“The Customer Is Always Right”

I want to talk a little bit today about being a customer. And I think what I’m going to say applies to most every industry where there are customers. Because you know you hear that slogan, “the customer is always right” but I think it’s gone too far. People in this day and age have become bad customers. I think it goes back to that mentality where they think they’re always right so then it doesn’t matter how they act, though that’s just a theory.

I’m not saying every customer is a bad customer. But I think you know the type. The person who won’t get off their cell phone to check out for just five minutes. The person who just complains about every single little thing and nothing is good enough. One time when I was working in a fast food restaurant, we had a guy come through with a very large order close to closing time and we were doing our best to get everything right and as quick as we possibly can and we forgot to include silverware in the bag and he came back and cussed us out for at least five minutes with f-bombs and everything. I mean, I realize we forgot his silverware but still, does it really merit that level of a response?

I guess what I’m just trying to say is that the people who are serving you, be it at a restaurant, a clothing store, the grocery store, Wal-mart, wherever they may be, they are people too. They deserve to be treated with a basic level of respect, of common courtesy, of just niceness. There is no need to be rude or vulgar or disrespectful to these people. It bothers me so much when I see people acting that way. Just because they are serving you doesn’t mean they are beneath you and deserve to be treated so poorly. As the old saying goes, it shows more about your character the way you treat the people below you than the way you treat your equals.

I guess I’ve just seen a lot of this poor behavior lately and needed to get this off of my chest. Please just treat other people with basic kindness and respect.

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