I have always been in Customer Service.  in 1980 I worked for a grocery chain here in Maine.  I worked for that company for 18 years.  It was something to do until I got a real job.  Then I worked 1 year at a fast food restaurant, and following that 7 years for a major retailer in Maine at a 3rd shift call center. In all, I have spent over 25 years in Customer Service.  I learned a few things:

• I did NOT deliberately go slow to make you wait longer.
• I cannot open another register if I have no more able bodied people in the store.
• 10 items or less doesn’t mean 13 or 15 or even 20…it means 10. And dividing your items into two orders of 8 each is NOT ten items or less.
• We may be told that the customer is always right, but 99% of the time they are not.
• 100% customer satisfaction guarantee doesn’t mean that because your child liked BLUE best last year you can exchange it for a green one (her new favorite color) this year.
• I have a hard time believing that shoppers cannot get their shopping done Monday-Saturday between 7AM and 11 PM.  Opening on Sundays and Holidays was a big mistake.  And why should I have to work THOSE Sundays and Holidays because YOU can’t take care of your shopping needs at any other time?
• No a shopping cart is NOT a vehicle and I will not serve you in the drive thru window.
• You really braved a blizzard to pick up that bag of chips and half gallon of ice cream?
• There are a lot of lonely, crazy people who call call centers just to talk to someone.

Retail workers are the invisible people who stock shelves, scan and bag your order, get price checks, listen to your complaints and retrieve the carts you couldn’t return to the store.  They show up in bad weather, blizzards, hurricanes, and power outages to make sure you can get what you think you need.  They don’t set the prices.   They don’t set the hours.  They don’t schedule the help.  And they are required to meet minimums:  fastest start to finish drive thru orders (1:30 was the norm).  They are required to meet a minimum number of items scanned per minute (RPMs in a grocery store are “rings per minute”).  In a call center setting, every call is monitored for quality and time (and there were a few customers who could keep one representative on the phone for 2 hours at a time).

This holiday season, it is the Customer Service Representative who will do everything they can, with a smile, to make your shopping experience better than horrid.  Thank them.  They often work for little more than minimum wage.  They will listen to you complain about how early Christmas stuff comes out, items that are out of stock, and how tired YOU are already…put yourself in their shoes for one moment…they get to experience the joys of holiday shopping from both sides.  It isn’t fun.