Zonie63
Posts: 2826
Joined: 4/25/2011
From: The Old Pueblo
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Kirata
quote:
ORIGINAL: Moonhead
Have you never worked in retail? They don't pay clerks to be human.
If you had said a government bureaucracy, I'd have gone with it. But retail? Where are you talking about?
K.
I'm not sure what Moonhead may have been referring to, although in general, I've noticed a diminishing level of civility and manners from those in service jobs.
I've never worked in retail, although I have worked in customer service call center environments, and part of the problem is that they don't really want the individual workers to have any choice or make any decisions on their own.
I've seen a similar culture in retail; the line clerks can't do anything beyond the norm unless they call a supervisor, which holds up the line even more. I saw this yesterday. Someone was trying to use a gift card and the clerk didn't know what to do. In the other line, the clerk was in an involved conversation with the customer, who was showing the clerk ads and pricees, which apparently weren't ringing up correctly on the cashier's computer system (or not at the sale prices which the ad said). You're basically at the mercy of whatever the computer says, and you can't do anything unless the computer says it's okay. Maybe a supervisor can override - maybe not, but either way, it's a bigger pain in the butt.
I suppose bureaucracies might be somewhat similar as far as a lack of humanity goes, although to be honest, I notice very little difference between private sector bureaucracy and public sector bureaucracy. Dealing with the electric company, the gas company, or any large corporation is strikingly similar to dealing with a government bureaucracy - as if the people who designed both public sector and private sector hierarchies must have gone to the same schools.
In fact, dealing with the Motor Vehicle Department seems a relatively more pleasant experience than dealing with the privately-owned electric company. (Not that the MVD is any great shakes, but still, they're better than the private sector these days.)
But if anyone is wondering why people are rude, whether online or offline, just take a look at what people have to deal with on a daily basis. Just dealing with heavy traffic day in and day out is enough to sour one's disposition a bit. Dealing with bureaucrats, customer "service" reps on the phone - and even if they give you the obligatory "courtesy," you can tell that it's forced and insincere.
And I absolutely hate big box stores where you have to walk through a hellish labyrinth just to be able to find something, all the while fighting crowds and kids running all over the place. Then, even if I finally find what I'm looking for, I have trouble finding the way out. (I don't need a GPS system for driving, but I wish they would have one for retail stores, because that's what I really need. The other day, I almost lost it inside Wal-Mart, about to yell at the top of my lungs, "How the FUCK do I get out of this fucking place???!?")
No wonder people are rude. There's only so much that people can take before they finally crack up.
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RE: Interesting Article about Rude Behaviour Online - 
Profile
if they do tho, I definately check out their previous posts.. 
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