If there’s anything I hate slightly less than not having a pen in my bag it’s 2 uptown E trains in a row. Like, where the hell is my C train and why would so many people need an E train? Come ON! A man just walked down the staircase next to me…with hiccups…every 3rd step was a high-pitched yelp.
There’s a man on my C train with no legs and I’m not sure ow he got onto this platform since the Times Sq station is not yet evolved into an elevator station…unless I guess if he took a train that came from an Elevator station…but I can’t think of one. Damn transit system. But he managed to get on the train by pulling his wheelchair through the closing doors. It was kind of like an action film.
Supposedly it’s going to be 10 degrees tomorrow? At least, in Poughkeepsie. I ahven’t checked our weather report. And it’s supposed to snow on Sunday. I don’t wanna. If it’s gonna snow that means boots, sweatshirt, coat, sweat pants, jeans, gloves, hat, and I don’t wanna. It’s days like this that make me miss
1) Florida
2) Fordham. Where you never actually have to go outside
3) Coco Cay, Bahamas.
Speaking of la Florid, I’m going home early for Xmas. Of course, gone are the days when I’d go home for a month in college b/c of Xmas break because girl’s gotta work, but 10 days in O-town is way better than 3.5. And I think for my next vaycay I’ll take a cruise.
By March or April I should have another sick day, 3 or 4 comp days, and a floating holiday, so god forbid I’m still at Roundabout, I’ll take a floating vacation.
So yeah, if anyone’s gonna be in Orland over Christmas, I’ll be there 12/17 to 12/27 J
Friday, November 30, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
#25
It being the holiday season I’ve decided it’s time to do a little write up on shopping and customer service—two things wholly related and yet so often dichotomous. As a CSR, my motto is “the customer is never right—anyone who says different is trying to buy something.” Serves all of us consumers right. Understanding this motto, I go into holiday shopping with my cynicism and a guard in tow.
There are 3 kinds of holiday shoppers—the first, those who make a list, check it twice, and then freak out when Toys R Us runs out of Tickle Me Elmo XXX. The second—those who shop purely by inspiration and often end up buying too much for one person and far too little for the next. The third, like me, are those who make a tentative “idea” list and base inspirations on my previously thought out plans.
A few years ago, I was purely an “inspired” shopper, which led me to being roped into far too many free standing mall cart holiday specials, one of which was the cart for Dead Sea Minerals. Now, I will say, their products are pretty good. But their sales reps are subversive glorified telesales commission-based whiney bitches and just too fucking persistent. So I made a point to not even give that cart a second glance when shopping at the Manhattan Mall this week. The problem, of course, was that It was standing between the store I’d just exited and the exit I wanted. Well, I was screwed. I knew I’d be targeted since I was carrying shopping bags (and all consumers MUST want to consume more) and my face was a little blotchy. Essentially I should have had a bulls eye printed on my hoodie.
I attempted a casual walk out of Charlotte Russe to the tune of “oh I’m deaf in my right ear” and made a beeline for the door. Unfortunately, the very ill-used and undersold sales rep is much more persistent than the easily-ignored-$18/hr-“do-you-like-stand-up?”-and-help-save-the-children”-guys on the street.
She was on my heels the second I stepped out of the door. Her first “excuse me” was more like “do you have the time?.” The second excuse me was more like “come back, you dropped your wallet.” By now I was a good 10 feet from her cart. The third “excuse me” came 20 feet from the cart to the tune of my mother’s “Lauren Theresa Cartelli get you ass back here!” And she was right behind me.
Now, usually, at this point, I would do 1 of 2 things. A) I could continue to ignore her and go on my merry way. B) I could turn to her and say something to the effect of “wow, your product must be really shitty if you’re not worrying about people stealing it when you desperately chase would-be customers. I couldn’t do the second option because the product is over priced, but not crappy, therefore she’s just a desperate moron working on crap + commission. And I couldn’t go on being deaf because I was kind of afraid that she’d make a grab at my arm and I couldn’t risk smacking her with my gifts because they weren’t heavy enough to knock her out.
So I created another option. At the end of the 3rd very rude, impatient, demanding, threatening, and just plain loud “excuse me” I spun around, putting my face in hers since she’d been following so closely behind me, held my right index finger in her face as one would a naughty dog and firmly said NO.
Spun back around, kept walking.
I could hear her sucking her teeth in anger as I walked off. She can get over it. Find people skills and move on. And I wasn’t even an actual customer. If she’d actually succeeded in getting me to turn around as if interested, no way would I actually buy anything after that display
In another prime holiday example of rude customer service—an example where I was actually a customer AND actually right—I’m boarding my flight to Orlando on the Tuesday before Christmas. I’ve got a backpack on, and I’m carrying another bag in front of me. I’ve just turned into the aisle from the jetway entrance of my Delta plane. I’ve got two walls on my sides because I’m at the entrance for first class. Directly in front of me is an elderly man, pulling a very large-shouldn’t-even-be-a-carry-on-suitcase. Directly behind me—a blonde stewardess and a very skinny black stewardess doing herself up as if for the Delta beauty pageant. Her name is Brenda. I can hear the banter between the two. And just as I squeeze into what is actually “first class space” Brenda says she’s going to start getting drink orders from first class patrons.
She comes up behind me and says “Can I squeeze past you?” I turn to her and sympathetically say “no, you realy can’t.” she says “why? What’s in front of you?” I said “a long line and a very large suitcase” at which point she squeezed into the 4 inches between me and the starboard wall (eliminating the space between myself and the port wall. “But you can try if you must” I said. She looks at me and sneers and says “I CAN because I WORK here.” Which was obvious by the red scarf and garish makeup. She then proceeded to squeeze herself all the way up to the bulkhead to get first class drink orders and once I reached the bulkhead, now had to squeeze past her which seemed to defeat the initial point. Now, I was in Zone 6 of 8 or 9 so there were still several people behind me, so she COULD have just gotten on the line behind me and waited to get 4 rows back. Because god forbid 1st class passengers should have to wait an extra 2 minutes to place their drink orders (they won’t get them for a while, anyway).
But this is what I don’t understand about Delta. Delta’s got this ad campaign (all over the C-train mind you) about CHANGE and all the CHANGES they’re making (Specifically it’s on flights from the East to the West Coast, and from NY to Atlanta. And part of the campaign is “since when is an airline’s time more important than yours?” Which is exactly right. I mean—Jet Blue, the now-defunct Song airlines—they had no first class section. Everyone was treated the same and WELL so why should I get nastier treatment from an airline that is so “CHANGING” and which I’m paying MORE for—an airline that should make you feel valued…? I’ll be writing a letter…
There are 3 kinds of holiday shoppers—the first, those who make a list, check it twice, and then freak out when Toys R Us runs out of Tickle Me Elmo XXX. The second—those who shop purely by inspiration and often end up buying too much for one person and far too little for the next. The third, like me, are those who make a tentative “idea” list and base inspirations on my previously thought out plans.
A few years ago, I was purely an “inspired” shopper, which led me to being roped into far too many free standing mall cart holiday specials, one of which was the cart for Dead Sea Minerals. Now, I will say, their products are pretty good. But their sales reps are subversive glorified telesales commission-based whiney bitches and just too fucking persistent. So I made a point to not even give that cart a second glance when shopping at the Manhattan Mall this week. The problem, of course, was that It was standing between the store I’d just exited and the exit I wanted. Well, I was screwed. I knew I’d be targeted since I was carrying shopping bags (and all consumers MUST want to consume more) and my face was a little blotchy. Essentially I should have had a bulls eye printed on my hoodie.
I attempted a casual walk out of Charlotte Russe to the tune of “oh I’m deaf in my right ear” and made a beeline for the door. Unfortunately, the very ill-used and undersold sales rep is much more persistent than the easily-ignored-$18/hr-“do-you-like-stand-up?”-and-help-save-the-children”-guys on the street.
She was on my heels the second I stepped out of the door. Her first “excuse me” was more like “do you have the time?.” The second excuse me was more like “come back, you dropped your wallet.” By now I was a good 10 feet from her cart. The third “excuse me” came 20 feet from the cart to the tune of my mother’s “Lauren Theresa Cartelli get you ass back here!” And she was right behind me.
Now, usually, at this point, I would do 1 of 2 things. A) I could continue to ignore her and go on my merry way. B) I could turn to her and say something to the effect of “wow, your product must be really shitty if you’re not worrying about people stealing it when you desperately chase would-be customers. I couldn’t do the second option because the product is over priced, but not crappy, therefore she’s just a desperate moron working on crap + commission. And I couldn’t go on being deaf because I was kind of afraid that she’d make a grab at my arm and I couldn’t risk smacking her with my gifts because they weren’t heavy enough to knock her out.
So I created another option. At the end of the 3rd very rude, impatient, demanding, threatening, and just plain loud “excuse me” I spun around, putting my face in hers since she’d been following so closely behind me, held my right index finger in her face as one would a naughty dog and firmly said NO.
Spun back around, kept walking.
I could hear her sucking her teeth in anger as I walked off. She can get over it. Find people skills and move on. And I wasn’t even an actual customer. If she’d actually succeeded in getting me to turn around as if interested, no way would I actually buy anything after that display
In another prime holiday example of rude customer service—an example where I was actually a customer AND actually right—I’m boarding my flight to Orlando on the Tuesday before Christmas. I’ve got a backpack on, and I’m carrying another bag in front of me. I’ve just turned into the aisle from the jetway entrance of my Delta plane. I’ve got two walls on my sides because I’m at the entrance for first class. Directly in front of me is an elderly man, pulling a very large-shouldn’t-even-be-a-carry-on-suitcase. Directly behind me—a blonde stewardess and a very skinny black stewardess doing herself up as if for the Delta beauty pageant. Her name is Brenda. I can hear the banter between the two. And just as I squeeze into what is actually “first class space” Brenda says she’s going to start getting drink orders from first class patrons.
She comes up behind me and says “Can I squeeze past you?” I turn to her and sympathetically say “no, you realy can’t.” she says “why? What’s in front of you?” I said “a long line and a very large suitcase” at which point she squeezed into the 4 inches between me and the starboard wall (eliminating the space between myself and the port wall. “But you can try if you must” I said. She looks at me and sneers and says “I CAN because I WORK here.” Which was obvious by the red scarf and garish makeup. She then proceeded to squeeze herself all the way up to the bulkhead to get first class drink orders and once I reached the bulkhead, now had to squeeze past her which seemed to defeat the initial point. Now, I was in Zone 6 of 8 or 9 so there were still several people behind me, so she COULD have just gotten on the line behind me and waited to get 4 rows back. Because god forbid 1st class passengers should have to wait an extra 2 minutes to place their drink orders (they won’t get them for a while, anyway).
But this is what I don’t understand about Delta. Delta’s got this ad campaign (all over the C-train mind you) about CHANGE and all the CHANGES they’re making (Specifically it’s on flights from the East to the West Coast, and from NY to Atlanta. And part of the campaign is “since when is an airline’s time more important than yours?” Which is exactly right. I mean—Jet Blue, the now-defunct Song airlines—they had no first class section. Everyone was treated the same and WELL so why should I get nastier treatment from an airline that is so “CHANGING” and which I’m paying MORE for—an airline that should make you feel valued…? I’ll be writing a letter…
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