Customer Service

If I really tried –and not very hard – I could probably go on a long and sustained rant about the lack of customer services in the world today. I’ve lived long enough that I notice the change from when I was much younger. In fact, I notice the change just based on the way I was raised. So the day has been icky and annoying. I go to lunch to work on my checkbook and enjoy a meal and a young mom will not effectively take care of her weeping and wailing baby who’s probably around 4 months old. Can’t blame the little one but I can blame the young mother. When a child is crying that much, you do a little more than just bounce them on your shoulder. You PAY ATTENTION. Twenty minutes later baby is finally settling down but as I leave I see that the young mother had finally given the baby a bottle. You know what that tells me? It tells me that she has some wrong-headed idea about keeping a kid on a schedule and of course to hell with everyone around you.

So baby aside and lunch indigesting, I head over to Michael's to get my watercolor pencils. While there I also find a really cool 4 x 6 watercolor tablet that is perfect for my whatnot bag of art supplies I schlep around with me. I find a box of pencil at $5.99. How great is that?! But at the checkout I’m charged $19 something for the two items. This is way too high. Of course the gal at the checkout is on her first day. No problem. I understand first days. Turns out the box of 24 pencils was hanging on the wrong hanger. And there was another 24’er also in the wrong place. $5.99 applied to the box of 12. No problem. I don’t mind having a smaller box. BUT, when the cash register won’t take my check, and the training checker won’t help the new checker figure it out, I start steaming. I have to get back to work. And I’m getting subtle vibes from the trainer that I don’t have a right to feel antsy and need to get back to work. Finally I make an issue of it. I need to get back to work. This has been going on for 15 minutes. Trainer finally pays attention and fixes everything in an instant.

Why oh why do I imagine that this woman probably let her kids cry too when they were babies? I didn’t see much difference between the young mother at the restaurant and the old trainer not effectively helping the new clerk.