When they call your store "You."

[ShadowTiger]

Does anyone else besides me kinda get peeved when a customer says "You" or "Your" to summarize the entire stock, status, and welfare of your entire store, inventory, and corporation and its values and morals?

"I was looking in your flier and..." (Huh? I thought I left that at home.)
"Where do you keep your nails?" (On my fingertips of course. Where do you keep yours that you keep running out!? 0_. )
"You appear to be out of stock on this item. You should order more." ( I don't put any stock into that item. I can't rely on it. I'm not much of a wall street trader anyway.)
"I just crashed my car into your dumpster." (I didn't think you knew where I lived. This must be remedied... *Terminator Transform*)
"Your pigeons just took a wicked floogie on my windshield in your parking lot!" (Ah, good. I trained them well. >:-] )
"Eating your french fries in your dumpster gave me your ebola virus!" (Ah, good. I trained them well. >:-] )


Yet, why can't I tell them that "I just made two million dollars off of this latest hurricane" ... ? Why can't I tell them "I don't work in this aisle."

Just a pet peeve.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

It didn't bother me unless they were angry and I was having to clean up some mess with them. Then every time they said "You" for instance "when you took my order..." I'd counter very politely, and very sincerely, "Wait, ma'am, I'm sorry, but I don't remember taking your order. Are you sure it was me? I'm so sorry I don't remember, help me out."

They would then say "Oh, I don't mean you personally, no." Which is what I was leading them to. If they say it a few times out loud, they'll usually start believing it and cool off very quickly.

I'm not doing this to be sarcastic or troublesome, and I don't parse it as such. What I'm trying to do is bring the customer back down to earth. They're angry, and rightly so in a lot of cases. I just want to remind them that I'm not the person they're angry at, I'm the person trying to solve their problems.

It was effective.

[retailworker7]

Some people just refuse to think before they open their mouth. I had someone claim that I over-charged them on my day off last week. They demanded to talk to my manager. My manager comes up and asked day and time she was in the store. When the customer answered her my bosses reply was I will have to look into this matter further. This cashier did not over-charge you for merchandise on her day off.

My boss goes back into the office and looks at the schedule. It turns out one of my male co-workers was working the register that day. Also this customer had no receipt so she was not given any money back. I am really not sure how this idiot got me confused with my co-worker. I am a white female and the guy working that day was a black male.

[ReverendBSB]

I work in grocery stores, but I am a vendor and only deal with certain items, none of them groceries. So I have some fun when people say "you".

Customer: "Where do you keep your crackers?"
Me: "In my pantry at home."
C: puzzled look.

[Trixie]

I always hate when something rings up wrong it's somehow me who charged them wrong. Had a lady the other day that had something ring up with a higher price so I send her down the counter to get a refund. Over the regular noise of the store I hear this lady saying "She charged me wrong." It was probably a good 10-15 feet away, far enough that I wouldn't be able to hear a conversation with me ringing up customers.

What I really want to say is "Oh ya caught me! We have to randomly overcharge some many people a day and it was your turn. Sorry about that!"

[blondemarmot]

Co-worker got an old man once.
om: Where are your socks?
cw: On my feet.
om: You're a smart-ass, aren't you?
cw: Yep!

[Merriweather]

Does anyone else besides me kinda get peeved when a customer says "You" or "Your" to summarize the entire stock, status, and welfare of your entire store, inventory, and corporation and its values and morals?

"I was looking in your flier and..." (Huh? I thought I left that at home.)
"Where do you keep your nails?" (On my fingertips of course. Where do you keep yours that you keep running out!? 0_. )
"You appear to be out of stock on this item. You should order more." ( I don't put any stock into that item. I can't rely on it. I'm not much of a wall street trader anyway.)
"I just crashed my car into your dumpster." (I didn't think you knew where I lived. This must be remedied... *Terminator Transform*)
"Your pigeons just took a wicked floogie on my windshield in your parking lot!" (Ah, good. I trained them well. >:-] )
"Eating your french fries in your dumpster gave me your ebola virus!" (Ah, good. I trained them well. >:-] )


Yet, why can't I tell them that "I just made two million dollars off of this latest hurricane" ... ? Why can't I tell them "I don't work in this aisle."

Just a pet peeve.

I do understand how annoying it is when people say "you" when angry or placing blame, as if you personally made an error on their charges, or decided not to have what they want, etc. I try very hard never to use "you" when I'm talking about what a specific person (not themselves) did or about something that person has no real control over, such as a price, etc.

But I must admit to using "you" in some of your examples, and it honestly never crossed my mind that it could be found annoying or offensive. I look at an employee as a representative of their store, so to go to the customer service desk and ask "where are the widgits in your flyer?" or "where do you keep your widgits" seems less awkward than standing in mallmart, asking a mallmart employee, "where are the widgits in mallmart's flier?". If I call a store, get an answer of "Malmart, how can I help you" I would normally say "what time to you close tonite" rather than "what time does mallmart close tonite". It just seems more natural to me.

I've heard many employees of various types of companies say "I" when in reality they're referring to the company they work for. So I never really thought much about saying "you" instead of "your company" when making an inquiry.

As long as they weren't blaming me for something I had no control over or that some other employee had done, I never have had a problem with someone saying "you" to mean my company - I hate to think I've been annoying a lot of employees over the years by doing that to them.

[Food Lady]

I don't get offended because I know they don't really mean me. Now, if they have a complaint about me personally, I take offense if it's not true or they're complaining about how I feel, as opposed to something I did, which is a whole other thread. But if someone asks, "Where do you have X item?" or "What time do you close?", that's fine, since I represent the company. I do take offense if I'm off the clock, though.

[ShadowTiger]

If it's something neutral or positive, like "Where do you keep your fliers" there is very little cause for offense or confusion.

But when you have something like "You overcharged me" it can get a bit personal, and it would be nice if it didn't escalate into some sort of brain washing via overuse of the term.

[Slayer]

I really don't care when people say "you" or "your" when referring to stock and stuff like that. I do work there and since it's only me and my two bosses, I tend to do a lot for the store. I feel like I've adopted it or something, lol.

If someone uses "you" or "your" for something that's higher than me or out of my control, then yeah, I'll get annoyed. Like pigeons? haha

Otherwise, it's fine. Though that could be because I'm in a smaller store environment?

[Andara Bledin]

That's one of the pitfalls of the English language. "You" as a word is both singular and plural.

It's important to note that most of the time, the customers are using the plural and including the entire corporation in that "you" and are not directing it at "you" singular.

Of course, sometimes they really are, and those people are jerks.

^-.-^

[Peppergirl]

Ah, the dreaded "you people". Nothing, but NOTHING makes me freeze up quicker than hearing that awful phrase.

I hear it alot.

We handle after-hours emergency calls for travel.

"You people booked me on the wrong flight!!!!!"

Me: "Oh, no. So your agency booked you incorrectly? Lets see what *I* can do to fix that?"

If my tone is good and the planets are aligned correctly, a SC with half a brain (or a conscience) will say something like, "Oh, so you're not so-and-so travel?"

To which I'll reply, "Nope, but I'm the emergency service for them. What's happened? Can I help?"

Then things usually go better from there, depending on how badly their agency has f-ed up.

Of course, occasionally, it's still MY personal fault that his agency booked the wrong flight 8 months ago and that he just checked his itinerary 3 hours ago (that he's had for months).

We don't have any hard set rules for disconnecting, thank god. I'm a supervisor, so I've gotten a few transferred to me that have been abusive. The vast majority of the time I'm already pissed off because they've been abusive to my staff and can barely muster enough civility to hide my disgust.

So far I've gotten away with it, but as we continue to grow and get more business, I see the tide turning a bit. I'll probably have to kiss a little more customer ass in the future. Not something I excel at, to say the least.