Are you a "kinder, gentler" person?" (owner, degree, job)
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I am the opposite in today's tough economy. As a manager and a customer I demand more and are tougher on people.
I think one of the main reasons we are in the mess we are in is America got soft and allowed people to get lazy and employers in the boom years had a hard time getting good people and just allowed their staff to get away with murder.
Now that the economy and job market is terrible I think managers and customers can demand better from people. If you let a waiter or sales clerk to be lazy and incompetent without complaint you allow an organization to hire and retain staff that don't deserve to work. Think of all the unemployed sales clerks and waiters who would love to have a job and would treat their customers with respect.
No, I don't want to be rude but in today's economy us customers and managers deserve better workers not laziness or incompetence.
I ran a restaurant for the owner of a small chain and he couldn't understand how I had the best, most stable team.
It was simple - I treated them like human beings.
I expected good customer service from them but rather than "demand", I TRAINED them. Real basic stuff, such as looking people in the eye, acknowledging a customer even before you actually served them and informing them in a timely fashion if there was a delay or issue.
In return, I met their needs wherever possible. I treated them well, gave good breaks, fit the schedule where possible to their outside activities and families and allowed them to have fun on the job as long as the work was done well and customers were served well and happily.
They were reliable because they knew they had a good situation with me. They were happy at work and that happiness translated to treating the customers like real people with real needs who deserved the same respect they got. A win win all around. And these were in the main young people and high school kids.
It's not rocket science, it's good management and without it there is no good service.
Ok, I do NOT put up with attitude, no one takes my money to hand me attitude!
However, like I siad in my OP, I've backed off on what I consider to be a "hanging offense" ie, call the manager, write letters to corporate headquarters, etc. Like my example of the waiter, well, guess you had to have been there. He just wasn't able to get one thing right, but he kept trying so hard. I just let it go......or a simple mistake, like coke instead of iced tea, get over it.
I will complain if needed, but some people do have to get over themselves. We had a friend who;s hobby seemed to be tormenting waitstaff, she would make an order no one could begin to understand, then complain loudly through the whole meal. She expected to get a freebie because of that. I was simply embarassed to go out with her.
Ok, I do NOT put up with attitude, no one takes my money to hand me attitude!
However, like I siad in my OP, I've backed off on what I consider to be a "hanging offense" ie, call the manager, write letters to corporate headquarters, etc. Like my example of the waiter, well, guess you had to have been there. He just wasn't able to get one thing right, but he kept trying so hard. I just let it go......or a simple mistake, like coke instead of iced tea, get over it.
I will complain if needed, but some people do have to get over themselves. We had a friend who;s hobby seemed to be tormenting waitstaff, she would make an order no one could begin to understand, then complain loudly through the whole meal. She expected to get a freebie because of that. I was simply embarassed to go out with her.
Well, Everyone,
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Yea that would be a one time deal that I would go to eat with that person, how embarasing.
I cut people a lot of slack if they apologize for whatever is wrong. Or if they tell me they are new on the job. Everybody starts somewhere.
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I ran a restaurant for the owner of a small chain and he couldn't understand how I had the best, most stable team.
It was simple - I treated them like human beings.
I expected good customer service from them but rather than "demand", I TRAINED them. Real basic stuff, such as looking people in the eye, acknowledging a customer even before you actually served them and informing them in a timely fashion if there was a delay or issue.
In return, I met their needs wherever possible. I treated them well, gave good breaks, fit the schedule where possible to their outside activities and families and allowed them to have fun on the job as long as the work was done well and customers were served well and happily.
They were reliable because they knew they had a good situation with me. They were happy at work and that happiness translated to treating the customers like real people with real needs who deserved the same respect they got. A win win all around. And these were in the main young people and high school kids.
It's not rocket science, it's good management and without it there is no good service.
I'd work for anyone with this mindset. I wish there were more like you.
I cut people a lot of slack if they apologize for whatever is wrong. Or if they tell me they are new on the job. Everybody starts somewhere.
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I agree. If I see someone is trying, but is frantically busy, I understand. If they acknowledge me and apologize, I empathize with them. I know how demanding some customers can be. I also know how demanding some managers can be, especially if short staffed,etc.
But if a place isn`t that busy and I see the employees just hanging around talking, not doing their job, talking on cell phones,etc. I`m not rude, I just don`t leave a tip and won`t come back.
I'm becoming the opposite too, but not because of the economy.
With waiters in particular, I have been served by so many rude ones. I am always super polite (I always am in all situations) and I'm noticing I get treated worse and worse as the years go by.
I'm over it - waiters don't deserve my utmost respect in return for their contempt.
I still don't complain, but I also don't bother to call them by name or tip beyond 10%
The rude ones can suck it.
I have had a lot of servers that are rude to me, but I am polite in return because I feel like it's a more powerful message than returning the same rudeness. E.g. when service people ask my friend what I want instead of asking me directly (it's a blind thing, for some reason a lot of service people get nervous around me and start directing all interactions to my sighted company) I just answer them directly in the most polite way possible, and that's usually the most effective way to make them realize how stupid they were being.
I think I am a "kinder, gentler" person because I have had to work through sh*t jobs for money I needed so I know what that's like, but also because it just makes me cringe when people are rude and demanding. My mother was rude, demanding, and verbally abusive, and still is to many service people and so growing up I always vowed to myself I wouldn't be like that.
I do agree that if you can't be polite, maybe customer service isn't for you. When I was in customer service, even when I was going through a very hard time, I was still polite to people. So I really don't appreciate when service people are rude to me. I give a lot of leeway in terms of if it takes awhile for them to get my drink or if they screw up the order or something. They're still trying, so I let those instances slide. I can't even think of a time I sent back an order.
One thing I don't think is ever acceptable is when service people take other customers in front of me that got in line after me. They used to do this to me all the time when I was deaf-blind and didn't realize I could feel the wind of the door opening behind me and people passing right by me. That's one of the few instances that I can think of, though, where I actually complained to the manager. It was on a regular basis and it was the only place I could get to so I wanted to get that straightened out since I knew I'd have no choice but to go back.
kinder gentler is good. beat down is not.
i am sorry you got jerked around on your retirement. i had to fight for mine. nasty dirty fighting no queens rules. they tried to jerk me but failed. i have done well.
but that does not mean my smarts won. it means that i was fortunate. a few careless moves an little bit less persistance and i would have been in bad shape.
there is a great short story by hemingway called $50,000. read it if you have a chance.
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