Respect in the Workplace: Not Just for Employees

I work in two retail settings and have been in and out of various customer service venues since my sixteenth birthday. In those years that I have worked there has been one consistent theme when customers come through my line to check out: if something is wrong, it is automatically my fault.

These peoples’ reactions fall into varying levels on the spectrum, and it is usually only those who choose to belittle me or yell at me (or, as in one case, threaten to talk to a manager to get me fired for “being five minutes off on their quoted wait time”) that really bothered me. From these years of experience, my attitude has changed from getting offended to merely letting their reactions roll off my back; however, I am still human, I still have emotions, and there are times when I do get my feelings hurt at work because of a customer’s reaction to having to wait just a little bit longer or a price ringing up incorrectly on the screen. Often, I will simply smile and offer to see if the problem can be resolved, but the lack of respect that I get from customers still continues to astound me.

So, if I could offer advice to any consumer, it would be this: understand that the individuals who are serving you are working, and ninety-nine percent of the time we are genuinely willing to help you with a smile on our face—that’s why we are there in the first place. Learn to be patient with us, very often, mistakes in pricing or whether or not a coupon is valid is a computer error, not a personal one. We are not taking five minutes to check out the person in front of you to make you angry or slow you down when you are in a hurry.

Learn patience. If we offer a smile and ask how you’re doing, it’s okay to answer us (and it helps us not feel like we are talking to a brick wall). Know we will do what we can to help you have a great experience—we want you to keep coming back (after all, without customers, where would we get our paychecks?). But remember that we are people, too. We have our bad days just like you, and they don’t necessarily go away just because we’re at work.

So the next time you’re standing in line at Hy-Vee or Walgreens or even Subway, put yourself in the shoes of the person serving you, have a little patience and remember that we appreciate respect like any other person would, even if it’s not in the job description.