Get it? They turn left. Anyway, we all know the old saying "The customer is always right". We also know the old adage that when someone breaks a mirror they get seven years of bad luck. Last I checked no mirror, especially not shattered ones, have any kind of cosmic ability to create mischief for us. But to be entirely truthful, my time in retail leads me to believe that magical reflective surfaces in a state of smitherines are more likely to exist than all, if nothing less any, customers are right.
I did extensive research (one Google search and believing the first result) on the history of the phrase and it's shrouded in mystery. The phrase came about at about the turn of the century (last century, not this one). I have to imagine that it's creation came about from a drunken executive who said it in a board meeting as a joke. For fear of losing their jobs, his entire company just went along with it, and the coiner, realizing that no one got the joke, told various tales of other people saying it so he wouldn't take the heat.
Never the less, it's been the true cause of all of this country's problems since Day 1. Anyone who works in any capacity dealing with everyday people will tell you that, as a whole, people are irritable asshats. And you're average E.I.A. (Everyday Irritable Asshat) has a few misconceptions in their tiny pea-brains that dominate their actions. The first is that they are innocent. For example, a customer who says they've been with a company for years and has never had a complaint is a lying sack of whatever unpleasant substance you like. They have called into Customer Service almost religiously at every opportunity, even when irrelevant. "How come my Macbook isn't working????" "Ma'am, this is Microsoft..." (That was an iDrone joke!)
The second is that despite how much smarter they (the EIA) are than everybody else, you (the retail worker) are supposed to know everything. Unnoticed hypocrisy aside, the most sinister part of this misguided notion is that when an EIA asks you a question, they aren't asking for the answer. They are in fact asking for the answer that they like the best. The EIA will ask the PURE (Poor Unfortunate Retail Employee) a question, and upon hearing the truth, they will become upset at the PURE, demanding an alternative, and ultimately wrong, answer. Upon finding out that there is none, they will become enraged and flail about like a toddler at the PURE or his/her boss. And the PURE has no escape, because giving a false, customer-approved answer will only multiply the EIA's rage exponentially upon finding out the truth later.
And the final, and probably most laughable, ill-conceived notion is that the individual EIA is important. Fun Fact: Multi-Million/Billion Dollar Companies do not need any individual's business to thrive, let alone survive. In fact, since most whiny customers are "legacy" (the business name for people who have been paying them money for a long time, but don't pay as much as newer check-writers), companies may even save money with that many less customer service calls. And while companies won't (usually) go out of their way to be dicks, they will not bend to the EIA's will for their inane desires.
So much money and time has been wasted on the intellectual voids that are EIAs that we are now in a global recession. Some blame banks, some blame irresponsible governments, but ultimately these organizations wouldn't have to make such awful decisions if the average person weren't a useless black hole of thought. But fear not, readership I have a solution! And that solution is... to be discussed in the next (and final) post of this series! Make sure to tune in next periodic and unpredictable period between posts (probably this week)!
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