The customer is always an arsehole

There’re a couple of things in this world that get me so worked up, worked up beyond all proportion so that I could actually morph into an outraged middle Englander (or “dad” as he’s more affectionately known). The major one is my obsession with bad customer service. Sadly, within my peer group I’m not alone in this one. Errant male friend (gone travelling with errant female friend), Milway and I have all worked in enough crappy customer service jobs in our life for us to get really quite put out if we have a bad experience with someone being paid money to be polite to us. (Seriously, why do we put up with this shit? If you pay someone for a blow job you expect a blow job, pay someone for a nice meal in a restaurant you expect to be brought a nice meal by a nice waiter, pay for a taxi and you expect that person to drive you to your destination without moaning about it, taking you the wrong way and charging you the extra fare for their mistake).

So obsessed are we that whenever we meet up you can guarantee that we’ll all be swapping tales of self-righteous moral outrage within five minutes of seeing each other. And it’s not just that we share our tales of callous customer disservice, we also have to let each other know just how cool, calm and collected we were in dealing with the rude call centre worker/shop assistant/waiting staff. We’re all so bloody pompous with our “I don’t appreciate the way you’re speaking to me”s and our “please don’t interrupt me when I’m talking”s. Treating the customers like they’re morons is most likely the only thing that keeps them from dwelling on how much more they could have made of their lives/how much better they are than their crappy job now they’ve got a degree/how much more fun they could be having down the pub, and yet here we are speaking to them q.u.i.e.t.l.y and c.a.l.m.l.y like they’re small, angry children with ADD and a learning difficulty.

But do they deserve it? You bet your fucking backside they do. When I worked as a customer service helpline person for a part-baked bread company (ah, the memories! The glamour!) I spent the entire day taking calls from irate, inarticulate shop keepers bursting a blood vessel that their latest batch of bread rolls had turned up one roll short (who knew you could get so upset about flour-based foodstuffs) and I was never anything but charming and polite to them. We all know other people are fucking morons, but if you’re being paid to be nice to them, it’s the least you can do.

Which is why, bitch that I am, I just phoned a café manager on his mobile to complain about a member of his staff. I hope he sacks the useless foot-stamping, tantrum-throwing, pouting French brat.