Angry Customers

Most retail workers will tell you that the worst part of retail is the customers. Which is true. The job is monotonous and physically exhausting in itself, but dealing with people is often difficult. Customers have the tendency to feel extremely entitled. So when things don't go their way, they can turn pretty sinister.

Thankfully I never had a ton of angry customers to deal with. I dealt with 5 at most over the year-ish I worked at my store. That's pretty good for retail. Certain stores have a tendency to attract horrible customers, and ours wasn't really one of them.

Your first angry customer is always going to rattle you. It comes as a shock and you tend to take it personally. You're not exactly equipped to deal with it either; in interviews, managers will ask you how you would react to an angry customer, and you can say "stay calm" all you want, but what do you actually say to get the customer thinking rationally and calm down? Here are some tricks I developed after saying the wrong things that made customers more mad. This works for anyone angry, to be honest.

1. Act like it's your fault
Acting like it's your fault is often the underlying key to making a customer calm down. It's what they want, right? For you to acknowledge that their own ignorance is your complete and total fault? If you can satisfy that condition for them, then you're actually getting them on your side. This includes a lot of apologizing and making sympathetic facial expressions. 

2. Don't answer questions; state facts
When angry, customers like to ask direct, aggressive questions. Never answer these questions with a direct "yes" or "no". It's going to make them more upset because they'll immediately feel more justified for being irrational. What's better is to state facts surrounding their question so that they arrive at their own conclusion. This is a far more effective method to calm them down. If they use their own thinking to answer the question, they begin to be more logical and easier to work with.

example (true story): 

Customer: "I drove all the way here from (insert ridiculously far city) for a gold-colored cardigan I saw online." 
(who the fuck buys a gold-colored cardigan???)
Me: *sympathetic facial expression* "We don't actually have cardigans in gold right now. We have other colors..."
Customer: *aggressive* "But it SAID you guys had them online. Do you SERIOUSLY not have any gold cardigans?"

At this point I could be direct and say no. However, this is bad. It supports her anger. Here is where I began to state facts and offer a solution.

Me: *most sympathetic facial expression* Our online system is sometimes not consistent with the store inventory (fact #1). We get shipment every week (fact #2), so it's possible they may arrive later. Also, sometimes there are online-exclusive colors (fact #3). I can call another store and see if they have it or order it online for you (fact #4,5 and solution).

Notice how the facts allowed her to conclude herself that we didn't have what she wanted. The most important thing is to only state facts and never offer your opinion here. If you say something like "gold would be a really hard color to work with anyway", that's going to make them more upset because you are, in essence, telling them they are wrong on so many levels. That they're wrong for liking the color gold, they're wrong for looking it up online, they're wrong for driving 30 miles to buy it, etc. Also, keep talking and stating facts. Never give them complete silence for too long or else you're giving them time to fume. 

At the same time, another thing to note is to not be too logical. The more you act like a machine, mentally, when talking to a customer, the more annoyed they get. They want to see that you care about their issue. You do this through a hell of a lot of fake sympathy.

3. Say things that emphasize that you are their servant
Notice how in the previous example I said "[...] or order it online for you." That phrase works wonders. It makes customers feel like you are working for them, not against them, even though they might not be getting what they want. It feeds their sense of entitlement, which also calms them down. 

That's my general formula I used to work with angry customers. It got me out of tough situations pretty well without ruining the customer's loyalty to the store. Everybody develops their own way of working with the difficult customers, but it's critical that you never attack them in any way because they're already feeling attacked that you don't have a cardigan in gold.

Sophomore Year

Tomorrow is the first day of the fall semester. The first day of my sophomore year.

For the first time in my life, I am excited to go back to school. I wish I had been this excited a year ago. But this year is different. I know I fit in. I know I have friends to see again. And I have clubs to run and new classes to do well in.

I feel like I am connected to my university. I am an officer in two organizations, and I'm so excited to work with two great groups of people to lead the clubs. I am excited about my new classes. People tell me these are difficult courses, but I view them as challenges that I'm ready for. After the spring semester, I know I can handle extreme pressure and tackle anything that isn't working out well.

I have been ready for tomorrow since pretty much the end of the spring semester. This summer was crazy, and not all of it was enjoyable, but I made the most of it. But now is when the real fun begins.

Summer at Community College

I finished my electricity and magnetism final exam an hour ago. The class is over. My summer at community college is over. What a mixed bundle of feelings I am.

My thoughts toward community college at the beginning were pretty negative. I viewed it as a lesser place...a place that served a purpose for certain people, but I was above that. I saw it less as a place of intellectual stimulation and more as a place to just take required classes. 

And yeah, at first my experiences aligned with my judgments. I saw my general chemistry professor as being strange for being a professional juggler. I saw him as annoying because of how slow he taught, and how easy the class was. I was irritated because he spent two lectures teaching us study skills. 

But the thing is, you see how smart people are in little ways. Like the way he always chose the best examples to expand upon the concepts. Or how he would give you more depth to a concept if you wanted it. I was curious, so I googled him, and suddenly I felt miserable for ever finding him annoying. This man's Ph.D. thesis was on problems found in teaching chemistry to students, and all of his doctoral work and journal articles and everything are literally about how to teach chemistry better. This guy got a Ph.D. to essentially make my life easier. The class was easy for me because he was so educated.

With that knowledge, my perspective of him, the class, and community college changed. Realizing how completely judgmental I had been, I applied myself more and made friends. And suddenly, I was happy. Happier than I've been in most classes at my university. I passed the class easily and began my physics class.

Physics was hard at first. Getting used to the professor always seems to be one of the biggest challenges in a class. He taught at the speed of light and with a thick accent. He could be intimidating. The concepts were significantly harder than chemistry. Not as difficult as linear algebra, but still. It wasn't easy adjusting to that.

The class was at night also, so it completely wrecked my sleep schedule, which I'll now attempt to remedy. And most days, I hated it. There was a ton of work due in a little amount of time. My lab partners could act like complete jerks if they felt like it. So did my professor a few times.

But toward the end of this class, we all got along better. And my professor gave me one of the most motivating compliments I've received in my life. He became kinder toward me, and I saw how much he really cared about us beyond just students. That's rare. I doubt I'll ever receive that from my college's professors. 

The community college faculty as a whole seemed so much more relaxed and connected than at my university. When I came to class early, the heads of the departments would be talking and laughing. The first time I saw this it kind of took me by surprise. After all, I come from a place where a professor will say something snarky to another for using a classroom for a little too long.

Also, this will be the only instance in which I'll take a class with people from other colleges. People from colleges I disliked and people from colleges I dreamed of getting into. It was interesting to realize how alike we all were in our capabilities. Some of them were very smart, and it felt like I was at my college again. It kind of made me realize more that where you go to school is really just a name...what matters is who you are and what you can do.

Another thing, it made me appreciate how fortunate I am to be able to attend a 4 year university from the very beginning of my education. Even though community college isn't bad, there are definitely more resources at my college that I take for granted. 

This summer taking classes at community college turned out much better than expected. It's strange. I had a feeling, while I disliked it, that I would miss it. As I did in gymnastics, as I did in linear algebra. I guess things you hate just get more beautiful as they come to a close. You begin to reflect more and put the pieces of your experience together. You see how everything "bad" about your experience had a purpose. 

Thanks, community college. It's been great. It really has. 

Cloud Nine Compliment

I just got back from my electricity and magnetism lab. And I'm the happiest I've ever been all summer.

I know. It sounds like an oxymoron. But tonight was special.

My professor is from somewhere in Africa. I've inferred that he had a very challenging and strict education there. It shows in how he teaches, and his expectations of us. 

He has been particularly hard on me sometimes. He has stood over me while I'm working a problem in class and watched me work. It's intimidating. He will ask me to calculate stuff for him in front of the whole class. He was even pretty harsh toward me and humiliated me in front of everyone the other week for getting a wrong answer to a problem we worked in class. 

But tonight he really redeemed himself.

I was finishing up the lab with my lab partners. My professor casually walked over and asked me what my major is. 

"Mechanical engineering," I replied.

He smiled. "Mechanical engineering? Go for it," he said. "You can do it." And he patted me on the back.

First of all, I never expected him of all people to compliment me. Second, that's one of the best compliments I've ever received in my life.

It means a lot to me because this is a tough major. It's very easy to doubt yourself and feel inadequate. You feel it most when you get a bad test grade in a difficult class. You feel it when you don't understand something at first and feel lost in class. You feel it when you compare yourself to others who you know that this is definitely the right major for them. 

And it doesn't even end there for me. It's another level of challenges being a girl in engineering. You feel very singled-out and isolated. Like the elephant in the room. The odd one out. And you may be able to do what all the boys can do, but you still face opposition in quiet ways. Unfortunately, there are also still people out there who don't believe girls can be engineers. That engineering is "a man's profession". So you feel that pressure also. 

But for someone with a Ph.D. to recognize my abilities and tell me that I am good enough to be an engineer, to be what I want to be, is moving. This class has been challenging, and that makes it even more meaningful. It makes me feel like I can do this, you know? It's really easy to wish I was in an easier major with more girls. But I love mechanical engineering. It's what I want to do. And now, I finally have someone who has verbalized that he believes I am capable of achieving what I want. 

I'm on cloud nine. I'm not here often. But when I am, it changes me for the better.

Musing #1

There is a pizza place in the mall that I work at. I love pizza, and it's decent pizza. Not the greatest, but it's convenient and will satisfy a craving.

I hate going there though. I dread it. And if I do decide to buy pizza from there, I have to put my most arrogant, business-like expression on my face.

Why?

Because I know otherwise, I'm going to get hit on.

Isn't that sad? That in order to be treated like a normal human being, and not be objectified, I have to be someone I'm not usually.

I hate that the employees think that's acceptable. I hate that society thinks that's acceptable.

And to all the dickheads who say "just take it as a compliment": compliment or not, it's completely unwarranted. I don't want your opinion on my looks. I want you to treat me professionally and not as a piece of meat to say uncomfortable things to. That's all. Why is that so goddamn hard?

Why is it so goddamn hard to be treated with respect as a woman?

Good Bosses

This weekend at work was a lot of fun. We had very few customers relative to every other Saturday and Sunday due to the 4th of July weekend. Which was freaking awesome. Awesome for my introverted nature--not for sales.

What made it a lot of fun was that I got to work with a former manager of mine. This was the manager who trained me a year ago. She started working at another location shortly before I left to start college and worked at my store this Sunday. 

I love this manager. She's so upbeat and optimistic. Almost never says anything negative. She is absolutely amazing at her job and continuously demonstrates the epitome of "above and beyond" in her work. She shows appreciation for my work and makes me feel like I'm good at my job (which isn't always the case, but I appreciate it regardless). She treats me like a best friend and lets me do office work and stocking in the back, something typically only managers do, because she knows I enjoy that. She lets me make my job likable. Ahhhh. Too bad she doesn't work at my store anymore.

I was so happy on Sunday with this manager that I got to thinking about what makes her such a good boss, and what makes a good boss in general. Good is a subjective and relative term, of course, but I feel like good managers have a couple of common qualities. 

Above all, they need to trust you, and you need to feel that trust. I feel like that's so important because one of my past managers definitely didn't trust me much. I'd catch her eye across the store and I could tell she had been watching me very closely, making sure I was doing everything right. It gave me such an uneasy feeling. I never felt like I was doing anything right, and dreaded working with her because I constantly felt like a victim. 

Another big quality I feel that a manager should have is the ability to be relatable. I am happiest and work best under my managers who make me feel like their friend, or at the very least, an equal. It's also another way of showing that they trust you, in a sense. My boss at my old gym always threw around the superiority act with all of her employees. She was only relatable with a few of them, and got extremely cocky with the rest of us. Sometimes she'd tell me to do something, and then would add, "I can make you do that because I'm your boss." Geez. Okay. I was going to do what you told me to do anyway. No need to be so damn pretentious. 

Oh and another thing. She almost always forgot to pay me. So as if it wasn't awkward and painful enough for me to tell her she hadn't payed me, she wouldn't just apologize and pay me. She would, without fail, take a second to say something that insinuated that I was lying, before reluctantly paying me. Uggh. You don't fully appreciate direct deposit unless you have ever asked your boss to pay you.

Anyway, my final good boss attribute is knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and responding to both appropriately. I made so many mistakes the first few months in my job, and my manager I worked with Sunday was always particularly tactful when addressing them. She never made a big deal out of my many mistakes, but she was also serious in a nice way about them. She knows how bad I can be at getting customers to sign up for the store card, and sometimes lets me get away with it and pushes me a little harder at other times. She also understands how introverted I can be, and she trusts me enough to let me work in the back at times, probably because she knows I can work faster when I like what I'm doing. 

I guess a great bonus quality is praising your employees from time to time, too. I understand that you shouldn't need praise to do good work, but it really makes for happier and more confident employees. I am very rarely told I do a good job, and if I am, it's from the customers of all people. Managers telling you that you did something really well makes you feel like you're appreciated and valued. To me, that's critical for employee satisfaction.

From my small experience in the working world, I realize how important it is to have a good manager. Your manager can really make you love or hate your job. I feel like it's good that I'm figuring this out now before I take more serious positions in the future, and maybe before I become a boss myself.

Summer Activities

Remember when I tried writing a post every week like clockwork? Yeah...it's been a month since my last one...

I don't really even have a good excuse. I'm attending community college right now for one class and I work on the weekends, but there's still plenty of time. Time that I just end up using to nap and binge watch PewDiePie.

Anyway, I thought I'd update what I've been up to since my last day of freshman year.

First, I went back to work in retail. That first week back was rough. I got yelled at by at least one customer each day, and I struggled to catch up on all the new information that had compiled in the past 5 months since I was last working. But I've been working again for over a month now, and I feel much more confident and on top of things. And I've been with the company for over a year now. It's strange how comfortable it feels, considering how I wanted to walk out on my first day a year ago.

And I realized how far I had come, too. I was helping train a new associate the other week and I had to teach her all the things I do automatically with very little thought--all the ways we fold things, the system for processing shipments, the formula for communicating with customers. Watching her struggle to grasp everything reminded me of how I felt a year ago, and how much I have actually learned. Recently, on a crazy weekend, I had about 100 clothes to fold and put back on the floor, and a customer looked at me in awe and said "You have a hard job". Which I greatly appreciated, because anyone working in retail doesn't get enough credit for everything they have to do. Thankfully, I have amazing coworkers that I love working with and make the job fun at times.

The other thing I'm up to these days is my summer general chemistry course at the local community college. Why the community college, and not my actual university? Because the same class at my university would cost $1100 more. Yeah. No joke. So I thought I'd take one for the team (more like my parents) and take it at the community college. I was told everything was easier at community college anyway, so I just assumed it would be a breeze.

The class itself is all good and easy. But I dislike the community college. I don't have that comfortable feeling of anonymity and being ignored like I do at my university. I could go days without talking to anyone if I wanted to. It was great. 

Here at community college, though, people try to make eye contact with you when you pass them. And try to talk to you. And hit on you. And even have the audacity to ask you for money. 

Okay, so she only asked me for 50 cents. But still. It was weird and I didn't like it.

I've tried all kinds of my usual tactics to dissuade people from trying to talk to me. Not looking at anyone, wearing sunglasses, not wearing makeup, and having the bitchiest look on my face have all failed to work. I'm out of ideas.

Oh, and yesterday, they had army recruiters on campus. All I wanted to do was make a beeline to the Subway, eat, and go to the lab. I was passing by one of the recruiters, completely soaked from the pouring rain I just walked through, hungry, and with the best "don't talk to me" face I could pull, when he suddenly said,"Hey, can you do my a favor?" 

Me, being too nice for my own damn good, asked "What?" 

"Smile for me."

Dickhead.

I gave him an uncomfortable, sarcastic smile, and he proceeded to try to talk me into joining the army. Well I haven't really considered joining, but I wouldn't if the army was full of douchebags like you I thought. Me being too nice again, said "Well, I'll think about it" and walked away, completely annoyed and feeling victimized. 

Ten minutes later, I sit down to eat, and there he is again, just smiling at me. Like he's trying to get me to smile. "Did I talk to you already?" he asked. "Yes, I think you did," I replied sarcastically. "Good, I hope you're still thinking about joining us." Seriously man, do you not take hints???

A stranger telling me to smile doesn't sit well with me at all. I don't care if you're a soldier or whatever. It's so condescending and creepy. No stranger has the right to tell me to smile. Why on earth would he think he had that kind of authority? It's very upsetting to think that I'm just supposed to be someone who smiles. That I'm not supposed to be expressionless and antisocial. I'm supposed to smile. Because he said so.

Anyway, that's pretty much all I've been up to so far. I did go bowling and out to eat with my friend group from college and it was great. There's something about driving a little faster than your parents would like with your friends. It just felt like summer. So cliche, I know. But I'm just glad to have a group of intelligent friends to hang out with.

So far this summer hasn't been bad. It's frustrating when I'm in class, but outside, it's been pretty positive. 

I will keep you updated.