My emotions for sale - 'service with a smile' getting me down

nicky_noo1515

I had an awful day at work today, in fact, when I think about it, most days lately have been awful.

I'm working in retail almost a year, about 35 hours a week, most of it on the customer service desk. I know interacting with customers in a positive way is a big part of my job and I usually enjoy the customers, most are grand, some even good craic.

Lately however, I seem to be getting all the angry / crazy / rude / ignorant ones. Today I was told how stupid I was by a lady because I wouldn't exchange a pack of panties for her (it's store policy), my manager had a go at me in front of a cue of customers because the returns were backing up (I was so busy serving I didn't have time to put them back I was the only one on the desk), and I was threatened by a young fella because I refused to serve him alcohol as he had no ID and looked about 16 (he told me "Ill be back for ya you ugly bitch").

I would LOVE to just tell these people to eff off for themselves, but I can't. I just have the smile ready for the next customer (in fairness a lot of the time it's even a genuine smile).

I was wondering is there many of you out there in a similar situation, how do ye deal with this? and after a day like mine do you still feel like crap long after you get home?

Sorry bout the long post, just fed up. Looking for another job right now!

Clampdown

nicky_noo1515 wrote: »

I had an awful day at work today, in fact, when I think about it, most days lately have been awful.

I'm working in retail almost a year, about 35 hours a week, most of it on the customer service desk. I know interacting with customers in a positive way is a big part of my job and I usually enjoy the customers, most are grand, some even good craic.

Lately however, I seem to be getting all the angry / crazy / rude / ignorant ones. Today I was told how stupid I was by a lady because I wouldn't exchange a pack of panties for her (it's store policy), my manager had a go at me in front of a cue of customers because the returns were backing up (I was so busy serving I didn't have time to put them back I was the only one on the desk), and I was threatened by a young fella because I refused to serve him alcohol as he had no ID and looked about 16 (he told me "Ill be back for ya you ugly bitch").

I would LOVE to just tell these people to eff off for themselves, but I can't. I just have the smile ready for the next customer (in fairness a lot of the time it's even a genuine smile).

I was wondering is there many of you out there in a similar situation, how do ye deal with this? and after a day like mine do you still feel like crap long after you get home?

Sorry bout the long post, just fed up. Looking for another job right now!

I'd say the personal issues forum is a better place for this.

My ex gf works in a supermarket chain store and she used to come home in tears from the treatment she got from management and rude customers. She's decided to quit now, she's had enough.

Rude customers are one thing, but retail management seems to attract a certain type of power tripping plonker. They often nothing but divide and belittle the staff they're meant to manage and then wonder why people leave and the ones who stay are unmotivated.

the_syco

Go here; http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055527204

And vent. It helps

As for the job, care less. If you care too much, it'll get you down.

Speedwell

I worked in retail for many years. It helps to remember that the customers rarely see themselves as interacting with a person; they see you as the company. It often helps to present yourself as a person who understands their issue and sympathises, but you have to do your job and enforce policy. If the customer still objects, I've found it helpful to be able to say, "I have had a lot of customers mention that. Would you like the e-mail for Customer Service so that you can ask them about this policy?" More than that you really can't do. (The young chancer was just being a rude git and you should not bother yourself at all about it. I used to take great pleasure in being very sweet but very dismissive to them. "Sorry, honey, I'm not losing my job over your three-dollar beer. What else can I get for you?")

If you know that your manager has the authority to make an exception to the policy to which the customer is objecting, then the proper thing to do is refer the customer to your manager so that the manager can decide whether an exception applies in their particular case.

Your manager, however, was completely out of line to do that to you. It is their task to make sure resources are adequately assigned so that work doesn't back up. No manager should have a go at any employee in front of customers. If the company you work for has an HR complaint procedure, this would be a good time to think hard about using it so that the manager can't hold your job over your head for your "performance" when the issue stemmed from their own inability to do their job properly.

nicky_noo1515

Thanks for the advice, I did try the "I don't make the rules I just have to follow them" line but just got complained for being rude!! Most of my managers are ok except for the number 1 in charge (who literally lives in the store!). I'd swear she sleeps under the unpackaged duvets in the stockroom. If she's having a bad day we all have a bad day.
I find forcing the smile just leaves me exhausted bythe time I finish my shift. It's almost better to somehow conjure up some positivity and genuinely be genuine. Might even get some of that positivity in return!
The Coronas had it right though. One man's mood can break another man's soul. For sure.

turbot

Nicky,

Though it may not be obvious, given these daily challenges you have an opportunity to develop skills that will enhance your whole life.

A useful way to think about your challenge is this:
- Your personality, patterns of thought and ways of behaving generate a certain amount of "good mood" and stress relief. Under ordinary conditions if you're quite a happy person to begin with, you have the means to stay in a good mood.

- Your place of work demands of you a different level of emotional fitness, including the ability to flush stress and cultivate and trigger a positive state of mind despite dealing with difficult personalities and angry / resentful / difficult people.

In your place of work, you can predict that you will continue to encounter difficult people who behave in obnoxious ways. You can also predict that you may be reprimanded if you demonstrate a lack of courtesy regardless of what those people actually deserve.

So the question becomes, how can you develop skills of state control, like an actor, to make you more successful in your job? It must be humanly possible after all, given that some people work with much more difficult personalities than obnoxious retail customers and/or are regularly exposed to tragedy and injustice.

So here are some tips that may help:
- firstly, if you can predict that you will be stressed, you need to prioritise things in your life that offset stress. Moreover, you need to do this with high efficiency. So make a list of things that transform your state of mind from stressed to a feeling of reset where you would least become okay. For me, vigourous exercise, stretching, watching comedy, walking through forests, and even time to settle… some quiet time to myself helps me feel better. But if I have less time, sometimes meditational martial arts techniques like breathing deeply with my stomach while focusing on my centre of gravity, that place 2 inches below my belly button is supportive.

Ideally, you will make sure your life includes more things that make you feel better to offset the stress of work, and immediately following any incidences you can use breathing techniques and ways of focusing your attention to reset fast. Once you trust your ability to go from being stressed to calm, stressful events will be less disruptive.

- Secondly, you need to build up your sense of character to develop a kind of superpower for dealing with difficult people. So for example, if you think of yourself as a happy person who then has to deal with an intimidating customer, it's natural to react badly. However if you were to try the following thought experiment and imagine that you were Margaret Thatcher or Hillary Clinton and an obnoxious customer try to wind you up, their effects might just bounce off you.

- Third, in such situations a lot of people find certain visualisation is helpful. For example, if you imagine yourself inside a bubble of light of a bright blue quality… That acts like a container for your positive emotions but also like a shield against other people's negativity, then if an angry person tries to vent or put you in a bad mood your practised visualisation can filter and repel their negativity.

So if you practice such things, you can develop a legitimate skill to be less disruptable by negative people. This can serve you in many areas of your life… And may actually make you strong in ways that will underpin your success.

I hope you find this helpful.

Penny Tration

Worked in retail for years, and I find that when I'm dealing with arsey complaining customers, there's a specific way of saying "I don't make the rules" that usually works better.


Act sympathetic. Instead of saying you're just following rules, say something like "no, I totally understand, I know you haven't used them. Unfortunately, we're not allowed change underwear just on the off chance they've been worn, you know what some people are like, and it ruins it for you and me. I can't even return them myself, so i get where you're coming from."


Usually showing some (totally fake) sympathy will make people a lot more likely to understand your position and respond in a nicer way.


That said, if someone calls you a bitch, or swears at you, that's the time to call your manager or security, and refuse to serve them. Youre not paid to take abuse.

dudara

Not a Consumer Issue, moving to Work & Jobs

Tom Dunne

Also consider what you do outside of work to relieve stress. Do you get much exercise or have hobbies that will totally take your mind off your job?

Having worked in stressful jobs myself, I really found exercise and having a hobby makes you more able to deal with the stresses of the job.

Speedwell

My mother was a great believer in "fake it till you make it". Just like my tech support clients don't care if I'm having a bad day, your customers don't care about your feelings. Not in a professional sense, anyway. If you can't get good feelings out of your work, the thing to do, in the short term, is to be an actor and pretend to be pleasant and helpful. People respond well to it and it often helps things along. It's really just professionalism. The customer is NOT "always right", and sometimes they aren't even a customer, but it takes a lot of experience and tact to figure out when that's true (but I can tell you the customer with the panties was wrong, and the young ass wasn't a customer).

Galwayguy35

Being threatened by some young fella while at work is not on, chances are the biggest part of him was his mouth but nobody should have to put up with that.

Speedwell

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

Being threatened by some young fella while at work is not on, chances are the biggest part of him was his mouth but nobody should have to put up with that.

That's also a manager's responsibility, to back up their staff. Managers can't always be in every place at every time, though, and realistically the front line staff should have strategies in place to handle the occasional bad actor. If there's a pattern or if it happens every day or so, then the managers clearly need to get involved in order to protect their employees.

nicky_noo1515

Cheers for all the replies guys, I wasn't expecting so much support. Turbot I will definitely take your advice on board. Also ya the exercise is always good after a long day, it's hard sometimes not to bring the negativity home with me and my poor husband bears the brunt of that. The exercise clears the headspace a bit!

Mrs OBumble

Pretty much every job requires emotional self regulation: if you think retail is hard, imagine being a social worker or emergency department nurse, going from one crisis to the next.

It's hard for sure, but it's what they're paying you for. It does get easier over time as you see the patterns in people's behaviour and realise that generally it's not about you, it's the company that people are being nasty to.

Galwayguy35

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Pretty much every job requires emotional self regulation: if you think retail is hard, imagine being a social worker or emergency department nurse, going from one crisis to the next.

It's hard for sure, but it's what they're paying you for. It does get easier over time as you see the patterns in people's behaviour and realise that generally it's not about you, it's the company that people are being nasty to.

They're not paying her to take abuse from ignorant people with no manners and she certainly isn't being paid to take threats from some little scrote who thinks he's a hard man.

A very dismissive post IMO about someone who seems to be having a tough time of it.

nicky_noo1515

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

They're not paying her to take abuse from ignorant people with no manners and she certainly isn't being paid to take threats from some little scrote who thinks he's a hard man.

A very dismissive post IMO about someone who seems to be having a tough time of it.

I thought so too. I am doing my best to get on with it but have received zero training to help deal with this and get zero support from management who are usually upstairs in an office somewhere. As for calling security lets just say I don't hold my breath waiting.

I know the likes of social workers and emergency service personnel have to deal with emotion work on a whole different level, (and are trained to do so). But if like Bumble says this is what the company are paying me to deal with, I'm asking for a hefty pay rise first thing in the morning!

Mrs OBumble

Galwayguy35 wrote: »

They're not paying her to take abuse from ignorant people with no manners and she certainly isn't being paid to take threats from some little scrote who thinks he's a hard man.

A very dismissive post IMO about someone who seems to be having a tough time of it.

Not trying to be dismissive - just pointing out the harsh reality.

Maybe you are on mobile, and can't see that the thread title is "My emotions for sale - service with a smile getting me down". That what I was responding to, by saying that most jobs do in fact buy not just your time but also your behaviour - which often includes doing things that are contrary to your feelings.

Sadly, part of retail is being paid to enforce laws about controlled substances, and therefore take sh*t from scrotes who hate that you do that. And verbals from people who don't like the companies policies.

Retail workers should receive training and support for this. It sounds like the OP is working in an unsupportive company, so I would definitely encourage him/her to look for a better place to work.

But don't be expecting that your emotions won't be for sale elsewhere, because they will be no matter what you do.

bonyn

I could take anything from customers when I was in cs and retail. Most of the time I saw their reason for complaining, and viewed it as an attack on the company rather than on me.

Diffuse the situation, solve the problem, serve the next customer. That's your job, and it's the reason they employ a person and not a robot.

newacc2015

The most effective line I discovered while working is saying in a soft tone with a smile "I'm sorry, but it is company policy. I would really love to help you, I do. But its the company policy and I have to follow it." Most customers accepted it and moved on. If a customer didnt and got aggressive, I would repeat the line. After hearing the line several times even the most aggressive and condescending customers would just leave.

I know there is service with a smile, but you are not a punchbag. If a customer was rude to me my manager would allow me not to serve them or I would not be accommodating of their request ie insert the my generic one line

The only customer that pissed me off in several years of working customer service jobs was some bitch who made a totally unreasonable request and I told her I couldn't do that. She said to me "It is your job". I said "Correct it is my job, my part time job. I actually in University studying ... . This is not my job or my life, it is part time job for now". She immediately changed her tone and apologised me. She didnt apologise to me for the way she spoke to me, she apologised for the fact I was equal/better than her as I was in University and not the dumb retail workers she assumed I was. I told her next time she flips at someone in a shop, treat them like an intelligent person, as they probably are

9/10 a manager will support an employee sticking up for themselves. No one likes a doormat

doc11

newacc2015 wrote: »

The most effective line I discovered while working is saying in a soft tone with a smile "I'm sorry, but it is company policy. I would really love to help you, I do. But its the company policy and I have to follow it." Most customers accepted it and moved on. If a customer didnt and got aggressive, I would repeat the line. After hearing the line several times even the most aggressive and condescending customers would just leave.

I know there is service with a smile, but you are not a punchbag. If a customer was rude to me my manager would allow me not to serve them or I would not be accommodating of their request ie insert the my generic one line

The only customer that pissed me off in several years of working customer service jobs was some bitch who made a totally unreasonable request and I told her I couldn't do that. She said to me "It is your job". I said "Correct it is my job, my part time job. I actually in University studying ... . This is not my job or my life, it is part time job for now". She immediately changed her tone and apologised me. She didnt apologise to me for the way she spoke to me, she apologised for the fact I was equal/better than her as I was in University and not the dumb retail workers she assumed I was. I told her next time she flips at someone in a shop, treat them like an intelligent person, as they probably are

9/10 a manager will support an employee sticking up for themselves. No one likes a doormat

If i had a complaint and the employee started going on about his/her university degree and how smart they were I don't think it'd diffuse the situation. It'd make it far worse.

it's more likely the customer saw you were only there part time and at university and took pity on you rather then your incredible brains intimating them:pac:

Most managers will keep the customers sweet not the employees