I have been working in customer service for about four years now. I have had jobs in dining halls, restaurants, grocery stores, auto shops, bartending, you name it I've worked there (not retail though God bless those brave souls). In my many years working with many different kinds of people, I have learned a lot about the human race, at least the one that resides in New Jersey.
Instead of just writing vaguely about my experience and what it taught me , I am first going to tell the story of my best and worst customer experiences. The worst begins in the restaurant I worked in my Junior year of college. It is a chain restaurant, not the best place to eat, and attracts many different visitors of varying ages and dynamics. I was a hostess, so I sit this one woman and her son and her server never greets them. About 20 minutes later, she still hasn't been greeted or anything and so she comes up to me, yells "This place is trash!" throws her menus at my face, and runs out the door.
Now that was the one and only time I have ever been in a physical confrontation at work, and it really enlightened me to the dark side of working in the customer service environment. Experiences like this, where you find yourself in the face of someone who just wants to be angry, or just wants everything to be wrong and takes it all out on you, forces you to be the bigger person. When your job is on the line, no matter how offended or annoyed you are, you have to be able to get over it. You have to be able to swallow your pride and do whatever you can to help that person if only to make them go away.
Working in customer service has also shown me that there are some beautiful people in this world. For every lady-who-throws-menus-at-you there's a man-who-buys-you-chocolates. This is my favorite story customer story so far. To set the scene, I'm at the register at my new job checking out an older man who has en extremely overflowing cart. As soon as he pulled into my lane I was annoyed because I knew this was going to take forever.
Even though I was annoyed, I got to talking with the man and he told me about how he comes here from Pennsylvania because his daughter lives near here and he likes our selection of alcohol. I tell him that my grandparents are from Pennsylvania and it turns out that he lives pretty close to them. We talk about the area and I tell him memories about going there to see my grandparents. When he is finally checked out he is about to pay and he says "wait, I just need one more thing!" When he comes back, he's holding a box of chocolates and he tells me they're for me.
The best part about working in customer service is that no matter how horrible someone is, or how nice someone is, you will probably never see them again. No matter what, those moments are just little singular memories. I think everyone should work in customer service at least once in their life. There are so many things to learn about people and how they operate, and about yourself. Learning how to deal with people, how to work in a fast paced environment, how to communicate with strangers are all so valuable in day to day life. Customers may drain the literal life out of you, but you'll end up stronger because of it.
