Customer Service Paradox
 

1. Albertsons grocery store line (15 items or less)

2. Mean old man, in power chair(Albertson's provided)

I am waiting in line without a care in the world. Old man inches chair back at angle and starts to loudly berate the checkers on how bad a job they are doing trying to lull me into his manifesto.

"what the fuck are they doing anyways", old man.

"every fucking time I come her the same old shit", old man.

Standing there I know the checkers can hear him. I visually segregate myself from him with a flash of my eye and slight wave of my hand. The old man finally is paying for his stuff. Of course I don't have to tell you that his has all kinds of old man problems with the debit card . After the third time the checker quickly turns the debit card machine before the old actually pushes any buttons.

"what are going to do fucking type it for me?", old man.

"No sir, just making sure it works correctly for you", turning the machine slowly towards him "please type in your pin slowly sir", checker dude.

Old man cursing and labored, turns the handles on the battery wheelchair and leaves.

"How are you doing?", checker dude.

"Better than that guy.", me.

"He's like that every time.", dude.


So why bother giving all that respect and customer service to that guy when myself and the other customers around me felt pretty offended by him. From what I understand he is there often and is always like that.

Knowing that guy might be there again makes me not what to come back again. I would bet other people around me might feel that way. At what point do you change your scope and refuse people like that? In my expierence there are more people like this at Winco and Albertsons than Raleys. I'm not going to say it's economic based side effect that's just an observation.

Fuck that old man.

How dare you disrespect an old person's right to be annoying! I plan on being that way one day :)

Just as long as you don't make me look bad by standing next to you.

holy Crap, that dude needs to drink more ensure. Angry old F.

Fixed.

He probably forgot his metimucil and is all clogged up and angry about it.

It seems like I run into these poeple like twice a week. I need to get out of Sparks.

It's like the lady the that threw the bottle of vodka on the ground in fit of anger, at the same albertson's I was standing behind her also. I'll admit that was kind of an awesome spectacle of white trash.

i hope to be like that wheni'm a dirty old man... and i hope i'm prescribed a colostomy bag so i can throw it at will to younger and more fit people than me.

I would have got a kick out of it. When I was in CS, I would always kill them with kindness. Can't let mean people get you down. Sounds like the checker has the right idea.

It didn't get me down as much as offend me. I surely didn't get a kick out it. At what point does somebody say enough is enough.

So they guy is just staring at them swearing at them. Im sure the lady working the other checkstand was somebody's mother. Would you like your Mom to get talked to that way. This guy wasn't just passing time in line swearing to himself.

It's fun and all to be an asshole but it's not like you have to degrade someone's job. This was unprovoked.

If the checker was an old lady who was getting all flustered over it, then I wouldn't get a kick out of it and I'd be more in line with your thinking. Somthing like that would never offend me personally, but I don't like to see old people disrespected.

We here at your local friendly Nissan dealer have a bad habit of telling people like that to get bent! There is a point where it's obvious that this person is simply taking out their frustrations on you, despite the fact that you're doing your job as well as you can. I've personally got no problem telling some irate old bastard to go f*ck himself!

Mechanic is second in the average person's list of "people with jobs we hate" right behind used car salesmen.

I was prob at the same Albertson's (Oddie) I was also in the Speedy line minding my own, there was a handicapped man in a motorized wheel chair. He was trying to pay for his stuff with some type of gov't check, when the little checkout lady told him he couldn't use that to by his stuff (mostly assorted cheap Vodka) he became Irate.

He started swearing at her, slurred, and slow, and very loud. She told him she was sorry and couldn't do anything. He continued till I finally suggested he go to a bank, cash his check. He pulled a fifty point turn in checkout aisle looked me as dead in the eye as he could raised his left hand to flip me off ( he had little motor control over his fingers so they were all sticking up) and told me to "F-off"

After that he left. I'm not really sure what is up with that store. Must be the shady apartements nearby. I always thought Albertsons was a little more up-town than that........

Here's the solution:

Tyson: "Excuse me sir, are you a veteran of our nation's military?"
Old Man: "No."
Tyson: "Then quit your bitchen, pay for your shit, and get the fuck out of this line. You don't have the right to whine about your life to the point where it fucks up the day for the rest of us."

If he says "yes", then thank him for his service and let him bitch all he wants, he earned the right. ;)

Some people... Working at Hollywood Video in hs is the exact reason I don't want a customer service job ever again.

As a veteran of foreign service for our military... no he didn't. Veterans who act like dicks and think the world owes them a favor annoy me more than people who don't think show any gratitude to those of us who served. Just a pet peeve of mine, especially for veterans who, like me, served but never saw fighting or even served as "peacekeepers."

And guy who stormed the beaches at Normandy, or jumped into France, or flew over Germany, or sailed in the Pacific, or took part in any way with our victory in WWII, can be the most crochety, old, flagrant asshole known to man. IMO, he earned it.

If you're a Veteran of wars since then, there's a little more question as to what you actually earned, but old vets are hero's IMO. Not to be too melodramatic, but at an age when you and I were bitching about dying on level 20 of some dumb video game, they were dying for the freedom of the world. So even if they were and aren't the nicest person, they still deserve our respect.

Also,

Then: you were yanked straight out of high school and sent off to die for some cause you may even be totally against.

Now: you sign up, under your own will, and likely don't get shot at NEARLY as much...

Yeah, there's a point where you've given nearly EVERYTHING for your country next to your life itself, and THOSE fellas can be as ornery as they like far as I'm concerned!

Ah damn, you just described my Grandfather. He was on the Flag ship of the seventh fleet in the Pacific during WW2. He may be crotchidy, but he isn't an asshole.

That old man was out of line, no questions about it.

Sweet. Tell your grandfather thanks for me, and let him know he can be an ass to all the young kids that don't know shit about WWII.

Also, Gen. MacArthur was a cousin on my Dad's Mom's side of the family. My Dad (born in '44) was named Douglas after him... and in turn I got Douglas as my middle name.

sweet, its a small world.

Didn't MacArthur want to take over China? :P

I know this one guy who was a member of the baton death march. He was a POW in Japan for about the whole war, and the Japanese he learned was amazing. He knows a lot for never using it, and being 80+ years old. Learning out of necessity like that is just amazing IMO.

Agreed. My father was a veteran, served in Korea and Viet Nam. My ex's dad was in WWII and Korea. Both of them were respectful of other people, unless it was someone who dissed the U.S. or our freedom. Even heros are not entitled to be disrespectful of others.

Yeah, MacArthur wanted a full scale war with China, he figured "we're already all over here fighten 'em in Korea, might as well take out those Commie bastards". He got his ass fired over it too. Talk about a crotchety bastard.

His China fiasco aside MacArthur was a brilliant commander and was basically the ruler of Japan from '45 to '49 (IIRC) during the US occupation. I think he even wrote some of the Japanese Constitution, which is part of why Japan today is so western.

Agreed. They dealt with the situation they were in, and that demands respect. But it does not give them the right to treat others like dirt.

. . . patriotism is fundamentally flawed, anyway, so. . . meh.