• Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    4 days ago

    Is this why customer service has gone downhill so dramatically? Never a smile or thank you anymore. Everyone is just miserable and rude.

    When I worked for $5.15/hr in 2008 it was expected to be courteous and polite with customers or you’d be fired. I remember my manager at my first job specifically laying into me for not smiling enough. It was the most basic requirement of the job.

    And people say that it’s because wages suck nowadays, but that $5.15 from 2008 is now worth around $8 and yet fast food pays $15/hr starting around me. So kids nowadays make twice as much as I did and can’t be assed to give a single fuck. I just don’t get it.

    • fracture@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 day ago

      why would they give a fuck, they’re getting fucked by the social contract, they get paid twice as much to inherit a burning planet and absolutely no prospects to have a home or even ever leave their childhood home, for the shit thankless work that customer service always has been

      all for the “privilege” of making billionaires richer and furthering the destruction of the planet they’re inheriting

      tbf, things were going downhill in 2008, but things are fully off the rails now, we at least had delusions of hope back then

      fell for it award edit: from limited experience, i’ve found it can be helpful to talk to young folks about the power of organizing and collective action. they’re perpetually burned out from having nothing they can do to improve their circumstances, but this is a powerful avenue that, if communicated properly, can motivate them to become more invested both in their own situations, and that of others

      • Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        18 hours ago

        Folks can feel as miserable as they want, but at work it’s a bare minimum expectation to pretend to be polite. Hell I was homeless when I made minimum wage but you can bet I still put on a big smile and was polite to every single customer who walked in the door because the alternative was being fired. It’s really not a difficult concept.

    • PhilipTheBucket@piefed.socialOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      4 days ago

      This is pretty good, but you gotta make it a little more subtle. Open with something perfectly reasonable and then sort of work up to the bait.

    • lime!@feddit.nu
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      4 days ago

      as a european who started working around the same time that sounds insane.

      • StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        4 days ago

        If this bothers them, they’d love German customer service. Every puddingbrezel I’ve purchased at the DB came with a complementary frown.

        • lime!@feddit.nu
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          4 days ago

          i’ve not been in germany much but every interaction i’ve had with db seems to end with threats.

            • lime!@feddit.nu
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              3 days ago

              yeah i dared use their website in a supported way and for that i almost got thrown off the münchen-hamburg ice at three in the morning. i won’t elaborate because last time i did i got swamped by germans telling me it was my fault.

              • Norah (pup/it/she)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                3 days ago

                Sounds like it wasn’t foolproof enough for a tourist even if it makes sense to a native. Which is absolutely a failure of a domestic transport system, unless you don’t care about tourism.