Pet Peeve

I have a very strong pet peeve about something that I can’t seem to shake. I have been passionate about this particular thing forever. It has become an obsessive topic for me. Every time I say I am going to just let it be what it is, it comes back to haunt me and I have to recalibrate myself. It’s about this whole “customer service” deficiency that we are currently experiencing. Usually, I can handle the odd lack of attention when I go into a store but, today I had quite a few errands to run, and it seems that the customer service Gods were not on my side.


My first encounter was when I walked into the local Subway store. I was the only customer waiting at the counter, and 3 young employees were standing in the back chatting. They looked at me through the opened window and then proceeded to finish their conversation. One girl finally approached me and asked me what I wanted. I told her what my daughter wanted on her 6 inch whole wheat, and she quickly put the sandwich together without looking or smiling at me. She rang in the order, took my money, and walked away from me without a second glance. I was still putting my change away and zipping up my purse while I listened to her and her co-workers discuss what she was going to do when she got off work. At no time during our interaction did she put forth any effort to make me feel welcome or paid attention to. Leaving me alone, not once, but twice, at the counter was an indication to me that she did not care about me at all. I walked out the door making a note to myself never to go back there again.

My second customer service blunder occurred at Loblaws. Let me just say that I am very picky about whose checkout I chose to go through. There are some very good cahiers at this particular store. I was in a rush today, so I went to the checkout with the shortest customer line without taking note of who was on duty. Big mistake! Everything started out fine as my cashier smiled at me and asked me how I was doing. We briefly chatted until we were interrupted by the neighbour cahier who had finished with her customer, and appeared to be bored. Ignoring me completely, she turned to her co-worker and began to discuss her hair colour situation; she had done it herself and had to re-do it several times to get rid of the purple. I had about $150 worth of groceries and the time that it takes for someone to ring in this amount of food is how long she chatted about her hair to my cashier. I took a deep breath in and out, and allowed the conversation to dissolve without making a sound. I contemplated making a complaint, but told myself that the woman must have needed to get the hair topic off her chest, and that her intent was never to tick me off.

I had a few more stops to make, and thankfully, the clerks were extremely kind and provided me with the service that everyone deserves. In no time, I was forgetting about the lack of customer service I had received during my previous 2 stops.

Perhaps this is all part of the balance that we need to experience in order to appreciate all the goodness in the world. Maybe a little bit of frustration in our lives helps us to feel gratitude when things go smoothly. I wonder if all of the heartaches we experience equate with the wonderfulness we are given from time to time. In the meantime, I will still expect good customer service while I continue to provide exceptional customer service.