Tweet
My brother was discussing impatient fools at his new job at Starbucks recently to my father and myself, and my dad offered to tell us a story of his days at Disneyland, back when HE had to deal with people like that. His advice was "be obscenely polite, then make them wait 10 minutes." Sage advice, in my opinion, but the story was the clincher for me.
Bear in mind this story does take place back in...hell, it must have been late 1960's?...so things were a *bit* cheaper. At Disneyland he worked at the souvenier (sp?) shop near the exit of the park. Needless to say he had quite a few encounters with people who were exhausted, grumpy, and sometimes downright pissed down there; but after a while learned a few tricks of the trade.
During a rather impressive mob at the stand, His superior (D for convenience) was ringing up customers when a women with a handful of postcards forces her way through the line and starts literally banging on the cash register. As we all know, there is no surer way to piss off the CSR than actions like that (save perhaps personal insults), and D was no exception. Working expertly around the woman, D continued clearing out her line, ignoring the waving woman and her assault on the cash register. Finally the woman fairly screamed "Are you going to take my money, or what?!"
D looked the woman right in the eye and replied "Disneyland does not need your 35 cents, ma'am. My name is <name here>, employee number is <12345>, the complaints department is over on main street." She then turned to the next customer and began to help them, amidst a great cheer from the rest of the crowd at both D's reply and the woman's expression.
Bear in mind this story does take place back in...hell, it must have been late 1960's?...so things were a *bit* cheaper. At Disneyland he worked at the souvenier (sp?) shop near the exit of the park. Needless to say he had quite a few encounters with people who were exhausted, grumpy, and sometimes downright pissed down there; but after a while learned a few tricks of the trade.
During a rather impressive mob at the stand, His superior (D for convenience) was ringing up customers when a women with a handful of postcards forces her way through the line and starts literally banging on the cash register. As we all know, there is no surer way to piss off the CSR than actions like that (save perhaps personal insults), and D was no exception. Working expertly around the woman, D continued clearing out her line, ignoring the waving woman and her assault on the cash register. Finally the woman fairly screamed "Are you going to take my money, or what?!"
D looked the woman right in the eye and replied "Disneyland does not need your 35 cents, ma'am. My name is <name here>, employee number is <12345>, the complaints department is over on main street." She then turned to the next customer and began to help them, amidst a great cheer from the rest of the crowd at both D's reply and the woman's expression.
Comment