Defining a customer

[fireheart]

I've noticed quite a number of threads popping up that relate to work that's not in the retail or hospitality sector. Things like teachers, prison guards etc.
So, I thought that rather than creating a category for those altogether, I thought I might define what a customer is for everyone.

A customer is someone who pays for goods or services. The payment in itself can vary, from currency, to time, through to favours, while the goods or services received can also vary, from education, to rehabilitation, through to food.

Hopefully this might prevent arguments over whether people here have jobs with "customers" or not. So what do you think?

[Broomjockey]

Overly complicated and not entirely necessary, really. I think most of us are smart enough to roll with the situations as they go. If you really want a definition, then how about this for nice and simple:

Customers: For your job, the group you have to help/serve/watch over/support/assist/etc.

[Rapscallion]

I can see where you're coming from, Fireheart. We've debated this one before. However, am I going to turn someone away from venting on here when their job doesn't really match our exact criteria?

I run this site primarily to help people by letting them vent. If it's a service position, I don't really mind. If anyone decides not to post here because someone else in a stressful workplace situation is posting, then that would be their choice, though unlikely to happen.

There may be some mileage in yet another section for something like sucky workplace situations that don't depend on customers (rather on the grounds of people overseeing etc), but I'd have to do some counting to see how many threads there are that would be placed in that category.

Firehreart - fancy doing some counting for me? Take about ten pages from the SC section at random and let me know how many threads in that aren't dealing directly with customers, but instead in some sort of service position. Most recent ten pages would be best for a current sample.

Rapscallion

[fireheart]

Sorry, I probably should've made my thoughts a bit clearer.

I thought of this after I read what had happened to Kara and being told that her position didn't involve customers per se. I've also seen some of her threads being constantly shifted back and forth between GWC and SC, so that's why I thought of the idea to have a broad definition of customer for those who wonder why we have teachers/prison guards/blog writers etc. popping up. (i.e. Lingual, Kara, Joi)

The idea wasn't meant to turn people away and I do apologise if it seemed like that. Even though the site is labelled Customers Suck, it's easy to quickly assume that it's retail-workers and not other service positions.

[Rapscallion]

I'm easy either way. If you can do a count, we can look at whether or not it's worth splitting it off, though I do take new sections seriously. I need to know that there's a need for them. No apology needed.

Rapscallion