I got my first customer complaint at work tonight

[Hooahguy]

So I was working the burger/grilled chicken station tonight at my college diner. This means I have to deal with a huge number of annoying 18 year old college kids.

Now, the way we do it is that there are two grills, a large one and a smaller one. the larger one is in the back, which is where they make the burgers and chicken. Then they wheel it out to a big steamer behind the counter of the station, where there is also a smaller grill. The burgers and chicken, after being cooked, go into the steamer where they sit until we, the employees who are actually dealing with the customers, take them out and put them on the grill, then assort them with things like cheese, onions, bacon, and stuff like that.

Anyhow, the steamer is extremely hot. Many employees burn themselves on it, either from coming into contact with the hot metal sides, or the steam/steamed water that drips.

Tonight was one of those nights. I had injured my Achilles tendon earlier, which was then swollen, so I was already pretty doped up on painkillers. And you guessed it, I got burned pretty badly. I was working alone during that time tonight so as I was running my hand under cold water the line was getting longer, and nobody was coming to help me. So I put on a fresh pair of gloves and went back to work. The next people in line was this girl who just could not make up her mind what she wanted. She had all of five minutes as I was trying to relieve my hand of the burning to make up her mind! So I was waiting there, getting more and more agitated. Then she said it. She said "give me another minute, Im still thinking what I want.'

I just lost it, teller her that if she couldnt make up her goddamned mind she should go to the back of the line because she was holding everyone up. I never yelled at her per say, but a coworker who was across the room watching this unfold said that my expression was one of pure hate and disgust.

She finally made up her mind, and I made her the thing she wanted, I dont even remember what she wanted, and of course, she went and complained to my supervisor. Thankfully the supervisor is a good friend of mine, found out why I was so agitated, and decided not to pass the complaint up to my managers.

But I gotta say, losing it at that girl felt really, really good, I would do it again. I mean, I feel kinda guilty, but I think it was the culmination of 7 days of pure suck, and letting go like that was amazing.

[Tuuvi]

I'm sorry you've had such a bad week. I hate to tell you this, but next time you need to control you anger a little better. First off, part of being in customer service is being able to let stuff slide off your back. You're getting paid to make the customer happy, and that includes being patient with them when they're being stupid.

Secondly and most importantly, taking your frustrations out on other people is NOT a good way to handle anger/stress. The girl was being selfish and stupid yes, but she didn't deserve to bear the brunt of your crappy week. I'm guessing she didn't know you just burned your hand, and I know that she didn't know how your week went. Being that stupid and absent minded is really pretty typical for teenage girls. Assuming you have kids in the future, are you just going to unload on you six year old son after a stressful day at work because he forgot to put his firetruck back in the toy box? What would that do for his emotional well-being and development?

I'm sorry if I'm being preachy, it's just that my mom has a bad habit of taking her anger out on other people, including myself, so this kind of thing hits home with me. Being on the receiving end of somebody else's anger when you've done nothing wrong is pure suck. I realize you didn't snap at the girl that bad, but the fact that you think it's ok and you would do it again worries me.

[spankythehippo]

I had a customer complaint when I worked as a cook at KFC. A fat slob in a business suit complained that the chicken was undercooked. He demanded to see me and berate me on my "poor cooking skills". I showed up and he shoved the chicken under my nose and said "THIS CHICKEN IS UNDERCOOKED! CAN'T YOU SEE THE WHITE, YOU STUPID F**K!"

I remained diplomatic. "Sir, the chicken is meant to be white when it is cooked. It's pink if it's undercooked." He continued to yell about getting a refund, so my manager just gave him his money back. After he left, my manager and I, in unison, said "What a c**t". Ahhhh. Good times.

[HopAlongBunny]

There's one thing I don't miss at all: front-line customer service. 9/10 it's friendly and fun I found but there are those (*^)^#&! times.

From the PoV of the customer or the owner, your reaction was sub-standard :p Why not: "Okies, just stand right there and make up your mind, I'll get the next order then be right back at ya."

Losing it can feel good, no doubt about that; it won't give you job security. Of course hindsight is 20/20 and with all the BS of the day caving in, you don't always think "customer service first" :)

[Fragony]

Nice part about Dutch customer-service, nobody is surprised if they are told to stfu and die if they act all too demanding.

[Andres]

I agree with Tuuvi. No matter how bad your day was and how annoying the person standing in front of you behaves, you always need to act civilised.

Next time, you should try to see the humour in it, even if it means laughing with your own misery. Irritating customers are a great resource for comedy.

As a student, I worked at a customers' desk (aka complaints desk aka customers' wailing wall) in a very big store (the Makro, for those in Belgium and the Netherlands). We were always understaffed, and on rainy days, there was always a long queue of people with complaints about the stuff they bought, from televisions, to hi-fi chains, over a bottle of milk or meat. The colleagues were great and we had a really good bond, since we were all in the same position: having to listen to all kinds of complaints all day long ("I've bought this piece of garbage in your crap store yesterday and it's already broken!" was the most frequent opening sentence ) from people who were already angry with us the minute they entered the store and were even more angry because they've had to wait. Some waited for 30 minutes to complain about a half empty can of coca-cola that tasted bad or with 100 grams of meat that had turned green and which they claimed they had bought it the same day. Some even threw their stuff at us, before we even got the chance to note down their complaints, others became hysterical when we told them it would take 3 weeks before their stuff would be repaired.

I've never had as much fun professionally as I had back then. A pity the pay was bad, otherwise, I'd have done this for my entire life. Once you make that switch, being yelled at for various random reasons during entire days for things that aren't your fault, is a hilarious experience and it really strengthened my character.

The hardest part for me was not to start laughing in front of the customers. Luckily, there was a large room were we could go into under the guise of "checking something in the database" where we could burst out in laughter for a few minutes.

[drone]

Hooah, you are doing it wrong. Smile, say thank you, the customer is always right, and then spit on the food.

Everyone should work retail or food jobs once. It lets you know how crappy humanity really is.

[johnhughthom]

Nice part about Dutch customer-service, nobody is surprised if they are told to stfu and die if they act all too demanding.

I still laugh when I think of the dirty looks I used to get when I didn't have the correct change for something in Holland. My Dutch was pretty woeful (non existant now), and I pretended I didn't speak any just to let them swear, thinking I didn't know what they were saying.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I worked in fast food for years, only stopped recently.

You were out of line with how you acted, but so was that girl. If somebody spends that long choosing what they want when there is a queue, I would try asking "is it OK if I take the next order while you think about it?". I bet 4/5 times they would be fine with that. If she says no give her another minute, prod her again, and if she still says no then just say "sorry, but I have to serve the other customers. I'll take your order as soon as you are ready". If she takes exception to that, tell her if she is unhappy she can speak to the manager.

[Hooahguy]

I'm sorry you've had such a bad week. I hate to tell you this, but next time you need to control you anger a little better. First off, part of being in customer service is being able to let stuff slide off your back. You're getting paid to make the customer happy, and that includes being patient with them when they're being stupid.

Secondly and most importantly, taking your frustrations out on other people is NOT a good way to handle anger/stress. The girl was being selfish and stupid yes, but she didn't deserve to bear the brunt of your crappy week. I'm guessing she didn't know you just burned your hand, and I know that she didn't know how your week went. Being that stupid and absent minded is really pretty typical for teenage girls. Assuming you have kids in the future, are you just going to unload on you six year old son after a stressful day at work because he forgot to put his firetruck back in the toy box? What would that do for his emotional well-being and development?

I'm sorry if I'm being preachy, it's just that my mom has a bad habit of taking her anger out on other people, including myself, so this kind of thing hits home with me. Being on the receiving end of somebody else's anger when you've done nothing wrong is pure suck. I realize you didn't snap at the girl that bad, but the fact that you think it's ok and you would do it again worries me.

Yeah, I know its a bad thing, holding in anger like that and then taking it out on others. I have yet to figure out how to release my anger in a way that doesnt affect others.

Looking back a mere 10 hours later, I know that taking anger out on others is a very bad thing, and if I ever want kids Im going to have to fix this. Whats interesting is that among my friends and coworkers Im known as being really calm, and Ive always dealt with annoying customers in the textbook manner- patiently and courteously. In fact, some of them have said that they want to see me get really angry, just to see what it would look like, so I dont know where my outburst came from, and why, when I posted this thread, I felt so happy and willing to do it again; maybe it was the sheer relief of letting it all out that overtake me. Maybe thats why my outburst happened, all that pent-up anger had to burst at some point.

[Veho Nex]

I had a guy come into the bakery I work at the other day who did my first customer complaint. I was in the back unloading bread so I can put it on the shelves so I don't know how it started. I'm wheeling this big shipment of bread to the bakery when the girl from the deli across the way comes back to get me to tell me I have an angry customer waiting. I set down the bread and follow her back and the guy starts yelling at her about how she walked away from him to get me. I interject myself into his yelling and tell the girl to go back to her side of the store and proceed to let the customer complain about how such and such item is low or how the one thing he ever wanted in the whole world was gone. A lady walking by says, "Dude you need to chill out and let the man(me) help you." He proceeds to blow up at the customer telling her she can F off cause she's a b and so on and on. I finally told him he was going to have to see customer service that I couldn't help him. So he got my name and filed a complaint about me to my division manager. Oh the joys of dealing with jerkoffs.

[Beskar]

One thing I discovered from front line service, the Customer is always wrong (in 99% of cases).

[Fragony]

I still laugh when I think of the dirty looks I used to get when I didn't have the correct change for something in Holland. My Dutch was pretty woeful (non existant now), and I pretended I didn't speak any just to let them swear, thinking I didn't know what they were saying.

I kinda prefer it like that, but I can undestand that if you are used to niceties and smiles the Netherlands can be a bit of hostile place. Pleasantries just aren't apreciated here all that much, best advice ever should you revisited

[johnhughthom]

One thing I discovered from front line service, the Customer is always wrong (in 99% of cases).

Personally I find it the complete opposite. The irrational jerk is pretty rare in my experience, the vast majority of complaints are genuine.

More often than not, it's the attitude of the person receiving the complaint that escalates it into an issue. I always tell staff complaints are an opportunity, if they didnt complain, they wouldn't come back, doing so gives us the chance to make them a loyal customer. A litle empathy, and not immediately assuming every complaint is someone trying to get something for nothing, makes yours and the customers experience so much better.

I kinda prefer it like that, but I can undestand that if you are used to niceties and smiles the Netherlands can be a bit of hostile place. Pleasantries just aren't apreciated here all that much, best advice ever should you revisited

I was there over a year, and found Dutch people friendly enough. It was just the weird fixation with having to have the correct change. I used to pull out 50 guilder notes when I had the correct change just for the lols.

[The Lurker Below]

I kinda prefer it like that, but I can undestand that if you are used to niceties and smiles the Netherlands can be a bit of hostile place. Pleasantries just aren't apreciated here all that much, best advice ever should you revisited

Seriously? wtf over. One of the things that make annoying family, friends, and neighbors bearable is association with complete strangers that are generous and enjoyable to be around. Encountering random pleasantries keeps me filled with hope that my family, friends, and neighbors may at some point be less annoying. No really, brother, does living not come with enough unhappiness that we need to be unfriendly in random encounters?

[LittleGrizzly]

I am somewhat like you Hooah, calmness personified I have many friends who would like to see me actually lose my temper just to see what it looked like. I actually figured out at one point that I was worse off because of this. Usually being calm and reasonable is the best way but sometimes the situation does call for the cornered animal approach.

This doesn't really seem to be one of those situations though, advice about asking if it is okay to move onto the next customer seems the best way to go about it...

I shout at people on a (not American) football forum and can generally go a bit wild when watching football so I guess that is my release as I am probably too calm a person outside of that...

Do you have a particular sport or something you enjoy supporting?

Preferably something where you can lose all common sense and give into more animal instincts, I actually really enjoy it, the football is good too sometimes ;)

[Visor]

I used to work in retail (in a relatively small (not very small really) town), at a service station adjoined with a post office.

I had some nice customers, and I had some shitty ones. The worse ones I remember was the old man who kept asking how my sex life was going (smile and say good, first time he asked me, my mind went blank, and I just reverted to autopilot, which was to smile and nod), the aboriginal guy who came in and started swearing at me about the price of chicken breast and everything else, calling me and the business pieces of shit and the like. I just told him that 'x' was the price, I wasn't taking any shit from him (for reference, I was about 65kg and around 178cm then, had a bit of muscle on me, whereas he was maybe 190+, and a lot of muscles), in the end he paid for two, and didn't take his change. I've had people tell me the exact price of the things I'm getting for them (normally cigs), which pisses me off. I've had people ask for ridiculously complex orders and been rude and etc, however, there are the ones who remember your name, remember who you are, willing to have a conversation with you. And my bosses were good too, which made it better to work there. I used to work 5 days a week 10-11 hours, and it was alright pay for me at the time. Wouldn't do it again unless I had to though.

Only piece of advice I can give you is to never show any anger in front of the customer. Let off steam in the back or if no-one is around.

[Fragony]

Seriously? wtf over. One of the things that make annoying family, friends, and neighbors bearable is association with complete strangers that are generous and enjoyable to be around. Encountering random pleasantries keeps me filled with hope that my family, friends, and neighbors may at some point be less annoying. No really, brother, does living not come with enough unhappiness that we need to be unfriendly in random encounters?

It's not really rudeness, just informal, etiquette is different here. If you are overly friendly to a stranger he/she will think you are pulling a leg. If you don't care about how someone is doing just don't ask, it's just how we do things here.

Fun read from foreigners perspective http://stuffdutchpeoplelike.com/2011...ch-directness/

[The Stranger]

people can be annoying, they can b1tch about unimportant things or take very long time to decide on something (inertia... fk ye!)

but the fault was not with the girl, you should file a complaint about the enviroment you work in imo, doesnt sound very safe/well organised...

[lionhard]

If you let people wind you up they surely will, i find playing football or going the gym a good release. But weirdly enough i also find just shouting random stuff at the top of my voice works too (normally the worst swear words u can think of) so when im stressed from work, it feels good :~)

[Papewaio]

If you want more practice become a moderator :)

[Vuk]

You should have kicked her to the ground while screaming "THIS IS -insert name of institution you are working at-!"
That would have been good customer service.

[Kadagar_AV]

I hate corporatism. This is just why.

Hooahguy, I salute you!

Over here in Austria, we have little pretence of putting up with idiots. When I worked in bars here, it is general standard that if a guest don't know what they want when you address them, you give them a hateful look and move on to the next guest. You are also completely free to completely neglect that guest for the rest of the evening. Or week. Or life.

A guest of mine left his skis at the ski deposit. He lost his voucher saying where they were, and solidly claimed they were not where he had left them. He described them, and the staff promised to have a look.

When he returned the next day he was handed the skis, but somehow it now stood "you idiot" in permanent marker on them.

A woman in her 40's, carrying her skis over her shoulders, suddenly turned around and hit a friend of mine on the head. She went "Oooops, sorry.."

He pushed her so she fell to the ground and went "Oooops, sorry, moron!"

I had a kid in my ski group who bit not one, but two other kids. I locked the kid in the dog kennel and called the parents to pick him up. They actually went to the police about it. The policemen high fived me and dropped the case.

I effin LOVE Austria at times :)

Don't get me wrong, service here is EXTRAORDINARY... I for one just sweated my arse off helping older tourists with way too heavy bags up some brutal stairs. Everyone here wants the tourists to have a good time, and are glad to go out of their way to assure it.

But. We. Do. Not. Put. Up. With. Idiots.

[Strike For The South]

Austria sounds terrible.

[The Stranger]

Austria sounds terrible.

step on someones foot accidentally, you practically almost get tarred. because only idiots make mistakes! Do you know what we do to idiots around here? THIS IS AUSTRIAAAAAAA!!!

[Crazed Rabbit]

Anyhow, the steamer is extremely hot. Many employees burn themselves on it, either from coming into contact with the hot metal sides, or the steam/steamed water that drips.

Other folks have already talked bout dealing with customers and stuff, but nobody's mentioned this yet:

This is an unsafe work environment. It is not okay (or, I strongly suspect, legal) for this to happen repeatedly and the restaurant to do nothing to reduce the hazard.

CR

[Rhyfelwyr]

I locked the kid in the dog kennel

Austria, the land of Joseph Fritzl.

[LittleGrizzly]

Kad the only one I really have a problem with there is.....

.........................................
A woman in her 40's, carrying her skis over her shoulders, suddenly turned around and hit a friend of mine on the head. She went "Oooops, sorry.."

He pushed her so she fell to the ground and went "Oooops, sorry, moron!"
.......................................

This one, surely an honest mistake is allowed from time to time...

If you accidentally spill your drink on somebody from the sounds of it you would end up covered in drink as well. I suppose it is fair but it seems pointless to intentionally cover the other person in drink as they did it accidentally.

Although getting pushed into snow is pretty minor so that is why I changed it up a bit.

[Ibrahim]

reading this, all I have to say is this:

firstly, you snapped. it happens to everyone. Composure isn't something you can turn on or off like a spigot. heck, I recently snapped at another guy for what he implied about me. the best thing is to live and learn from your mistakes, and take the steps to prevent that from happening again, as it could get you into trouble.

And be thankful you even got yourself in a position to make a costumer complaint possible. I can't even get myself into making it possible, let alone getting one.

(put another way: at least you have a job, and won't be losing it).

[Kadagar_AV]

In my friends defense... The woman did completely scratch his €200 googles, as well as hitting him HARD on the head.

Also, she was dressed in ski clothes and ski gear, and fell down on soft snow. So his push wasn't exactly to hurt, and it wasnt like she fell in mud ruining her nicest clothes.

I also think it was somewhat OTT, but hilarious, and probably well explains the line of thinking here.

We just expect people to behave, and set them straight if they dont.