In the service industry, this happens all too much...this whole "shooting of the messenger".
I'm sure it is just as likely to occur in other workplaces as well. People create scapegoats, throw others under the bus. It's a common practice and hey, someone has to take the blame, right?
If the food is bad at the restaurant, people bitch at the server. If the food is too salty, people bitch at the server. If it's too cold, people bitch at the server. If the room temperature isn't right, people bitch at the server. If the music is too loud, if the drink isn't strong enough, if their child is out of hand, if the menu has been changed, if the prices have been raised, if we no longer offer that kind of beer....people constantly take their issues out on the front runner of the service-- the waiter-- and more than likely the tip is docked because of this misunderstanding which only adds insult to injury.
So this is a case of an instance I experienced with less than stellar customer service based in a retail setting. Since I have not used any actual names of people, places, cities or venues, I'll stay on that track just for the sake of anonymity. For fun though, let's just call this store Smart Fan seeing as how everyone is intelligent enough to figure it out for themselves if they so wish.
The salesperson I had was warm, friendly and helpful. He didn't breathe down our necks like typical salespeople do for the sake of staking out commission, but let us wander instead. Milling through the rows of couches, my mother and I tested each out for comfort so thoroughly even Goldilocks would approve. After bouncing on and reclining into nearly every couch on the showroom floor, I finally settled on a larger, very traditional tufted sofa and a patterned side chair. Twelve hundred bucks later, I was informed that the delivery date would be two weeks.
Of course, the three hour window that we are given from Smart Fan, the delivery guys show up with ten minutes to spare. Not like I didn't have anything else to do that day as it was my day off...
The couch shows, not the chair.
Where the fuck is my chair.
The reason the delivery took two weeks was because I was waiting for both pieces to be treated with a stain-resiting chemical and delivered together... I could have had the couch the same day of purchasing it, but didn't want to inconvenience myself with two delivery dates. So the funny part is, the couch which was readily available was postponed and the chair I had waited on didn't show after all.
A much necessary call was immediately placed to the company. The discussion quickly turned into a full-blast faucet of excuses, the Niagra Falls if you will, on behalf of the furniture store. A torrent of explanations tailed by even more justifications. Something about how the warehouse is in Grand Rapids. Something about the distributor not having that chair. Something about how my chair was part of a set on sale so it may have gotten sold to someone else. Sifting through all of the bullshit, all I heard was someone not doing their job right.
Usually, this is the point where the customers I wait on decide go all Jekyll and Hyde on me and dump a case of whoop-ass on my once semi-acceptable day. Which is exactly what I wanted to do. Tear someone's face off and hand it back to them after doing a shimmy-shaking, heel-grinding Mexican hat dance on the inside of it.
But I didn't. I thought about all the times I have gotten the wrath of someone else's mistake. I dealt with getting put on hold for more than several times, and calmly explained the situation for the eighth time to whom I was speaking. A few more minutes later and another hundred was knocked off my bill for the trouble.
Of course, if your food gets messed up, I'm not going to grant you a hundred dollar comp. And if someone spills wine on you, we'll pay for dry cleaning. If you want a replacement, that money does actually come out of the server's personal piggybank. The point is, if there is an error, I will do my best to apologize, listen to what needs to be fixed, and try to rectify the situation and make amends.
God willing, you're the kind of person that has a little grace within themselves to hold whatever it is, in, and not go apeshit with a bad case of verbal diarrhea on how you really feel. That's just obnoxious, and such extreme Negative Nancy's are quite frankly the kind of people who we don't fix things for. :)
So now, here I sit, no longer on the floor of my apartment, but in a fully furnished room as I look over at my newly received accent chair and smile to myself. Life ain't that bad.
- Malia Etienette
Photo Credit:
Shooting the Messenger- www.elementalseattle.com
Not Rare- www.devdogtyson.blogspot.com
Furniture Fail- www.cheezburger.com
Apology as Cure- www.reportingonhealth.org
Life is Good logo- www.glidemagazine.com
No comments:
Post a Comment