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Dec. 8th, 2004 04:16 pmToday's Useless Meme:
Dec. 8th, 2004
(no subject)
Dec. 8th, 2004 05:51 pmExcuse me while I rant a bit about work and tell a random story in the process.
So Cumberland Farms has this policy wherein you must greet every gas customer over the intercom. We just started doing it, since our intercom was broken.
(Speaking of broken things at our store getting fixed - the store sink that was flooding the bathroom got fixed, the broken sink in the bathroom got fixed, and the bathroom door that wouldn't latch got fixed. Our store is so ghetto.)
Anyway: They mean EVERY GAS CUSTOMER. They mean that if you are serving someone at the counter, and the gas alert thingy goes off, you must turn your back on the customer you are with (or, if you're at register two, walk away from them) in order to greet some anonymous yahoo over our iffy intercom system.
I got double tag-teamed by the corporate schmucks from next door last week because I DARED to prioritize the customer in front of me. All of us agree on how much this sucks and was clearly dreamed up by someone who has never done a day of customer service in his life: "Excuse me, let me totally blow you off mid-transaction so I can go say hi to this other person who I can't even see." Charming. I don't know about you guys, but if I were the customer at the counter, I'd be kinda pissed.
(When I warned Barbara that she would probably get chewed out too if she didn't do it, she replied matter-of-factly, "They can bite me." HA.)
So today, Bill, who is either one of the district managers or the guy who gets to tell the district manager what to do, wandered into the store, helped a vendor, and then did whatever the hell it is that the corporate boys do when they wander in and mess up our store. While he did this, I helped eighty-four customers, all the while using that thrice damned intercom.
When it finally quieted down (and I had gotten myself a Moxie, which I just realized I left at the store, dammit), Bill came over.
"Why are we having a hard time using the intercom?"
Now. I was stressed from that onslaught of customers (which I handled alone), combined with the fact that I'd kept having to put that poor vendor on hold to help people, plus any mention of the intercom instantly pisses me off anyway. So I was immediately angry and defensive: "I have been using the intercom!"
Apparently he did not hear me. Really? He didn't hear me from halfway across the store with half a dozen people between us? AMAZING. Me, a breath away from all-caps: "I was using it!"
I think he could tell that if he kept pushing about the goddamn fucking intercom I would start crying (When I'm pissed enough and there's no other decent outlet, I cry, and I was getting about ready to freak out), so he said something about me being soft-spoken.
Gas alert. Me: *interrupts Bill pointedly to use intercom: "WELCOME TO CUMBERLAMD FARMS YOU ARE ALL SET ON PUMP TWO. See? But I'm not gonna yell into it every time."
Then Bill felt the need to start telling me, very seriously, about the intercom policy (uhm . . . I know?) and, for some reason, some new policy about doubling coverage during certain hours, like, do I look like a manager? Does our tiny six-person (five, if you don't count the manager) workforce look like it can handle double coverage at specific times? Go away.
He also explained to me, at length - as I chugged away at my Moxie, trying to get across the fact that I totally didn't care what he had to say without actually being rude - that customers have called into the store offices to gush about the whole intercom thing.
. . . really?
Really. He went on about it for a while.
I said, "People call about this? Don't they have lives?"
Either he wasn't listening or he mentally translated this into something more appropriate, because he didn't even blink.
And so on and so forth.
Our new manager is doing a good job so far, and I think that if corporate would leave us alone, we could run our store much more effectively. This is probably true in most workplaces.
(Dammit, I really want that Moxie now. If it weren't so dangerously icy out, I'd go get it, but walking around in the dark right now is just plain foolish.)
So Cumberland Farms has this policy wherein you must greet every gas customer over the intercom. We just started doing it, since our intercom was broken.
(Speaking of broken things at our store getting fixed - the store sink that was flooding the bathroom got fixed, the broken sink in the bathroom got fixed, and the bathroom door that wouldn't latch got fixed. Our store is so ghetto.)
Anyway: They mean EVERY GAS CUSTOMER. They mean that if you are serving someone at the counter, and the gas alert thingy goes off, you must turn your back on the customer you are with (or, if you're at register two, walk away from them) in order to greet some anonymous yahoo over our iffy intercom system.
I got double tag-teamed by the corporate schmucks from next door last week because I DARED to prioritize the customer in front of me. All of us agree on how much this sucks and was clearly dreamed up by someone who has never done a day of customer service in his life: "Excuse me, let me totally blow you off mid-transaction so I can go say hi to this other person who I can't even see." Charming. I don't know about you guys, but if I were the customer at the counter, I'd be kinda pissed.
(When I warned Barbara that she would probably get chewed out too if she didn't do it, she replied matter-of-factly, "They can bite me." HA.)
So today, Bill, who is either one of the district managers or the guy who gets to tell the district manager what to do, wandered into the store, helped a vendor, and then did whatever the hell it is that the corporate boys do when they wander in and mess up our store. While he did this, I helped eighty-four customers, all the while using that thrice damned intercom.
When it finally quieted down (and I had gotten myself a Moxie, which I just realized I left at the store, dammit), Bill came over.
"Why are we having a hard time using the intercom?"
Now. I was stressed from that onslaught of customers (which I handled alone), combined with the fact that I'd kept having to put that poor vendor on hold to help people, plus any mention of the intercom instantly pisses me off anyway. So I was immediately angry and defensive: "I have been using the intercom!"
Apparently he did not hear me. Really? He didn't hear me from halfway across the store with half a dozen people between us? AMAZING. Me, a breath away from all-caps: "I was using it!"
I think he could tell that if he kept pushing about the goddamn fucking intercom I would start crying (When I'm pissed enough and there's no other decent outlet, I cry, and I was getting about ready to freak out), so he said something about me being soft-spoken.
Gas alert. Me: *interrupts Bill pointedly to use intercom: "WELCOME TO CUMBERLAMD FARMS YOU ARE ALL SET ON PUMP TWO. See? But I'm not gonna yell into it every time."
Then Bill felt the need to start telling me, very seriously, about the intercom policy (uhm . . . I know?) and, for some reason, some new policy about doubling coverage during certain hours, like, do I look like a manager? Does our tiny six-person (five, if you don't count the manager) workforce look like it can handle double coverage at specific times? Go away.
He also explained to me, at length - as I chugged away at my Moxie, trying to get across the fact that I totally didn't care what he had to say without actually being rude - that customers have called into the store offices to gush about the whole intercom thing.
. . . really?
Really. He went on about it for a while.
I said, "People call about this? Don't they have lives?"
Either he wasn't listening or he mentally translated this into something more appropriate, because he didn't even blink.
And so on and so forth.
Our new manager is doing a good job so far, and I think that if corporate would leave us alone, we could run our store much more effectively. This is probably true in most workplaces.
(Dammit, I really want that Moxie now. If it weren't so dangerously icy out, I'd go get it, but walking around in the dark right now is just plain foolish.)
