My daughter works in retail in Texas. She doesn’t speak much Spanish but she is learning. One day a customer was arguing with her about the price of an item. My daughter rang up the item while the customer started bad-mouthing her in Spanish. My daughter handed over the purchase and thanked the women and told her to have a nice day…in Spanish. The look on the customer’s face was priceless.
I’m the jerk. Customer service is dead. I quit going to Lowe’s after they fired the cashiers and installed 100% self checkout. My last trip there I went to the service desk to checkout. The clerk said I would have to go to the self checkout. I asked her if I needed to help unload one of their trucks while I was there, she didn’t get it. I finally asked her if she was going to sell me the merchandise or not. I have not been back.
I’ve been known to leave an entire shopping basket next to the empty registers. I must not have been the only one, because I find most stores have at least one register open now. With Lowe’s, in the summer I take everything to the garden checkout which is always staffed.
I'm so glad you have this blog so I can "like" this, since I'm unable to log in at GoComics! Anyway, I'm embarrassed to say that yes, I have been the jerk on occasion. But I'm trying to get better. Seeing things from the other side via your comics does help!
This one is brilliant! Many moons ago, a friend and I worked the counter at a deli. My friend made a sandwich for this woman--I believe it was brisket--and she brought it back several times, complaining about one thing or another. Too much sauce, too little sauce, etc., etc. The last time, he turned around, spat a huge wad of phlegm into it and gave it back to her. She munched it right down and was happy. I wouldn't recommend this as a common practice, of course, but it seemed to work this particular time!
I knew someone back in those days who dropped some short and curlies in a cheese omelette for her boss. The woman complimented her on it! 😂 We really were idiots back then….
This essay is a perfectly faceted and spattle-polished diamond. What could be reason hordes of business thieves don't today descend to plunder its beauty, its power to see clear the past, the present, the future? 2 reasons there are. They're so used to dealing in fakeish zirchonium, they mistrust the appraisals of their own vast experience in cunning and acquisition. The 2ne and main reason, the long awaited prophesy and promise of AI. Each section of this essay has enough finely honed comic material to pump lifeblood vigor into a 20-minute (30, really, allowing for ten minutes of ads) episode of...this very possible, close to inevitable, Creator-Sourced Adult Children comic strip AI animated-thing-based series. Distribution terms to be hacked out in some later melee battle.
This piece captures and expresses what many have to go through in the service industry. It is hyper-one-sided, but that's the vantage point of the writer/cartoonist, and if it allows tension release then that's not nothing. There is grotesqueness of behavior on each and all sides. In fact the behavior and attitude of those on the storeside of these cartoons is near as tragic and depressing as the attempted snapshots at the demented customers. But the message is the same. People can be toxic to each other. They have their reasons for doing so (which involves heavy weight, felt-disrespect, hositility and coldness ... etc). There is a powerful pushback in satire and we are all a fan (mostly when the people who piss us off are the ones being lambasted), but there is higher medicine and solution, which often comes in the form of gentleness and understanding. But it's not easy to do ... and this is why most will mock, counter-condescend, fight and put the sharper edges to each other. The last thing to mention that people in the service end of things forget (and we've all been in that role at one time or another) is that we are the face of the imperfect and often callous industries who employ us. That by getting paid by them to sit in that chair, stand at that counter, pose in front of that table, we are agreeing to be living shock absorbers for the moment for all our companies do that is wrong. Does it free the customer up to monsterishly mistreat us? No. Should it give us a reason ... to move on down the road ... to represent better enterprises? Perhaps.
My daughter works in retail in Texas. She doesn’t speak much Spanish but she is learning. One day a customer was arguing with her about the price of an item. My daughter rang up the item while the customer started bad-mouthing her in Spanish. My daughter handed over the purchase and thanked the women and told her to have a nice day…in Spanish. The look on the customer’s face was priceless.
The thousand-yard stare works wonders. It makes my "customers" take two steps back and slink away.
You, sir, have nailed it. Many, many years ago I was taught that skill by a mentor who knew his shit.
I’m the jerk. Customer service is dead. I quit going to Lowe’s after they fired the cashiers and installed 100% self checkout. My last trip there I went to the service desk to checkout. The clerk said I would have to go to the self checkout. I asked her if I needed to help unload one of their trucks while I was there, she didn’t get it. I finally asked her if she was going to sell me the merchandise or not. I have not been back.
I don’t blame you in that situation. Companies have replaced cheap labor with free labor.
I’ve been known to leave an entire shopping basket next to the empty registers. I must not have been the only one, because I find most stores have at least one register open now. With Lowe’s, in the summer I take everything to the garden checkout which is always staffed.
A waiter said to me once. “There are two types of customer: the ones who help you out the plate down and the ones who don’t.” I think that’s true.
Just what I needed and what I sent to my daughter who works in high-end retail.
I'm so glad you have this blog so I can "like" this, since I'm unable to log in at GoComics! Anyway, I'm embarrassed to say that yes, I have been the jerk on occasion. But I'm trying to get better. Seeing things from the other side via your comics does help!
I’m sorry about not being able to log into GoComics. I hope that gets fixed for you.
Working on the other side of the counter rapidly makes one far more considerate to other retail workers.
This one is brilliant! Many moons ago, a friend and I worked the counter at a deli. My friend made a sandwich for this woman--I believe it was brisket--and she brought it back several times, complaining about one thing or another. Too much sauce, too little sauce, etc., etc. The last time, he turned around, spat a huge wad of phlegm into it and gave it back to her. She munched it right down and was happy. I wouldn't recommend this as a common practice, of course, but it seemed to work this particular time!
Really, though, never do this. At the very least, you could be arrested, and ewwwww….
Yeah, that was a very long time ago, like, 1980. We were young and stupid, and got away with a lot of stuff that we really shouldn't have!
I knew someone back in those days who dropped some short and curlies in a cheese omelette for her boss. The woman complimented her on it! 😂 We really were idiots back then….
This is why I don’t eat out anymore.
Tbh, she only did it to a terrible boss…
Your poll leaves out “killing them with kindness, and a whole lotta attitude.”
I didn’t have room to include April Bloom customers, but I think her character has that covered.
This essay is a perfectly faceted and spattle-polished diamond. What could be reason hordes of business thieves don't today descend to plunder its beauty, its power to see clear the past, the present, the future? 2 reasons there are. They're so used to dealing in fakeish zirchonium, they mistrust the appraisals of their own vast experience in cunning and acquisition. The 2ne and main reason, the long awaited prophesy and promise of AI. Each section of this essay has enough finely honed comic material to pump lifeblood vigor into a 20-minute (30, really, allowing for ten minutes of ads) episode of...this very possible, close to inevitable, Creator-Sourced Adult Children comic strip AI animated-thing-based series. Distribution terms to be hacked out in some later melee battle.
I’m fiddling about with some animation.
This piece captures and expresses what many have to go through in the service industry. It is hyper-one-sided, but that's the vantage point of the writer/cartoonist, and if it allows tension release then that's not nothing. There is grotesqueness of behavior on each and all sides. In fact the behavior and attitude of those on the storeside of these cartoons is near as tragic and depressing as the attempted snapshots at the demented customers. But the message is the same. People can be toxic to each other. They have their reasons for doing so (which involves heavy weight, felt-disrespect, hositility and coldness ... etc). There is a powerful pushback in satire and we are all a fan (mostly when the people who piss us off are the ones being lambasted), but there is higher medicine and solution, which often comes in the form of gentleness and understanding. But it's not easy to do ... and this is why most will mock, counter-condescend, fight and put the sharper edges to each other. The last thing to mention that people in the service end of things forget (and we've all been in that role at one time or another) is that we are the face of the imperfect and often callous industries who employ us. That by getting paid by them to sit in that chair, stand at that counter, pose in front of that table, we are agreeing to be living shock absorbers for the moment for all our companies do that is wrong. Does it free the customer up to monsterishly mistreat us? No. Should it give us a reason ... to move on down the road ... to represent better enterprises? Perhaps.
People have a right to be angry, and jerks for that matter, but there’s a difference between the two.
You’ve never worked retail pharmacy, have you? 😂😂
I was once in a relationship with a pharmacy tech and was certainly exposed to a lot of frightening tales and germs.