Good Customer vs. Good Customer Service

At our small branch library, a page got reported for reading on the job.  She was sitting quietly in the corner where she puts books in order, so she can then shelve them.  She has been with us for years, is incredibly reliable, gets paid pennies more than minimum wage with no benefits, and for nearly a year drove an additional nine miles to another branch to help out while they were short staffed.


I can't even put into appropriately obscene words my feelings about this storm trooper patron.


Last week, first thing on Monday morning, I caught the telephone, and it was one of our passive aggressive patrons who began by telling me what a wonderful day it was, and didn't I think it was a wonderful day.  Well, I was pretty busy, thank you very much, so I said, yes, and how can I help you.


He was looking for a book.  This intelligent man (not as intelligent as he thinks he is) likes to ask us to look up books rather than look them up himself.  He also likes to tell us his history with the book, and even the author of the book.  The first time I encountered him he told me what a wonderful man Ronald Reagan was, and he had actually met the man, and he was so charming and blah blah blah.


So I looked up the book, and it was at another branch.  He then asked me to call the branch and have them hold it for him.  Well, duh, wouldn't it be more efficient for you to call and have them hold it for you?  So I offered him the phone number for the other branch.


Days later we all got a friendly email from the branch manager informing us that when a patron wanted a book held at another branch we should offer to call the other branch, and then call the patron back to let them know if they had it and if it was on hold for them.


I figured I knew whose doing that was.  But a couple of days later, he came in and as I looked up he pointedly (embarrassedly?) veered away from me to the other station.  And a short time after that, one of my coworkers began to tell us all, including the branch manager, in the backroom, what a user the patron was; how he would sympathize with her about her carpal tunnel and then make her look up a half dozen or more items that he was capable of looking up himself.  Yup, that's the guy.


So I figure that here in this country we have a mobilized Tea Party army that doesn't believe in taxes but has to pay them, and they are damned well going to make sure that we highly paid government servants (emphasis on servants) do our jobs.


I once heard the twerp manager on Channel 2 do his editorial on how we should expect, no, demand, good customer service.  And he wasn't talking about checking you out properly, pointing out where an item you were looking for was, answering relevant questions about merchandise.  He was talking about smiling and being friendly.


I fired back an email stating that for not enough wages, a clerk might be experiencing back pain or have a sick child at home, or maybe slept poorly the night before.  Either way, they showed up at work, and were doing the best they could.  Were we to pay our workers a living wage, they might be better able to work up a smile for the crowd.


I shopped at Lowe's in the torrential rain last Saturday.  People helped me.  The manager held the last container of pool chemicals for me, and had it brought to me when I arrived and asked for him.  Others carted heavy bags through the rain for me and loaded my car.  I wanted to call someone important and tell them how helpful their employees had been.  But I got a request to take an online survey, and figured that was just as good.


Of course the survey did not offer the opportunity to write in specifics.  And the questions had to do with whether everyone "greeted" me, whether they offered to help me find items, whether staff was friendly.


I felt dirty after I finished the survey.  It reminded me of my job, where I have to prove that not only am I getting milked for every penny I am getting paid (and I do get paid in pennies), but act like it is my pleasure to do so.


We don't have slaves anymore, but the pressure to jump before anyone has the mind to ask us, and to pretend we are delighted to do it, for which we are paid little and over the years injure our bodies, and take time away from our families, is pretty close.


I have learned to smile and be polite (even "friendly").  And those small people who delight in thinking we should love working for them just won't know what I am thinking, and it will be my pleasure.