We have all heard the horror stories of working customer service.
According to NELP, the National Employment Law Project, an employee who worked at McDonald’s reported that a man hit her with a wet floor sign because he wanted to use the bathroom that she was cleaning.
This is only one out of millions of stories of abuse that happen in the workplace.
Customer service employees are constantly being treated horribly but they can never retaliate. They must always stay in character and stick to the motto “Service with a smile.”
It is incredible to me how people can be so rude to employees. They treat people as if they were pets or slaves and not human.
According to ProPublica, an employee working at Bath & Body Works explained that they are not allowed to hang up on customers under any circumstances.
“We have to sit there basically and listen to these people until they run out of steam. It’s like they don’t see us as a person.” Not only do customers treat employees badly, but even managers treat their own employees horribly.
The only reason why employees are not allowed to hang up: because their managers want to make sales. This is the main reason why “the customer is always right” was even made a thing.
Corporations only care about the money. They want to make as much money as they can, even at the expense of their own employees.
This is something that my sister struggles with at her workplace.
She is the only employee who is bilingual, so her managers always give her customers who cannot speak English.
However, her workplace is not paying her extra for being a translator. But without my sister, they would not make any sales due to the language barrier.
Customers are not always right! We need to remember that customer service employees are very overworked and underpaid.
They should not have to deal with the attitude from customers.
You may be having a bad day, but that does not give you the excuse to treat everyone else badly as well. We should be treating customer service employees with the most respect, especially if they work in fast food restaurants.
Fast food restaurants are obviously very fast paced, which may cause stress to employees.
You do not want to add more stress by being rude. Simply be polite when ordering.
You do not need to be energetic, but you should not be rude either.
And do not get angry if they get your order wrong. Do not yell at them, just be kind and let them know they got your order wrong.
People make mistakes, and that is OK.
Melissa Mora Olivera
Centralia
