A lot of consumers feel they’re treated like dirt by salespeople, and for good reason. Lots of salespeople are only in it for themselves, with their highest priority being their paycheque. But some of us get that way because of how we’re treated by our customers. It’s no exaggeration that retail is one of the hardest industries to find fulfilment in, and after a while, many people-who-sell-things either turn into jaded jerks or cynical jokers, largely because even if they didn’t have that attitude before they went in, those two become the only options when dealing with some markets and groups of people.
If you ever want some good examples of how not to treat the people you rely on to sell you the stuff you want, head on over to (The Customer is) Not Always Right and read a few of the stories there. I’m not kidding when I say I shared this site with everyone in my house immediately on finding it, and I wish I had found it long ago. Technorati is a wonderful thing, some days.
The lesson to take from this? People behind the counter are human too. Sometimes they legitimately make mistakes. Sometimes they simply CAN NOT give you what you want – whether that’s because it’s totally insane of you to ask, or because it would cost them their jobs to comply is not something debatable. It just is what it is. The effort it takes to get worked up over most of this junk is seriously never, and I mean never, worth the payoff you might get from it. Chill out.
By the way, a bit of a caveat? I think the fact that someone not only made a site like Not Always Right, but has been running it for quite some time, is really just sad. This means the saturation of flat out jerks and ill-meaning idiots in the world has been pretty high for long enough that the internet took notice. When the internet notices you, you’re either doing something awesome, or something really really terrible. I’ll let you all decide which one this site represents.