h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

i worked in a roadhouse in the north west of australia for six months, and couldn't believe the amount of rubbish from regulars i was expected to put up with.
most of them were big greasy truck drivers, who fancied themselves to be real casanovas, and assumed that any woman working in an area as isolated as i was would be 'panting for it'. the roadhouse also had a pub, and one night one of them who'd been giving me guff ever since i got there drunkenly followed me down to my room after my shift. the owners were used to this kind of thing, and the two women working there seemed pretty much resigned to it - which amazed me - in fact, when i decided to fight back one time, i was reprimanded by the (male)owner for offending one of his favourite regulars.
luckily for me, the harrasment never really went beyond a verbal level, although ever since i told that particular truckdriver to f**k off he took great pleasure in stomping around the freshly mopped floor in his stinky mud encrusted boots.
now i'm back in the city and love the fact that the men i work with these days wouldn't dare ask me to 'show us yer t**s'

I worked at McDonalds for a period in the summer holidays, and the rubbish I had to put up with - from the customers, not from the staff - was appaling. The majority seem to believe they can treat the people behind the counter like idiots, when usually it is the other way around. It's put me off working in such an industry again, even just for holiday pocket money, and helped to solidify the view in my mind that the 'general public' are foul- mouthed, ignorant fools.

No offence, but next time you go into a shop, don't get all stressy and moody because the shop assistant tells you they don't have any such- and- such left in stock, or that they can't serve breakfasts after 10:30... they are no more able to perform impossibilities than you are.

TK

It happens everywhere. I work in a library and it's not all cardigans and SHUSH-ing. It is inevitably our fault if things don't go the way that the borrowers would like. We don't have a book? Disgusting! Why not? (We have no control over this) A book's missing? Why haven't we found it? (Generally because someone's hidden it).

My particular realm is inter-library loans, getting material in from other libraries for people doing weird and wonderful research projects. One of the PhD students went ballistic at me last term, so much so that she actually made me cry (which has never happened at work before or since). According to her, it was my fault that her books were overdue, my fault that she had fines, my fault that some things were unavailable... She told me I was incompetent at my job, which really got to me as I work very hard (when I'm not on H2G2 in my breaks ) at making the service the best I possibly can.

This student is now universally hated by all the library staff, who rather like me for some reason, but there's nothing we can do...

David

Such people shouldn't be allowed into places they find so stressful (libraries, etc...)If they can't stay calm (if they have to argue, why not let it be constructive), why do they bother leaving the house?

TK

At the risk of turning this thread into an 'us vs. Joe Public' slagging-off match...

I work part time in the bookmaking industry.

We're continuously reminded by arrogant customers that when the lose, it's our fault. Meeting called off due to bad weather? Our fault. No TV coverage due to thunderstorm over Goonhilly Downs (BT satellite uplink)? Our fault. Mistake made by a customer on a bet? Our fault.

Last week, we decided to admit that, Yes! That race meeting was called off because we asked them to call it off. Once particularly stupid customer fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

What get me is that these people then have the gall to ask me to make decisions in their favour when they foul up. I _do_ have authority to use my discretion, up to a point, to give them the benefit of the doubt. That, after all, is what they pay me for, because otherwise the rules would be entirely inflexible, and a trained monkey could do the job. (Actually, a trained monkey is doing the job.. ) I always try and use my manager's discretion, but some people just push their luck a little too far.

I've always maintained that there are three things that every betting shop needs, and I expect anyone who has worked in that industry knows what I mean:
1) A coin counting machine
2) A bet ironing machine
3) A customer-reject-button.

"Oi, it's your fault I've lost" Bzzzzztttt... "Aaaarrgghhh....."

I work in the IT department for municipal government. They decided to migrate everyone to a new PeopleSoft system for HR and accounting functions. They created a special team for the development and hired Arthur Andersen Consulting (a name more hate-inspiring than Bill Gates) to assist with the architecture.

It was a bloody nightmare for the customers. Thousands of people are trying to use the system, and it does all kinds of weird things to them. It takes them 20 minutes to log in, and sometimes they can't get in at all, though they try all day. It kicks them out for no reason. The software doesn't do things they need it to do. They can't print. Tasks that used to take them 20 minutes now take them the whole morning.

The special team didn't understand the new infrastructure very well. Andersen had screwed up the configuration badly. And the special team's problem resolution attempts were poorly conceived and often caused worse problems. Although it was already in wide use, they were still treating it as if it were a test system, not a production system.

My group was supposed to inherit responsibility for supporting that system after the special implementation team had completed their work and it was a stable, reliable environment. So there was a trickle of knowledge transfer going on. Then, somewhere along the line, my group ended up acting as their helpdesk... they were receiving so many trouble tickets that they never had time to really work on the infrastructure issues. Rather than hire a helpdesk or train one of our existing ones, it just got dumped on us.

Customers would grown and vent on the phone with me all day. And even though, during that time, I would have rather jammed a finger in my eye to have a medical excuse to miss than go to work in the morning, the customers were generally patient and nice to me. That's because I did my best to be patient and nice to them. And I made it clear that Other People were responsible for the problems, and I sympathized with them (and I genuinely did). Every once in a while they'd vent with me, and I'd vent along with them, so it was somewhat therapeutic.


Unfortunately, this was internal to an organization where people are expected to be professionals, and people who have to face the public rarely have the degree of success I did. The level of abuse I've seen the employees at my favorite restaurant endure makes me ashamed to be there. I've been there myself, since I've had jobs as a waiter, and I try to keep that in mind. I generally go out of my way to be polite to waiters, cashiers, etc.