Doing Customer Service in the US sucks so bad mainly because we have subpar mental health infrastructure, so frontline employees for private businesses end up picking up the slack and providing free therapy to many customers.
Doing Customer Service in the US sucks so bad mainly because we have subpar mental health infrastructure, so frontline employees for private businesses end up picking up the slack and providing free therapy to many customers.
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it sucks because a lot of people are simply entitled assholes who treat minimum wage workers like shit
Having worked it, you’re 100% right.
This is like 90% of what it means to be a Bartender these days.
Bar Security at times can have it pretty rough too. Glorified Baby-Sitting
Bingo, worked overnights as a gas station vampire, and so many night owls/early birds were in at that time just to have someone to talk to, because they have no one else to hear them out.
If the pay wasn’t ass, I would have stayed just because of that extra service. Call me a bleeding heart, but I call it having a bit of fucking compassion.
Idk I would say a lot of customer service reps fit into that role especially at grocery stores. Why does every self-checkout person need to touch my children I touch them it’s assult if they touch my kids it’s the same fucking thing right?
Maybe if companies didn’t suck so much and constantly screwed over customers…
Yes but no.
Because we have no mental health infrastructure and a terribly incompetent educational system. we end up with people who are both entitled and ignorant; unable to fix their own problems, but also unwilling to show any respect to the people they need to solve those very problems.
Don’t forget the fact that in many occupations it is the employees job to protect the company’s interests at the cost of customer satisfaction. Which typically results in a manager siding with the customer against you and making you look like the bad guy, despite the fact that you’re doing what they pay you to do.
Those two things aren’t related at all.
Mental healthcare is overloaded/underfunded
Customer-facing positions are being paid to put up with customers
…but they’re not even tangentially connected.
In my years in retail I have talked 5 people out of committing suicide, helped about 20 people with finding resources to escape abusive relationships, including hiding a woman who’s husband came in to find her and threatened to kill me if he found out I was hiding her from him, and had countless other people break down crying after divulging the pain they were going through. I’m thankful to have been there for them, but it sucks that it seemed I was the only one who was considering I was a total stranger.
I put up a pretty solid wall for most people. I don’t work straight retail, but I do work in customer service. My customers are long term and I see them over and over, so I have to kind of put my foot down at the beginning or I risk literally becoming embroiled in their actual bullshit.
I believe people try to make the best decisions they know how. So I’m not judging them. But I can’t be the therapist if you’re my customer. I’ll let them talk. But I’m not saying anything back.
Being a punching bag does not make you a therapist
It’s possible to turn this entire premise upside down and land it upon its head with a single declarative sentence. "The customer is always wrong, always out to get you, scam you, steal from you, fleece you, and trick you, unless and until they prove that they are not intentionally lying in order to make a profit, and until they prove that they are telling the truth in good faith and wish you to help them solve a real problem."
The businesses which have chosen to operate under this principle rarely experience negative draw from their customers onto their employees.
Most businesses, however, still adhere to the opposite of this principle, drawn from a time when people were more kind to each other, and a person’s name and reputation carried significant importance within their community.
What country has really excellent mental health services?
The US actually has some of the most developed mental health care in the world. How much cheap therapy do you think other countries offer?
In most of the world, it’s zero. And you can’t talk about it. Although ironically, it’s the US, where talking about how mentally unwell people are is normalised, we do see that people are actually more unwell and unhappier than countries which have more of a "suck it up" approach.
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Being polite isn’t therapy.
If you hate your job, quit.
Look, I solved all your problems.
Oh, dude, you’ve hit the nail on the head with this one! Customer service in the US is like signing up for a secret second job as an unlicensed therapist—except you’re not getting paid extra for it, lol!
Nah the trash company is just making you shoulder the blame for their terrible performance. I’m really nice to customer service cause I know they can’t do anything about their company’s shitty products or service.
This hurts so bad.
My sister used to talk about how the customer service people for things like the cable TV were all her friends and loved having extended conversations with her.
Um, no. They were required to be polite and weren’t allowed to hang up. Not at all the same thing.
That’s a sharp observation—improving mental health infrastructure could definitely alleviate some of the burden on customer service workers.
Does any country have par mental health coverage?