shockingly rude employee at grocery store

[kibbles]

Excellent post Ree, I agree 100% After that post, there really isn't much to add

Kibbles

[JuniorMintz]

Again..people need to stay out of the way when employees are pushing heavy items. We all get sick of playing the obstacle course game. Staying on the employees side. Sorry. And this is supposed to be a pro-employee anti-customer site anyhow.

Actually, from what I understand, there is a new introduction that states the site philosophy pretty clearly.

We're here so the oppressed can vent and celebrate. We're not here for people to debate or argue with each others. We have our purpose and will remain true to it. Some customers suck, and this is where we talk about them.

Hold on, we just said 'some'...

That's right. Not all customers suck. The very philosophy of this site is that not all customers are evil and should be treated with contempt. We even have a section of the forum for praising customers who go out of their way to help workers deal with their life.
We're here for the minority who make themselve noticeable by acting ... suckily. There is a huge mass of people who are barely noticeable because they act as normal human beings, but others commit acts of weapon-grade stupidity or cruelty that stun even the most hardened CSR. That's why we're here. Be they cheating the system, stealing, scamming, dumber than a bagful of spanners, entitlement-minded, or the most loathsome creature to have set foot in sunlight and still survived, this is where we gather to speak of their foulness.

This is customerssuck.com. While there are customers like that, this place will exist.

I know you've been through and are going through some difficult times (and believe me, I'm well aware that "difficult" is probably oversimplifying things) but having this black and white, me vs. them, if you're not with me you're against me view of the world is *not* going to do any good.

[KayEm]

Juniormintz,

I do appreciate your meaning behind your words, but the truth is..I'm not the one who started the "us against them" mindset in the first place. Corporations are the ones who set these things up and pit management against employee.

Ree,

I'm sorry, but you are management and everything you say sounds like the same managerial excuse me, BS that we, the employees get at my store everyday.

What happens when people go into management ? me and my co-workers wonder about this every single day. Do they suddenly forget what it's like below the ranks ? Because that's what it seems like.

I hope you don't mind if I use you, as a manager to vent to because believe me, the people under you would thank me for it.

Yes...I AM happy when there is hardly anyone in the store and my shelves are finally full and NEAT. Why ? Because if my shelves weren't kept full and neat I would get into TROUBLE from managers like you. Thats why.

Secondly, customers wouldn't be getting any service if those shelves weren't full and continually kept faced and neat, because you, the management, demand that we spend all our time stocking and facing them, which in turn means less time for customer service.

Why can't you (as a manager) see that ? I just don't get it. You guys demand the impossible from the employees and then they get in trouble when it doesn't happen. How is this fair ? I've never once had a manager come along and say to me "KayEm...your shelves are looking a little bare, but it's the first of the month, and all the welfairies are shopping, and we know how messy and piggish they are, so it's ok..get to it when you can". All we get from management is "Gotta keep 'em full and neat !!!!"

Management views things from one perspective. And it's the perspective that keeps themselves from getting in trouble and enriching their bonuses. They don't give a frogs fat ass for the employees below them. I am sorry if this offends you Ree, but I can tell you, I am writing this on behalf of many of my co-workers who ASKED me to last night when I told them about your post.

Lastly, regarding the original post. The man shouldn't have been telling the employee to "Be careful" in the first place. I think the employee probably got offended by being told how to do his job, he probably had the confidence and experience to know he wasn't going to hit the old codger in the first place. I know this is a common complaint at this site, being told how to do your job by customers. How would he like it if we went to his job and told him what to do ?

When customers say things like that, it undermines our confidence and pride in knowing that we know what we are doing and do it well. Customer service is a thankless job anyway, but when people do that it makes us feel really low.

[Rapscallion]

Ree,

I'm sorry, but you are management and everything you say sounds like the same managerial excuse me, BS that we, the employees get at my store everyday.
<SNIP>
I hope you don't mind if I use you, as a manager to vent to because believe me, the people under you would thank me for it.

I need a laugh, but this isn't even remotely funny.

What proof do you have that all managers are the same? In short, they're people, and people are all different.

The good managers don't forget that people they supervise are people too. There are many bad managers, and I'm guessing that you've only ever seen bad ones. Did you even bother reading any of Ree's posts when she agonised over what she had to do with the employees who lied to get another employee sacked? How about when she agonised over to whom to give an award?

We have many other managers on this board, and I think they'll agree that it's not an easy job. Ree is, as far as I'm concerned, a good manager. She's human, just like everyone else. If you want to lump people all together in a war on a certain type, you're not going to do it here.

Have you ever given any thought as to why managers are as they are? It's circular, in my view. Managers have to follow the dictates of desk limpets, who in turn follow the dictates of shareholders and the bottom line. The bottom line dictates efficiency, not being nice.

The bottom line shows that cheap stuff sells. In order to remain in business, economies have to be made, and staff are one such economy. If targets are not met, their jobs are on the line.

Do you really think managers go home and say, "Hi Honey. Had a great day. Sacked five people for not sweating enough!" only to have their spouse rejoice that they managed to beat the total for the previous day?

I'll lay it on the line, Kayem. You have choices. You could think on this and see things from more than just your viewpoint and see if you can improve things for yourself. Think about that. You could concentrate on what this site is about - us venting about sucky customers, but not the ones who do deign to pay money so we have a job and can keep a roof over our heads. You could try and find a manager who is actually decent.

What you cannot do is dictate policy on this site, nor can you dictate how everyone here can and should think. Feel free to start your own site dedicated to how you are right, but I'm not forcing you to log in and attack other members.

Rapscallion

[KayEm]

I wasnt' attacking anybody. But Ree is the one who was trying to tell me how to think. I wasn't doing that. Where exactly did I do that ?

On the subject of management vs. employees, it really is a huge issue, Raps. You seem to think that it's only me that feels this way. But when I told my co-workers what Ree said from a management perspective, they ALL told me I should come back here and have a go at management for them. To open their eyes to the plight of the employee.

I dont' care if it's business or not, not having feelings and consideration for your employees and demanding the impossible of them is just plain wrong. If this site isn't willing anymore to listen to the employees side, it may just as well be a pro-management/corporation, and therefore anti-employee website. It used to be different. Now all I get whenever I vent about something is told why I shouldn't feel the way I do because it's a business. But we aren't here for that and I think I can speak for a lot of posters here.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Again..people need to stay out of the way when employees are pushing heavy items. We all get sick of playing the obstacle course game. Staying on the employees side. Sorry. And this is supposed to be a pro-employee anti-customer site anyhow.

Oh really? I must've missed the disclaimer saying the employee is always right and the customer is always wrong.

There is such a thing as sucky employees, and this cart girl definitely sounds like one. It is hard sometimes to maneuver carts when you have people in the way, but that doesn't give you the right to act like a jerk toward the people in your way. It certainly doesn't sound like the man was being rude to the cart girl; he was just telling her she almost ran him over.

I read this story and I thought back to my now-departed (thank God) salesfloor supervisor yelling at the poor girl who drove a handi-care van and was unloading an elderly, wheelchair-bound lady, because the van was parked in front of the doors and she couldn't bring the carts in.

[Rapscallion]

I wasnt' attacking anybody. But Ree is the one who was trying to tell me how to think. I wasn't doing that. Where exactly did I do that ?

I think IPF has beaten me to the point you required answering above. You have a definite idea of how this site ought to be, but it isn't.

On the subject of management vs. employees, it really is a huge issue, Raps. You seem to think that it's only me that feels this way. But when I told my co-workers what Ree said from a management perspective, they ALL told me I should come back here and have a go at management for them. To open their eyes to the plight of the employee.

I dont' care if it's business or not, not having feelings and consideration for your employees and demanding the impossible of them is just plain wrong. If this site isn't willing anymore to listen to the employees side, it may just as well be a pro-management/corporation, and therefore anti-employee website. It used to be different. Now all I get whenever I vent about something is told why I shouldn't feel the way I do because it's a business. But we aren't here for that and I think I can speak for a lot of posters here.

I'm sure they responded to your version of events. How about they come here themselves and respond after reading it for themselves? I know we get roughly six people registering here a day as a minimum. Are any of those registrations your colleagues? Get them on here.

That's a challenge. Get them to make you their referrer. I can see such things from the admin panel.

Alternatively, they could have a go at your management, since it seems that they are at fault.

How about setting up a site within your ideals? Another challenge. Since you're so right about everything, I'm sure you'll succeed. I'm sure you'lll take the many disaffected members with you.

If anyone else agrees with Kayem, PM me. I'd like to get a measure of any discontent. If you're happy with the place, please leave my inbox quiet, since I'm about to get an avalanche of complaints.

Does the fact that I set up a section to honour the customers who make our days better disturb you, Kayem? Do you see no chance of happiness in your working life?

Yes, the situation is plain wrong, and that's why this site and others exist. I'm not about to start a movement to change the world. If you want to do that, go ahead. I'll watch with great interest. However, if you think you're going to use this site for it, you've got another think coming.

Things are not black-and-white, us vs them. I made the choice to ensure that bitterness was tempered on this site, but if that doesn't please you, feel free to not log on.

Rapscallion

[Ree]

Actually, Kay Em, I have only been management for about 5 months.
I admit that, for many years prior, I was doing managerial type jobs without the actual title, but has it ever occurred to you that I had the very same mindset before I became a manager, and perhpas THAT IS WHY I MOVED UP THROUGH THE RANKS??
Perhaps the reason you feel all managers are the same is not that the title changes people, but it's the fact that people who actually start out with a certain way of thinking usually end up in management positions.

I have only worked in 3 places, and at every place I worked, it was only a matter of time before I was promoted, because management recognized that I knew I was there to do my job to the best of my ability, and I am just one of those people who walks in on a situation and for some reason, ends up getting stuck as the leader, whether I want it or not.

For the record, as a manager, I would only be upset that shelves are not being kept filled as fast as the customers are buying, if I walk in to find my staff sitting on their butts while the stock is flying out the door.
As long as my staff is trying their best to keep things looking full and neat, then they receive my respect and praise.

The reason keeping shelves filled is even an issue is that customers cannot buy what they cannot see.

It's very unfair of you to assume that I wouldn't even pitch in to help, because I do. If my staff is working at their full potential and they still can't keep up, I work alongside of them and get the job done. You see, I believe that as a manager, my job of making sure my customer gets serviced does not end with my promotion, and does not fall only on my employees' shoulders.

(I'm wondering if perhaps you saw that I actually care so much about my employees that I even posted a poll on here to ask you guys to help me decide how to give recognition to 2 young guys who have done a fantastic job. If you had, then perhaps you wouldn't be so quick to tar me with that 'evil brainwashed management' brush.)

I do wish to apologize, though, for any comments in my post that came across as harsh or attacking you. I wasn't trying to hurt or embarrass you, but I read your comments and they frustrate me.

It concerns me that you have obviously worked with some real losers if you see all management this way.

I really do care about your situation and I worry that you are surrounded by such negativity. I totally understand that your company is probably not one of the top 10 companies to work for, and that jobs are scarce where you are, so you are limited in your options.
I also know that some people are just not meant for customer service, and I really wish that you could find an area where your skills would be put to their best use and you would be valued as a person.

[JuniorMintz]

Juniormintz,

I do appreciate your meaning behind your words, but the truth is..I'm not the one who started the "us against them" mindset in the first place. Corporations are the ones who set these things up and pit management against employee.

Wrong. You control your own mindset, and if you've let yourself become so bitter and warped that you can't even see black from white anymore, if "the suits" really have *that* much of a grip on you, then that's your own failing.

And as far as your little tirade about Ree... how dare you. Do you even know a THING about that woman, one of the most sympathetic, loyal, and loving people I've ever known? Do you know how hard she works, and how she has ALWAYS gone to bat for those people that she has faith in? She gives people the benefit of the doubt, even though they rarely deserve it to begin with. She is a wonderful woman, and for you to rag on her because *gasp!* she's a manager is a rotten and pathetic thing to do.

There was no reason for that. None at all. It shows a lot about her character that in her last post she actually apologized to YOU. After all the rotten things that you said, even! You should be embarassed. You owe her an apology, at the very least.

[Ree]

Thanks, Juniormintz, for your defense of me. I really appreciate it, but as a mod, I have to say that KayEm was responding to what she felt were unfair comments by me.

Perception is important.

She saw someone in a managerial position challenging her view of things, and for a moment, she forgot to look beyond my "manager" title at work and see the "Ree" who really is more than that, and who, I hope, has proven that to her on more than one occasion.

The comments to me were defensive, I think.

KayEm, I think that you are beginning to feel that you are alone in everything, and that you don't have the support of the members of CS because they really don't understand where you are coming from in your hatred of all things manager and customer.

I think you're right. We can't see it your way, as everything isn't as absolute as you seem to feel it is.
If we hate all customers, well...that's a bit of a paradox, as we are all customers at some point in our lives.

If we are always pro-employee, then, again, if you should have a bad experience with a customer service rep who is poorly trained or even rude, well, by your defintion, we should be taking their side.

Some customers are sucky. Some are wonderful.
Some employees are wonderful. Some are sucky.

Yes, some managers are idiots and don't deserve the role they have been given. Some are intelligent and caring people balancing the best interests of their employees as well as their companies.

To hate all managers simply because they are managers, and have authority over you seems like an exhausting and futile exercise for you.

It's one thing to rightfully resent it when a manger is treating you unfairly, but when a manager is simply asking you to do the job that you were hired to do, and you hate him for it, that doesn't make a lot of sense.

It's one thing to rightfully resent it when a customer is rude and treating you badly, but when you hate him for simply picking up all 6 loaves of bread that you just put out, that doesn't make a lot of sense either.

You still can't seem to see it from the perspective that having customers is a good thing for a business, or why would we be in business?

If you are going to resent that a manager expects certain jobs to be done within a certain timeframe for a certain wage, and you are going to have to do these things while still serving your customers, then why bother punching in?

If you want to come on here and talk about some asshole who has just made you feel like the underside of pondscum, be it manager or customer, then we are all here for you with shoulders waiting and arms open.

This is where we get back to perception, though. If, when you explain it to us, we see that you are feeling this way because of an ingrained hatred of the 'otherguy', and what they did really wasn't so bad, we're probably gonna call it as we see it.

To get back to the topic of the OP in this, you feel that, even though some guy, walking back to his car after just spending his hard-earned money to help pay that girl's wages, is almost run him down and offered no apology, that does not give him any right to tell her to be careful, because that is a customer telling her how to do her job???

I don't really think you will get a lot of support for that argument, and I'm sorry if that ends up making this site look anti-employee and pro-customer in your eyes.

[csdrone]

The OP: The cart pushing girl was in the wrong. It would have justified a polite email or call to someone like a SM or DM (or the corporate 800# or website) discussing the incident.

And to the hijack: Managers are not all evil. Employees are not always right. All customers are NOT sucky. Ree put it beautifully: the customer is there to purchase an item or service. If the item/service is not provided quickly, the customer will leave and likely not return (telling their friends and relatives the story). And not getting enough sales per hour/items per hour means the store will slash hours/jobs..... I understand it is hard to deal with stupid people (remember the SC's are a small fraction of the customers you see every day) and to have a less than stellar job (I live in the upper midwest: jobs are sparse) BUT losing the attitude makes a difference. Yes you had to stop stocking to help a customer. But if you did not have the customers to interrupt your day, would the store stay open for long? Thanks for the reminder guys!

[KayEm]

Ree,

I do know that you strive for fairness in your dealings with your employees. I've read a lot of your posts so I've seen that. You're right in that It was defensiveness in my posts. I wasn't meaning to attack you.

I've only ever said what I truly felt in my posts. None of what I have ever written has been fake or said just to agree with everyone else. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't. And when I don't, I say so and try to explain why.

I think that CS could be such a great grassroots movement to begin to change the way the world treats CS workers ? What's wrong with that ?

I think my husband knows my true motivations and feelings. He knows that I don't hate all managers and he knows that my only motivation is to try to make things fairer for the worker ants, those on the lowest stratum on the totem pole. He also knows that I don't become defensive unless I feel seriously cornered.
It's like nothing I am trying to say is really being heard, so I give up..ok ? You guys win. You're in charge and my viewpoint counts for nothing so I'll go away.

Ree,

Thanks again for your kindnesses in your messages to me and in your posts. I do appreciate them more then it seems in my posts. I really do.

[NightAngel]

Let's get back on track with the OP okay peoples?

Thanks.

[Ree]

Let's get back on track with the OP...

Excellent idea.

[SuperDan]

Back on track with the OP, I can say from my own carts experience that it is NOT easy to change the direction of a line of carts, nor is it easy to stop them, depending on how fast they were going and what sort of slope (even if only slight and unnoticeable) was involved. Sure, either would be easier with the girl at the front of the line, but not that much easier. Consult your friendly neighborhood physics teacher and ask for an explanation of the law of momentum and you'll find out why it's going to take a while to stop a line of fifteen 60 lb carts travelling three miles per hour. Likewise, keep in mind that the rear wheels of the standard shopping cart are fixed, and the wheels that do allow free movement are passing between at least two sets of these fixed wheels. There is only enough freedom in a row of carts using the easier rolling friction of the wheels to make hugely wide turns--changing the direction drastically, especially while stopped or moving slowly requires sliding the fixed wheels in a direction they don't roll, and sliding friction is much harder to overcome. I won't even get into the carts having a mind of their own, but I think anyone who has worked with carts would agree with me on that one.

This being said, I can understand why the cart pushers didn't stop or change course. Actually, in some cases stopping or changing course just because you're about to narrowly miss something may end up making you get even closer and possibly even hit it. And it's amazing how LITTLE people in general think about how dangerous shopping carts can be. I've lost count of how many people an hour decide that rather than wait four seconds for me to be out of the way they need to "run" directly in front of my cart row, sometimes even shooting a narrow gap between my already moving cart row and another row that I'm trying to combine mine with. (I put "run" in quotes because it isn't a run, it's more of a short-strided jog that makes it look like they're running but in reality they just look like dumbasses and are probably moving slower than they were originally walking. Bonus points if they smile at you and wave.) Seriously people, carts are dangerous. Get slammed into by a moving line of carts and you WILL be experiencing the joys of hip replacement surgeries. Just be patient, be aware of your surroundings, keep your kids with you in the parking lot and away from the front of the carts in the cart-room if the cart-room is loaded from the other side, and please take your cart away from the other carts in such a cart room (don't just pull it out barely enough to step between it and the carts behind it) before you take ten minutes to secure your kid and purse, clean off the cart, etc.

Now that you've all just had a lesson in shopping cart physics and SC stunts, please make everyone you know aware of these issues. And on the flipside, cart people need to be equally aware of their surroundings because not everybody has had the education that you have just received. Yes, I'm betting the cart pushers knew they were going to miss the man, even if narrowly, and that it would have probably made the situation worse had they tried to stop or turn the carts. But that's still no reason to be rude to the customer. A simple "I'm sorry" would have sufficed. Although I'm frustrated that some people don't carry a high regard for their own safety, being merely uninformed about how cart pushing works does not an SC make.