Positive Thinking + Ignorant Retail Veteran = Retail Hell

From Retail Drone #37:

As with any disgruntled retail worker I also frequent another such website as RHU.

Retail-Sucks.com is also full of like minded people with a lot on their mind.

One user ran across an article about.... Well, I'll let you read it for yourself.

YES I CAN!

http://www.retaildoc.com/blog/doom-and-gloom/ican/comment-page-1#comment-521

Needless to say I was rather disgusted with this post. Anyone who thinks that positive thinking and the right mind set is always going to please the customer, is suffering from the most horrific delusions I've ever heard of.

Hmmmmm, lets see. I'm nice to the customer, thus they are nice to me, thus a bigger sale.....

BULLSHIT.

I had to set this man straight. I posted under the name Mari.

Enjoy.

And we second that motion Retail Drone #37! It's total corporate, brainwashing, Retail Bullshit Propaganda. We commend you! Your response was awesome - exactly how many of us feel.

Comments

[Michael]

Wow, this guy is downright delusional. I added my own comment, it'll be interesting to see if he has the balls to let it through.

[Jit]

This reminds me of a vid I had to watch for orientation about certain types of drugs you can only buy in restricted quantities like Sudafed because it has ingredients that people abuse in it. "Tell the customer that they can only purchase two because it is a restricted item" or some other such saying similar. And then the customer will readily agree that they can't buy the other ones, surrender them to you, and life moves on happily. Nope, sorry! Not the way life works, buddy.

[Farmer's Market Bitch]

Thank you for sharing that. I was so pissed off about this quack's article that I wrote him a comment myself. Let me get this straight: it's OUR FAULT every time we get some bitchy, NASTY, HORRIBLE custy that can't be pleased? And just HOW is that so, pray-tell?

Good for you for saying something. As for this whack-job, I bet he's one of those crappy, snooty custys we all dread getting...

[Spritzy]

Holy Schniztel! I couldn't even get thourhg half that article before I got all queased out by the insepid sacharrine mantality that oozed from thie article's pores.
Ok true, to some extent we can control our feelings and reactions to external stimuli.
And true, a decent percentage of customers are fair enough people.
However, when you follow all the store rules and do you best to go the extra mile, stopping short of taking actions that could likely get you fired (like giving them their whole damn order for free cause we were out of yams) and still are returned with only disdain and insults (In the semi-frequent situations that one does encounter a unpleaseable customer, not every situation, we do realize that) It can get hard after repeated hours and repeated days of ungrateful and overly demanding patrons to remain positive and upbeat.
Sure it's ideal to focus on the positive customers and those situations but when you have seven customers, and three are strongly negative dispite the best efforts, two go through the sale impaitently without so much as a thank you, and two are actually somewhat pleasant in the small way that they do say please and thank you if nothing more it's hard to focus on two good things over five bad ones.
I also think that the writer of the article bashing on people who write to www.retailsucks.com and simmilar places (like this one) is deluded into thinking that what is written there is the constant mindset, actions and opinion of the people posting. When it is often NOT the case. Sites like that are meant for ranting, expelling the negative emotions built up from a bad day. I'd likely think that 90% of the people writing to such sites are exemplary associates who just had a bad day and instead of EXPRESSING A NEGATIVE ADDITUDE TO THE CUSTOMER IN THE STORE they held it in and expressed it in a healthy and harmless way in writing on a forum with others of simmilar situations. *fumes*
ooh, sorry for being wordy...it hit a nerve.

[Spritzy]

And Jit-
Haha. I know which video you mean. In the skit the employee practally accuses the customer of being a Columbian Drug Lord and then my just saying it's the store policy the customer shrugs it of as if the employee had simply sneezed.
SO NOT REALISITC!

[Arcade anarchist]

if my mindset is that im gonna bring in nothing but good customers and have a great day. and a customers mindset is that they don't want to retaliate their anger on their nasty kids. My managers is that the customer and policies need to be kept. Those just negated my mindset entirely.

[customerserviceslave]

Bob Phipps sounds like the Psycho Babble Bullshit Instructor, that the local retail drug store chain I use to work for, in Seattle. We had a store manager who is one the District Managers for the chain (he always uses sales psychobabble)insisted: "No gaps or holes where the product is". Gee, it all depends if warehouse sends the merchandise that was ordered, or people are buying the shit. Well, I can go on and on with other examples, but some of you know what I'm talking about. There, got it off my chest.

[Retail Drone #37]

I also posted under the name "Coconut" because he blocked my other E-mail. He's not being very positive now is he. =)

[Michael]

So he posted my comment, then had the audacity to say "I help people, can you say the same?"

I couldn't let that roll by without comment. Seriously, this guy wins top honors of the month for douchebaggery.

[(The Original) M]

Holy crap. I just spent a pretty decent amount of time reading through all his ridiculous replies.

I...I just can't even come up with the words to express what I want to say. I'm fairly certain this man has not spent one day of his fucking life working shitty entry level retail slave positions. If he did it must have been 35 years ago when customers weren't complete assholes trying to get everything for free.

[Logan]

I Love how the guy basically claims that you can not let other peoples temperments influence yours and that you can change someone else with a positive attitude, while he is clearly getting pissed off with the topic (not controlling his own mental state so well) and is not changing the other responders with a positive attitude. He is actually disproving his own point.

[Michael]

Oh, well said Logan. Someone should bring that up over on his blog.

[Michael]

And "Someone" wound up being me. Ahh, sweet catharsis.

[Lepchin]

lol, I need that sign at work.

[Chris from Chicago]

@Michael. I would like to buy you a beer sir.
Bravo.
I am loving how he's gone from snooty holier-then-thou corporate spokesmen to "LA LA LA I CANT HEAR YOU OVER HOW *POSITIVE* I AM!"
And, Oddly enough considering the rants I've somehow managed to get posted here, I *do* enjoy my job, and 75% of my widdle custy's. It's the 25% that act like Bob that make me want to bring a hammer into work.

[Kayla]

wow. utterly ridiculous.

[Claire]

There is also the fact that this site is used as a storytelling medium; we are here to entertain and to be entertained. It would be pretty uninteresting to tell the perfect customer experience, corporate jargon and all (oh, the suspense waiting for their credit card company to approve their purchases! oh, their bills slippery with anticipation!). We read the rants to feel that people are having similar experiences as us and to laugh at those experiences that we probably weren't able to laugh at as they occurred. They are intrinsically going to be negative stories because the negative experience is out of the ordinary. The negative experience helps highlight the positive, normal experience. That's what humour is for, but buddy-boy over on the other site hasn't any use for humour created out of negative situations.

[Stayadd]

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[Mario Speedwagon]

Unbelievable. I just posted a comment there too, can't wait to see how he responds. Posted under the name "Mario"

[Ria]

lol! i love how most of those posts on their are people ripping into him :P he says he's worked in retail for a fuckton of years, and if he claims that every one of those days was a joyous occasion, then i'm calling down all the gods of bullshit on him!