As we begin to enter the holiday season, a time of increased foot traffic and heavy workloads for most businesses, I hope customers will be as patient and polite with employees (many of whom are paid minimum wage) as those staff members are expected to be with shoppers.
All too often, all year round, I see customers come into businesses with an entitled attitude and mistreating staff for complaints beyond that staff member's control. They disrupt merchandise and leave a mess behind them everywhere they go. They storm up to the counter demanding, "I want" and "give me."
They expect staff to rush them through transactions in the blink of an eye while not being at all prepared for the process themselves: "Oh, let me get my wallet out. Now, which card actually works?” "Where are my glasses, I think I left them in the car.” They gripe about high prices to people who did not set them and struggle with them even more. The long line of customers waiting at the register glares at the cashier, rather than the customer getting their third card declined, and eagerly berates the staff member the moment they finally reach the front of the line.
We are to behave in businesses just as we would as a guest in a friend's home: being polite and courteous; respecting the people and the space around us; not making a mess and cleaning up after ourselves, if we do; letting others go first sometimes; saying a simple "please" and "thank you.”
We start requests with a "can I" or a "may I please?” We approach service counters when called, not when staff are clearly in the middle of something. We follow the instructions of knowledgeable, trained employees with daily experience, because they know best.
These are all simple concepts taught to children even before kindergarten, yet somehow adults feel justified to check polite behavior at the door when shopping, especially during the holiday season. This behavior turns stores into battle grounds that feel like every man for himself and forces staff to wrangle overgrown toddlers. It is physically and mentally draining to be in an environment like this for eight or more hours a day.
It's quite clear that some people have been so blessed as to never work customer service, because they operate from a place of not knowing how it feels to be on the other side: treated with less respect than an old plow horse and not allowed to stand up for oneself without the risk of getting fired. This is not the 1800s; customers are not the aristocracy and customer service workers are not "the help."
"No one wants to work these days," I hear quite often. Well, maybe they would, if customers weren't ornery.
So the next time you're in a crowded store, please have some compassion and show due respect to the exhausted people working hard to keep the business running.
Kaelin Young
Centralia
