Why are people so ignorant? (staff and customers)

Sand

Oh thankfully Ive gone into full time employment now so no more scum for me to deal with.

I look forward to ordering a Big Mac and fries from a few of you in the future.

The Golden Rule: always be polite to those bringing you food and drink.

A friend of mine used to work in Bewleys, they got some arrogant gimp in giving them hassle so they took his coffee on a tour of the back and got everyone to spit in it before giving it to the guy to drink - and he paid for it. Now, that is justice

I work hard in my job and when I walk in to your shop I expect you to do the same.

We expect you to not regress to the age of a 4 year old child who needs to be taken by the hand around the entire shop. I guess were both dissapointed.



.

sceptre

Originally posted by Sand
A friend of mine used to work in Bewleys, they got some arrogant gimp in giving them hassle so they took his coffee on a tour of the back and got everyone to spit in it before giving it to the guy to drink - and he paid for it. Now, that is justice

That's not justice.

Justice is when you pee in it.

regeneration

Ergh, I really hope that for your sake this guy was shouting, abusing and generally demeaning you, cos if he was just being picky or arrogant, spitting into someone's food is childish and unprofessional and _I_ wouldn't hire you knowing that.
We've all done **** jobs in our life, but the classy thing is rising about the assholes, not decending to their levels.

steviec

Sure 7 euro an hour is crap, but staff are being paid to be there and the customer isn't(in fact they're spending money to be there), so why can they just ignore their job and be ignorant to customers?
I worked in a shop for 4 years and sure some people(I'm talking 1% of customers) annoyed me, but as long as they're giving me money I don't see why I should go out of my way to upset them. Wages are **** but thats not the customers fault, if your not willing to work for that little other people are so look elsewhere.
I always made sure I was polite to customers no matter what and I looked after them as best I can, and I was always honest when I didn't know the answer to something(usually questions like 'how do you cook this?'), if I'm shopping and there's something I want to know about a product I'll ask staff, but I'm not gonna blame them if they don't know every detail about every product in the shop, as long as they try(eg. I was looking for Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire which none of the staff had heard of since it was a few years old and never very successful, so I accepted that, but another time when my PS2 was broke and Sony told me they'd replace it through Game, Game's staff completely dismissed me and I ended up having it done by mail through Sony, that I didn't appreciate). And in my experience most customers are the same, the one or two bad ones stick in the mind longer but you just put up with it.

UnrealQueen

Originally posted by OfflerCrocGod
Who the hell buys clothes in Dunnes anyway:D?

An awful lot of people unfortunately. Lots of ignorant and downright stupid people. I could write a book on the stupidity i have to deal with. Stupid questions like : "Do you work here?" (im standing there in my uniform), "Is this till open?" (ive just served the 5 people in front of them). "Oh sorry i didn't see the queue" (a line of 20 people beside them). This is just the tip of the iceberg.

regeneration

Stupid questions like : "Do you work here?" (im standing there in my uniform),

Hey, you could always start messing with their heads in a nice way - "no im actually des bishop" or something like. Oh the humanity.

galwaydude

when i was in the states in june i found the customer service a hundred times better than here in ireland, even in a cloths shout the assistant comes over to you , same everywhere really, yet these ppl are been paid rougly the same.It pays to be nice but then again i was in a tech support job dealing with ppl from the UK and 90 % of the time i was shouted, abused over the fone, i left the job unsuprisenly.Abusing staff gets you nowhere cause if your friendly and polite they are more inclined to help the person.So its a win win situation

Victor

Originally posted by galwaydude
when i was in the states in june i found the customer service a hundred times better than here in ireland, even in a cloths shout the assistant comes over to you , same everywhere really, yet these ppl are been paid rougly the same.

Minimum wage of $2 an hour + commission + risk of being fired for lack of "hussle" makes people do this.

cleareyed

People are ignorant in shops because they get away with it. Get their name, complain, get the name of the person you complained to and follow it up with a letter. Make sure that you send a written follow up on how the manager dealt with the complaint to her superior. With a bit of luck it will go into their personnel file. If they did a good job in sorting it, great.

article6

Originally posted by Victor
Minimum wage of $2 an hour + commission + risk of being fired for lack of "hussle" makes people do this.

The US minimum wage is hardly that low. $5.15 is the federal minimum if I recall, and states can set their own as long as it's higher than that.

Computer World in Wexford = bad experiences for me. Bought the first Sims expansion pack there - and wouldn't you know it, it came without a manual. Naturally I was on the coach out of Wexford Town when I noticed.

Mossy Monk

Originally posted by galwaydude
a tech support job dealing with ppl from the UK and 90 % of the time i was shouted, abused over the fone

i have that very situation as i type this post

Our man in Havana

I work in the same place as Mossy, and I must agree with him and Galway dude about being shouted and roared at.

My observations are that the welsh and scottish get the most irate with you. They will fly off the handle when you tell them to call back in 6 hours for a fault update. They will always come out with a quote like "I am paying £19.99 for a service that I cant use" or "I wont use dial up because YOU are meant to be providing a service and why should I pay for it".

Just my 2cents.

RuggieBear

Originally posted by article6
The US minimum wage is hardly that low. $5.15 is the federal minimum if I recall, and states can set their own as long as it's higher than that.

When i was working in Boston 3yrs ago the minimum wage for waiters was $2 but you would end up making over a $100 in tips...

My first job ever was working in Superquinn "facing off shelves"...i made £1.98 an hour....i think it was about 1994!!! Made 20 quid a week and i though i was it!!

I find that if you are polite and friendly to people working in a shop, they'll recipricate.. Mind you, i used to get very pissed off with outright rudeness or computer shop sales people lying to middle aged women trying to buy a decent computer for their sons/daughters..."of course this celeron 500 will play Unreal... no problem...sure hasn't it got 16mb RAM and a top of the range voodoo GFX card!!!"

I've done some pretty ****ty jobs in my life from shovelling manure to weeding golf greens but by far the worst was cold calling people trying to flog mobile phones. Used to get tonnes of abuse but could kinda understand it...

Could never work in a call centre again....found being forced to keep my callrates up one of the most miserable experiences in my life...would rather do heavy manual labour than work in callcentre again....so i always try to be polite to call centre staff...
even if some biddy in Eircom is obviously lying!!!!:D

p

Deadwing

Originally posted by pekelly


Could never work in a call centre again....found being forced to keep my callrates up one of the most miserable experiences in my life...would rather do heavy manual labour than work in callcentre again....so i always try to be polite to call centre staff...
even if some biddy in Eircom is obviously lying!!!!:D

p

I feel your pain. Call centre jobs are the WORST jobs in the world, fact. Id honestly have more repect for myself if i was cleaning toilets than working in a call centre. Did it for about 2 months a few years ago, and its the most miserable, soul destroying, god awful job imaginable.

Victor

Originally posted by article6
The US minimum wage is hardly that low. $5.15 is the federal minimum if I recall, and states can set their own as long as it's higher than that.

Includes commission and tips.

Originally posted by Deadwing
Id honestly have more repect for myself if i was cleaning toilets than working in a call centre.

Thats 'cos call centre staff aren't allowed use the toilets

galwaydude

Mossy and bond, ye should apply to HP for jobs, they are currenly recruiting through CPL, have been here a year and its a hundred times better than that company in swords whom i wont mention.Its nearly time for me to move on though as u soon get sick of tech support work.

Pinapples

Irish people are dead stuck up, doesn't matter what side of the counter they're on.

Yep, call centres are a disaster. Never never ever ever again.

ixoy

Originally posted by galwaydude
Mossy and bond, ye should apply to HP for jobs, they are currenly recruiting through CPL

No don't do that - then you'll be across the courtyard from me! Too many boardsters...

Cactus Col

worked behind a counter in mcd's a few years back ... found if I was cool with customers they were cool back .... but then I was drunk most of the time

sam_hain

Firstly dont know if this is in the right place or not. If not it's kewl if its moved.

I notice that alot of people here give out about Game staff, and i was just wondering if that was Game Store staff or game shops in general. I'm a member of the Game Staff group and let me be the first to say that yes you are correct to give out about some of us but not all of us. Some of us just couldn't be bothered were as the rest of us are having a good day when one of the following happens.

1. Store Manager starts to be a dick about something stupid
2. Customer comes in a expects you to spend at least 2 hours (including your break) to find some game that their kid, whom they know nothing about, wants
3. some non-national comes in and without a word of English, expects you to know what they are saying and what they want

But please understand that where as we might be bad our managers are worse. There is one manager that has the customer service skills of an enraged ape. But to be fair to him (yes its a him) he hasn't really got much pratice at it. You see he spent many many hours upstairs either in his office, playing a ps2, or spending more time on a break that had already expired 3 hours ago. Prime example of this managers customer service skills:

A customer comes in and is unhappy with something.
They speak to the manager in question.
The manager looks at them and says to them in the most unpolite way, that they are not entertaining them and walks away.
Customer is left standing staring at us and the back of the manager.

So please don't always blame us for out actions its really the manager that is the bastard.

Placebo

You guys look quite misreable, i dont usually ask questions and i dont because half of ye look like ye came back from a funeral. Id love to work in game, no matter how BAD my manager was, beats working in spar :rolleyes:

BlitzKrieg

in fairness to game staff i had a good day with them today... The staff member who served me was very helpfull and knew his stuff very well so no probs here at the mo...

sam_hain

Thats what I thought as well but then I joined the 'funeral' and its been a horrible time. I have been there along time and have recently noticed that a good few people are getting treated better than others and the reason being that they were foolish enough not to stand up for themselves. The only perk of the job is that for the first couple of months games are cheep. But then you realise that you get bored of games and see enough of them in work or else you are too tired to play them cuz the manager decided that he wanted all the ps2s carried downstairs in the morning and then back upstairs in the evening. If I was to do it all over again I would pick GameStop.

Did I forget to mention that although the company may have a customer friendly approach to themselves, they forget that the people who come in contact with the customers should be kept happy and not like slaves. Point to note as an english company they were un aware that Ireland (or southern Ireland as they like to call us) had its own working laws that are much better than those of Englands and only since last year has any of the floor staff here had contracts. Thats right last year the only thing that said we worked there was our uniforms

Absolam

Point to note as an english company they were un aware that Ireland (or southern Ireland as they like to call us) had its own working laws that are much better than those of Englands and only since last year has any of the floor staff here had contracts. Thats right last year the only thing that said we worked there was our uniforms

Point to note; 'some' GAME staff at the time made sure it was changed, so that as an Irish company GAME now has better pay, working terms, and contracts than the UK, or GameStop I reckon. And I can think of a couple of GAME stores I worked in where the managers & staff worked together & drank together, and took care of each other and their customers with mutual respect.
It's not easy serving Joe 'Worst video game EVER!' Public, but some of us did our best..and tried to get along with our co-workers as well.

sam_hain

Point to note; 'some' GAME staff at the time made sure it was changed, so that as an Irish company GAME now has better pay, working terms, and contracts than the UK, or GameStop I reckon

Just to let you know Absolam, Game only gave us what we were entitled to nothing more and certainly nothing less. It just so happened that they buttered it up slightly so as to look like the good guys. Everything that we got from the contracts we were supposed to get. And trust me it is not Game being nice, they had to give us all that 'kewl' stuff. It was the law. Fair enough we get paid better and have better entitlements than our english counterparts but thats only because they have to give it to us under law.
And as for GameStop, they get paid more than us too and unless they are getting better terms and conditions in their contracts there is no way they could be worse than us.

rainbow kirby

Originally posted by sam_hain
I notice that alot of people here give out about Game staff, and i was just wondering if that was Game Store staff or game shops in general. I'm a member of the Game Staff group and let me be the first to say that yes you are correct to give out about some of us but not all of us. Some of us just couldn't be bothered were as the rest of us are having a good day when one of the following happens.

1. Store Manager starts to be a dick about something stupid
2. Customer comes in a expects you to spend at least 2 hours (including your break) to find some game that their kid, whom they know nothing about, wants
3. some non-national comes in and without a word of English, expects you to know what they are saying and what they want

But please understand that where as we might be bad our managers are worse. There is one manager that has the customer service skills of an enraged ape. But to be fair to him (yes its a him) he hasn't really got much pratice at it. You see he spent many many hours upstairs either in his office, playing a ps2, or spending more time on a break that had already expired 3 hours ago. Prime example of this managers customer service skills:

A customer comes in and is unhappy with something.
They speak to the manager in question.
The manager looks at them and says to them in the most unpolite way, that they are not entertaining them and walks away.
Customer is left standing staring at us and the back of the manager.

So please don't always blame us for out actions its really the manager that is the bastard.

w0rd.
Somebody should start a support group...
Some of the managers can be really evil. I was only given 1 week off when I was doing my college exams this year. I had 10 days off in the middle and one of the managers tried to give me a 27 hour week in the middle of that. :rolleyes: No wonder I'm repeating...
and sam_hain, Grafton Street? Because if it is I know who you're on about. Pro Evo addict.

regeneration

Originally posted by rainbow kirby
w0rd.
Somebody should start a support group...
Some of the managers can be really evil. I was only given 1 week off when I was doing my college exams this year. I had 10 days off in the middle and one of the managers tried to give me a 27 hour week in the middle of that. :rolleyes: No wonder I'm repeating...
and sam_hain, Grafton Street? Because if it is I know who you're on about. Pro Evo addict.

Without having to discuss personal issues, but did you need the money that much that you couldn't tell the manager to stuff the job, or just pull sickies? Cos I know what I would choose, money or no money.

Absolam

did you need the money that much that you couldn't tell the manager to stuff the job

Getting back to the original point; it's the people that like their job that treat customers well, especially judging by the posts here. If you don't like it do something else...everyone's happy

sam_hain

w0rd.
Somebody should start a support group...
Some of the managers can be really evil. I was only given 1 week off when I was doing my college exams this year. I had 10 days off in the middle and one of the managers tried to give me a 27 hour week in the middle of that. No wonder I'm repeating...
and sam_hain, Grafton Street? Because if it is I know who you're on about. Pro Evo addict.

Damn straight rainbow_kirby. You got it in one. I noticed that from your postings that you might have been one of us. Im not saying that I work or worked in Grafton St but the fact that his legacy is known outside of the store is non-too amazing Originally I came here cuz I heard that there was a posting a while back slating one of his decisions to advertise something, but I can't find it anywhere. Do you know where is is? It's to do with a poster in the window.

Without having to discuss personal issues, but did you need the money that much that you couldn't tell the manager to stuff the job, or just pull sickies? Cos I know what I would choose, money or no money.

And to that I answer that yes sickies were taken by some of us at busy times and yes some of us do need the money as we are funding college

regeneration

Hmm this Grafton Street fella must be a right B*stard really; what does he look like - the Henry Street crowd Ive found pleasent enough; and I do remember some members on Grafton street being smart-arsed about me being a student and getting my 10% reduction.

sam_hain wrote:

And to that I answer that yes sickies were taken by some of us at busy times and yes some of us do need the money as we are funding college

Most people do work through college, you're not alone man we share your pain