The Six-Month Customer Service Mark

I should have known I would hit it.

True, this job isn't "customer service" in the sense that a certain mega-chain store (let's call it, Hal-Mart) or grocery store (Palbertson's) or fast food, excuse me, quick-service restaurant (Dropeye's) are. But it's a form of customer service nonetheless. And I seem to have a bit of a pattern. Right around the six-month mark, the temptation to go off on someone is unbearably strong.

I had a customer yesterday, one of my problem-children all along anyway, who just totally ticked me off. Her attitude about what we were there to do bit the big one, and then she had the nerve to not only take a cell-phone call while she was in my office (big enough no-no) but to carry on a WHOLE CONVERSATION. Word to the wise, if you want me to help you navigate these godawful systems on which you depend, then the only call that should be more than, "I'll have to call you back, I'm with my caseworker," had better be serious. Like I tell my kids when they're interrupting me to whine about each other: if nobody is bleeding, unconscious, dying, or in danger of doing so, then it can wait until I'm done with what I'm doing.

So anyway, I gave her a bit of a talking-to, but I don't think I was out of line with that one. If anything, I think she's been needing that for a while. Today, however... I had another customer who ticked me off, fifteen minutes before I was about to walk out the door to head for school. Already stressed thanks to the take-home final that I was up finishing at 2 a.m. And if she had been talking to me like that in person instead of over the phone, I suspect I'd be in jail for assault right now.

Still, it's nothing compared to the incident six months into my job at, um, Dropeye's. You see, there was a couple that came into the place fairly often, and they were PITAs. The kind that always had something to gripe about, always had to have something prepared in a special way, or the box of chicken a different way than it was supposed to come. Well, one night they came in at about five minutes to closing. This particular night, I was under extra pressure because one of my managers, who was trying hard to get me fired (no, that's not paranoia, he even said so), had essentially told me that if I didn't finish cleaning the lobby, and clock out, by fifteen minutes after closing, he'd be giving me the second (bogus) write-up of the week. So I was in a hurry, and when I saw their car in the parking lot, I just knew it was trouble.

They came in. They ordered their box of chicken (no wings, a certain amount of thighs, extra breasts but no extra charge for them - strictly against policy but they often put up such a fuss that they got away with it), and then said that they didn't want the chicken already under the heat lamp, they wanted chicken dropped fresh. Well first of all, the chicken under the heat lamp had been coming up out of the grease around the same time they were pulling into the parking lot. And second, a new batch would take 12-15 minutes, and we don't make a batch that close to closing when we still have chicken ready. Still, they fussed until the manager agreed to drop the chicken fresh. He also told me to go ahead and pack up the biscuits and sides and put them under the heat lamp, so they would be ready as soon as the chicken was. As I packaged them, the man from the couple proceeded to instruct me, quite loudly, that he didn't want his sides packed until his chicken was ready, he wanted everything fresh. Now, how "in the steam table" is somehow more fresh than "under the heat lamp," I will never know. Still, I relayed that order to my manager, who knew that I was stressed about the other manager's threat - though he had no idea of the reason behind it - and told me to just worry about cleaning my lobby, he would pack the sides when the chicken came up.

Everything could have been fine. Except as I wiped the counter and cleaned all the tables aside from the one where they were sitting, the man peered at me through his beady little eyes and said, "Young lady, I want to know why you have such a problem making my order the way I want it." My shoulders tensed, I tossed down the towel I was using to clean up, slapped my palms sharply atop the counter, and glared at him. My voice rose with each word. "You want to know why I have a problem? YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY I HAVE A FREAKING (but I didn't say "freaking") PROBLEM? I HAVE A FREAKING PROBLEM BECAUSE YOU WALK IN HERE FIVE MINUTES TO CLOSING DEMANDING THAT WE DROP FRESH CHICKEN FOR YOU WHEN THE CHICKEN WE ALREADY HAD WAS LESS THAN TWO MINUTES OUT OF THE GREASE..." and it went on. Two of my coworkers (poor little scrawny teenage boys) came up on either side of me and grabbed me by the arms, trying to pull me back because by this time I was leaning halfway across the counter. I threw them both off me as easily as a bear would swat a fly, and continued my rant until I had spoken my piece, ending with an emphatic, "THAT'S why I have a freaking problem!!!" I then promptly ran to the back room and started crying. My manager followed, and bless his heart, had no idea how to deal with his sobbing, though foul-mouthed, employee. He practically pleaded with me to stop crying, saying there was nothing to cry about. "Nothing to cry about? I'm gonna lose my job and I can't afford to lose my job!" To my surprise, he said I wasn't going to lose my job. Seeing my bewildered expression, he told me that this particular couple was a thorn in many sides anyway, and that just about everyone in the store, management included, had been dying to tell them off. I saved them the trouble, he said, and we paid them off with some free food, and everyone felt better for the vent. Well, everyone at Dropeye's; I'm sure the customers didn't feel too great!

Well, I'm sure if I go off at a customer here it will be a different story, so instead I will just grin and bear it, and schedule myself a day off very soon, when I can just go somewhere and be by myself and not think about anything even remotely related to work. (Well... maybe one thing.) And I'm sure some of you reading this would be surprised to know that Sweet Little Sara can have such a vicious and violent temper, though it rarely sees the light of day. Now all I'm looking forward to tonight is a nice, long, hot bath in a huge tub, some pizza, and a little cocoa with Bailey's. My idea of heaven...