Well, I haven’t had much to blog about lately, so I will share this random story of rudeness that I witnessed today at the bank.

So, there I was pulling up to the drive-thru at Bank of America during lunch. I was surprised that I didn’t have to wait to get a spot! Well, the lady next to me was being helped when I arrived. So, I waited, then I waited, and then I waited some more. Evidently this lady next to me didn’t have all of her paper work that she needed to get the money that she wanted. So, the guy helping her (who was the only one working the window) kept going over and over with her that he couldn’t do what she wanted because she had not supplied all of the info for him. Well, she ended up leaving, so the lady behind her drove up to the window and proceeded to say in a very rude voice that the lady that just left was the only car that had been helped in the past 14 minutes. Granted, I was a little irritated at this point too, but do you think that this guy didn’t know that he couldn’t help another customer out because of the aforementioned absent minded customer? Does she really think that she was enlightening him on some new information???

This immediately made me feel bad for the guy because I could identify with him. He was just trying to do his job the best that he could and then this crotchety lady had to come up and yell at him. I deal with rude people every day and sometimes it really gets to me because people blame me because of some mistake that they made or maybe it is just because they don’t want to take responsibility for their own actions, and so they feel that they have to talk to me in a demeaning manner in order to make themselves feel better.

I remember when I was working at a restaurant in college and some lady chewed my head off because her food didn’t come out as fast as she had anticipated. There was another lady that came up after her and tried to comfort me and tell me that I didn’t do anything wrong and that I was doing the best I could. So, I tried to “pay it forward” today by letting that guy know that the other lady was just being rude and obnoxious and to not let it bother him because he was only doing his job.

So, what can we gain from this class? Well, always remember when you are dealing with someone in customer service that they may need a little grace and encouragement and being rude and irritable wont get you very far, and it makes you look like an idiot!!