train / is too important to cue and asks Worker A an obscure question (to worker A at least). Worker A is not obliged to find the answer, you know who to ask for the answer, you are just LAZY.

I have never been to a train stations where I didnt find it obvious where to ask for information. I challenge you to go to a train station and find it hard to find either the office, or in the case of major stations the information desk.

And hence we come full circle back to the post office worker. Is anyone else not more shocked at Kap's behaviour to the customer then the post office woman? As was pointed out, it helps to just politely point them out where they can get the information rather then just standing there giving them the evils or ranting at them that its not your job to know. How are they supposed to know that thats not your job? Doubt many people have experience working in a train station. It takes two seconds to help them. If it bothers you that much, get a sign saying feic off

Stabshauptmann

You're making the assumption that I refused to help the customer or that I gave them a telling off.
I dont think I said how I reacted to the customer, just that I did start to get frustrated by customers. The thread branched out into a discussion of job satisfaction up at post 45.

I have a lot more patience for front line staff now than I would have had if I'd never had to deal with customers myself. I'm of the philosophy now that no, the customer is not some almighty always right demi-god.

Also you have as much responsibility in the service encounter as the employee and if you want a good service then be a good customer.

It does not take two seconds to help a customer by the way. It can end up taking a considerable % of your working day. there is more than one customer a day. If my manager is not accounting for me helping customers then my productivity looks very bad doesnt it?

And I do not accept for one moment that people do not know what an information desk is for, I think the name gives it away.

r3nu4l

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

And I do not accept for one moment that people do not know what an information desk is for, I think the name gives it away.

While I agree with a lot of what you say, this made me laugh. In my experience Information desks are quite often unmanned or else staffed by people who have either been instructed not to give certain information (depending on circumstances) or just don't know what they are talking about. In many instances, the information desk is staffed by regular staff that are not trained in the practice of communicating information or versed in a company FAQ (if one even exists).

Quite often information desks are only an afterthought.

Stabshauptmann

Thats a pity.

r3nu4l

Yes

cast_iron

hullaball&#250 wrote:

FionnMatthew wrote:

I'm sorry, Hulla, I just really disagree with most of what you've said.

I find that hard to believe given that you've shown yourself to be one of the most intelligent posters on this board on numerous occasions.

That truly has to be one of the most arrogant and condescending statements I've read in quite a while.

This is a subjective argument, not factual - you are not right and Fionn wrong, and vice-versa.

hullaball&#250 wrote:

That is your opinion, to which you are entitled. My opinion is that there are just people out there who will be like that. No matter how much we dislike it, we won't change them. That's just the way it is, though not necessarily the way it ought to be.

Your point went further actually - you were trying to point out that there are circumstances that may justify such behaviour. Like Fionn, I disagree.
From a customer's point of view, whether you broke up with your gf, your manager is a pr1ck, or even the death of somoeone close, none of these matter (nor should they).

Yes, if these circumstances were known to the customer I'm sure sympathy would be felt, but, in my opinion, a different sign on your head displaying which problem it is today isn't, nor shouldn't be warranted. It can't be expected that we sit customers down and explain why their service may not be great today - it should be the same, high level service every day - no exceptions.

funky penguin

Agreed. Its one of the topics on Tesco's training videos!

Unfortunately, its not always going to happen just because it should.

Stabshauptmann

cast iron wrote:

Your point went further actually - you were trying to point out that there are circumstances that may justify such behaviour. Like Fionn, I disagree.
From a customer's point of view, whether you broke up with your gf, your manager is a pr1ck, or even the death of somoeone close, none of these matter (nor should they).

A customer who believes that is a dick head and deserves what ever scorn employees/society give them.

What you are talking about is fundamental attribution bias*. In my opinion FAB shows the existence of a narrow minded fool.


*In other words, people have an unjustified tendency to assume that a person's actions depend on what "kind" of person that person is rather than on the social and environmental forces that influence the person.

cast_iron

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

A customer who believes that is a dick head and deserves what ever scorn employees/society give them.

Hmmm, so if I go to the CIE information desk, politely ask for a train time and get a rude, bad mannered response because the CIE employee is having personal problems - that's okay?? And I'm a narrow minded fool if I don't appreciate this?? That's what you are alluding to, no?? Get real.

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

*In other words, people have an unjustified tendency to assume that a person's actions depend on what "kind" of person that person is rather than on the social and environmental forces that influence the person.

I think the reality is that it's a mixture of both.

But that was never my point. To repeat, from the customer's point of view, an employee's personal problems are no justification for unwarranted, rude, bad mannered service.

lizzyvera

I worked in Dunnes and when I was sick and they made me work anyway, lots of customers asked was I okay and said I should go home and suggested remedies etc. I think most customers are understanding and kind. I wasn't mean or rude though.

That woman could have caused some serious problems if she hadn't been confronted. It wasn't just that she was rude, she didn't know what she was doing!