Today at work, a lady walked up to me, leaned on her cart and said "Can I ask you something?"
I, naturally, said yes, and she went:
"
My idea. Of customer service. Is that if the customer
wants something... you give it to them."
She went on to explain that she had intended to buy a piece of furniture in our store. "I do
not want to assemble it myself," she said firmly. She had talked to the furniture manager, who had kind of shrugged and said that maybe, if some of the guys had time (though at the moment we were speaking, the only floor workers left in the store was me and another girl, tasked with cleaning up the entire store, so I don't know if she just came in earlier in the day or if he meant that she should come back the next day...? She didn't specify), they could maybe put it together, but it wasn't likely and it wasn't policy.
She fixed her eyes on me. "What do
you think?" she said. "Do
you think that's good customer service?"
I hummed and hawed, of course, said I was really not in a position to comment and so on, as politely as possible. She rolled her eyes. "OK. Fine. Whatever. You know, that's the problem. No one has an opinion." She waved at me dismissively. "And you're young." Then she left. I didn't tell her I'm thirty.
To the cashier, she launched a tirade about how she was raised in a
high-moral family and been taught that the customer should get what he wants and if SHE ran a business, she would be putting together furniture all day long.
The piece of furniture in question was a $79 dresser that she apparently wanted just for her jeans.
In less irritating news, I found an online interactive documentary about
Pine Point - a small Canadian mining town that was erased completely from the map after the mine closed. One of the ex-residents - a man who used to be extremely athletic, but now sits in a wheelchair because of MS - has built a
memorial website about it, using only voice commands to his computer.
I was so taken by the idea of the place you grew up in just not being there anymore. The whole thing is just really engrossing and fascinating and well-done. Check it out!
Oh yeah, I also locked Busy in the closet today before I left for work. Thankfully, the hubby noticed his little scritchings and scratchings and saved him.