First Real Post

I guess it's probably pretty pointless to start a blog, write a whole "welcome" post, and then sit around doing nothing. It's not really a good way to get the suspense going. I mean, my first post was a thrill ride, no doubt, but it doesn't quite give a taste of what my blog really is.

First, I'll just tell you a bit about myself, and where the idea for this came from.

I've been in customer service since I was in high school, having worked at "Slaveway" for five and a half years, working my way up from courtesy clerk to cashier to customer service, and then moving to a well known optical retailer about two years ago (which should probably remain nameless, as I am basically begging for my job back at this point in time).

At Slaveway we had many a day in which nothing much got done, and one day I started the list of the Seven Deadly Sins of Slaveway Shoppers. It consisted of all of the things that customers did that bothered us from time to time and, needless to say, grew to be substantially longer than seven sins. Some of the sins include:

-Thou shalt not tell me "You look bored" or "you look lonely" when I has't no customer. I'm not. Leave me alone.

-Thou shalt not be all “are you open??” when the cashier obviously is. The light is ON and the cashier is STANDING there! GOD!!!

-Thou shalt not count out exact change for five minutes like there is some sort of prize. There isn’t. Leave.

And they go on from there. And on. And on. Oh yes--and on.

So what I will do in this blog is attempt to explain why people behave in certain ways. Most of them are probably because these people are deeply stupid, but I am sure some of them have an actual reason behind them. Today, let's start with one from the above list:

Thou shalt not tell me "You look bored" or "you look lonely" when I has't no customer. I'm not. Leave me alone.

This one happened on quite a frequent basis at Slaveway, and bothered pretty much every cashier that I worked with. We would be standing at our till, happily flipping through a magazine (against the rules) or simply staring out into space daydreaming (some of us were daydreaming the daydreams of the perpetually stoned, but daydreaming nonetheless), when a customer would wander out of the aisles, shopping cart bumping into a display of peas, and smile at the cashier saying "Oh, well you look lonely! Let me give you some company!"

Here's a tip for you grocery store shoppers out there: The cashier is never lonely. If they are bored, they are certainly not going to be perked up by ringing through your grocery order. That is the specific reason that they are, in fact, bored.

"But hey," you readers protest. "If you're bored, find something to do!" And to that statement, I would respond by spitting on you. I would have loved nothing better than to go do returns or even face the tills (turn everything so it is facing out). But that was not an option. Nope. Because someone, somewhere, might want to come through my till! And even if seven other tills were open with no customers, I could still not abandon my post! But thanks for your suggestion.

The reason customers say this, I believe, is so that they can feel better about themselves. "Just look at how I've perked up this young man's day!" the customer can think to him or her self! "He was bored, and now I am bringing him the glee of my presence! Yay for me and my tomatoes!" This person can then leave the store knowing that he or she has brightened someone's day, and it didn't even cost them the sixty cents it costs to support one of Suzanne Somers' little starving children! Meanwhile, the cashier has gone back to gazing stupidly at the ceiling with a string of drool hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

Welcome!

I'm not going to lie. I have started this blog for the sole purpose of becoming rich and famous.

Having been unemployed for the past three and a half months in an attempt to gain access to the world of writing/editing/journalism (read: somehow using my English degree and making the past four years of my life worth SOMETHING, dammit), I have become bored and slightly peeved, as well as oddly gassy. I am now going back to a job that I quit due to pride and deep seething rage, and have had to swallow both. So this blog will hopefully be my ticket out of the customer service world for good!

What makes that statement ironic is that this blog is specifically about customer service, and all of the special people I encounter on a day to day basis. People who you know have never been behind a customer service desk, or answered a phone for a store, or served one plate of food to a picky eater in all of his or her life. It's about the people who demand to speak to the manager because something is not in stock, or the person who believes with honest sincerity that the back room of any store is a massive warehouse of hidden goods. Or worse, the people who think that they are good customers, but are really the worst customers of all.

(Cue swelling music): I will share stories from my sordid grocery store past, and my sordid optical retailer present, and may even spice things up with some of my two sisters' antics at various restaurants. And all the while, I will be awaiting the phone calls from publishers around North America begging and pleading to present my stories to the world! Or at least to the three people who still talk to me! (The room grows dim as a spotlight illuminates me): This blog is unique to blogs! It is not about me! It is about people! Phil's people!!!!!