Have YOU ever provided poor service?

[ckay87]

OK, fess up. There are frequent threads about having received poor service that I was curious. Think back, perhaps, to some of your first jobs when you were a teenager, maybe even in college. Back when the world revolved around you , ya know? Did you ever unknowingly or even knowingly provide lousy service?

I know I'm flamingly guilty. Waitressing....I did my best but I know there were times that I failed miserably. But the worst were my cashier days.

Oh but it was fun . I had the best friends of my life right there at those checkout counters. Customers? What customers? We laughed and shared stories. Were even known to "accidently" rip a bag of cookies occasionally on the scanners so that we could eat them. (In fairness...it did happen - it was possible. Remember the old scanners were kind of sunken with a raised plastic "x" at the top.) And then there was the New Years Eve that we gave each other rides in the carts up and down the aisles.

Looking back I am more than a little embarrassed . Total immaturity and heck, what did I know about actual grocery shopping? I was 16! Just could not understand why people got all bent out of shape about poor bagging

Share your stories. Oh and no flames - it's a confession thread. Good for the soul!

 

[chrissyk]

Definitely! I had a HORRIBLE summer job at a call center. Let's just say that I learned to hang up on the "difficult" customers w/o getting caught

 

[tmt martins]

I worked a year at McDees so it went without saying.

Now I pride myself on my service and always do what I can for my customers.

 

[lecach]

Oh I have several stories

1) I was working in a restaurant and this family came in about 5 minutes before closing and took FOREVER to order. They all wanted desserts which meant I had to make them. I was so rude to them - I just wanted them to leave

2) Another time I was working at the same restaurant. Someone came in at the last minute and jsut lingered. I went about doing my cleaning - mopping, cleaning the glass partitions, etc. It was very obvious that I wanted them gone. A few months later I had an interview at another restaurant. When the manager saw where i had worked he told me that one time he had such bad service there - that he even got sprayed with Windex. I know that was me he was talking about but I don't think he realized that.

3) This is the worst one - I was working at a restaurant that was in a historic building. It had 2 stories and the 2nd story had really steep steps. These girls came in and insisted on sitting upstairs even though the downstairs was empty. That meant that I had to go up the stairs many times. I was rude to the girls.....and I dropped their biscuits on the nasty kitchen floor - on purpose - and still served them

Im sure there are others. I'll try to remember them.

 

[apirateslifeforme]

I do remember this one time when I worked at Penneys...I had an awful coworker who wouldn't work when she didn't feel like it, so one night she decided she was just going to stand at a register with her finger up her nose. Every time someone came up to her, she'd say, "Oh, this register is closed, go to the other one." So I ended up with this long line. I was getting more and more frustrated by the minute. As I finally finished up with the last customer, I kind of threw the bag at her and said, "Thank you," slammed the drawer shut, and started to take off for the break room. That particular customer didn't say anything, she smiled and said thank you back, but then another woman came running up and I pretty much yelled, "There's another register RIGHT THERE where you just came from and it's open, no matter WHAT she told you!" I didn't even wait for an answer, I just left and took my break.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

Nothing serious (that I remember ), but I remember one time years ago when I worked as a waitress. I had a customer who very rudely told me that her coffee wasn't hot enough and wanted it heated up, so I took it in the back and nuked the hell out of it. I don't know how long I turned the microwave on for, but I was so mad and the mug ended up breaking, with coffee all over the place. It was the biggest mess, but I was sure laughing over that. Somehow it made me feel better--not sure why since I still had to heat up a mug of coffee and also had a mess to clean up.

 

[Serena]

I have been accused of it more than once. Once because I refused to try one an outfit because I was the same size as her sister. And another because I refused to changed the price on an item. I'm sure they are others like that.

 

[WebmasterMaryJo]

I remember back in my early 20s - I worked for JC Penneys Credit/Catalog dept, and provided pretty poor service to a customer over the phone. I realized what I did right afterwards, and called her back and profusely apologized.

 

[wendy46001]

Oh the stories i have....back in high school worked guest relations for sea world...after being screamed at for hours you tend to get a little short and snarky...
after listening to one "nice" lady complain for over 20min about how we treat animal inhumanly, how it rained and how she not only wanted her money back but six free tickets to the park.... i felt the need to inform her that it wasnt rain it was shamu telling her to go home....

 

[Aidensmom]

I worked at a couple of different fast food places as a teen, I am sure there were probably times I made mistakes. I can't say I ever purposely provided bad service, but I'm not going to say it couldn't have accidentally happened.

 

[liamsaunt]

Well, back in my teenage years when I worked at a movie theater, I will admit that there were times when I was less than perky. I remember one gentleman in particular who would come in for an afternoon matinee at least twice a week. He always insisted that we never put enough butter on his popcorn, and he wanted the butter to be layered throughout the entire tub. Well, the first few times I tried to help him out--I'd put the popcorn and butter in three layers. He still said it was not enough, and even stopped by the concession stand to complain after the show. So, the next time he came in, I gave his popcorn a "special" butter treatment. After the movie ended, he left without saying anything. The usher found the popcorn bucket in the theater--the bottom had fallen out from the amount of butter I put in there. He kept coming to the movies, but he never complained about his popcorn after that.

 

[BeNJeNWaFFLe]

I used to work at Ulta. I am pretty sure I gave less than great customer service at times. Especially during the holidays.

I know that we used to have many free gifts to hand out according to certain purchases. If I had to ring up a customer on their cell phone who insisted on paying me no attention, I wouldn't offer them the free gift. Not that they'd hear me if I did anyway.

In my last 2 years there I was switched to inventory, so I would work the early morning hours (usually starting at 4am or 5am) until the store opened. Sometimes we would have to stay to work during store hours. I know that I used to do my inventory work and pretend I didn't hear the customers. It wasn't the nicest thing to do, but I had a lot of work to get done and very little time for it.

Long story short, we did have one lady who had to be the worlds worst customer. Rude, nasty, and wouldn't leave you alone. Whenever she came in, I would hide in the back room. I had the displeasure of helping her twice, it was the new girls turn.

In all honostly though, I was very nice to the customers. My manager once told me that I was too nice and I need to be a little rude back once in awhile.

 

[missypie]

These are hysterical stories!

Being a lawyer is a customer service position. I think that at least half of the clients think that when they call, I am sitting at my empty desk, waiting for someone to call, so that I can do their work IMMEDIATELY. It is a touchy issue - I can see where people would want immediate service given the high rates we charge. Life is too short for me to work holidays and miss lots of the kids' activities in order to do clients' work - for heavens' sake, it's real estate, not a death penalty case. If I make less money by not missing my kids' events in order to draft their contract, so be it.

(But if you polled my current clients, I think all of them would say I give good service.)

 

[Makdyn]

let see I work at target and there is aleast one customer an hour who has to complaint about something whether or not it was with me or not.

one that sticks out was I was covering my manager one her break and a guy wanted to return a cell phone because his wife did not like it because it was a flip phone or she wanted a flip phone and it was not. anyways the girls at the customer service told him we could not return it for a number of reason, no recept, wrong box, etc. So then I was called. Again I tell him what the girl just told him and show him that the serial numbers were diffent from the box and the back of the phone wear you take the battery out. also no charger. So he ask me what am I suppose to do with it now? I actually said you can sell it on ebay if you dont want it. I realize what I said and just walked away.

about a week ago one of my friends got pulled into the office because a customer complainted about her. my friend made her get cash back. We have no control over if you want cash back or not. if you hit the button that says yes you want cash back and for how much and then you hit ok the transaction is processed.

Then on friday there was this girl who bought some things and had coupons. Well she had bought one package of bottles with three inside and she had three coupons for it. I told her that since there is only on bar code that I can only use one coupon. She said that she thought that since there was three in the package she could use them all. I told her no because of the barcode so she went to get three single ones. as she was getting those I was contuning with the coupons and then notice that she had about five diaper coupons for ONE package of diapers. When she came back I explain about the one barcode and said even though there is 76 diaper in the package you can not use 76 $1.50 coupons for one package. She got mad and took the diaper out of the transaction and told me that she was going to babyrus. When I gave her the reciept and her change I told her have a nice day in my friendlest voice like i do when some get mad.

 

[MushyMushy]

I can't remember any specifics, but when I was pregnant and working customer service, I could get a bit testy. I usually apologized, but I know I wasn't the nicest person in the world.