"Dear Customer, it is my pleasure to inform you..." (A Venting Thread)

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

I have to work. Which sadly means I have to deal with people. Currently I'm a personal trainer, and I deal with a lot of... 'ideas' that I'd love to voice to the clientele, but of course I can not. Luckily I now work with people who are a little more knowledgeable about what a trainer actually does, but it wasn't always the case. The spoilered thing below is just some of the questions or statements I always wanted to respond to before I quit.

Spoiler

1.)

I don't see why I need a trainer. If I just do the machines I'll be fine

If this were indeed the case, it would be great. However, next time you go to the gym, take a look around. Think about when you first started the gym. Are the same people doing the same machines? Ok. Have they made that much of a change?

Now, you'll get the people who are of course the exception to the rule. And if you just start the gym, of course doing some resistance training will obliviously give you more benefits than not. But by and large, I see people who come to my personal work out gym (opposed to my Work gym) who were the same weight I first saw them in back in 2011 when I joined it.

And honestly, people have so many body wants and desires (one wants to look like Beyonce, and one wants the physique of a professional soccer [football] player) and they somehow think that doing whatever machines they see will magically sculpt their body into that form. Pretty much not. If you want your body to look a certain way, you have to train it in that manner. You will look like a bodybuilder just doing the machines, as they are usually built for spot specification. Meaning your muscles will just get tighter... that is if you do it right.

2.)

Ok, so why don't you just write me up a program and I'll follow that?

This would be nice but in America, we live in a sue happy society. There have been many times I've explained an exercise to someone who gets it in the moment and forgets it later. People I trained with for months. Only when they show me they understand the exercise and where it is working out and how to do it with control do I eventually step back. That's my job. I teach people how to use their bodies to get their desired results. Why am I saying this?

Because if people get a program from me, get hurt, they'll say "well, I was just following what Obsidian gave me..." and they can sue. Strike that. They WILL sue. Especially if you live in New York. And they'll have a case. A case that many people have won and cost the gym a lot of money. If that plan has my name on it and you decide to do it and you get hurt... even if you sue and you promise you aren't going to come after me... it's going to get back to me. I will lose my job and others might also. That's why giving out work out programs are usually against reputable gym's policies.

3.)

That's bull. You just make money from training people and you don't want to give anything out for free.

Well, I have to congratulate you for getting it half right. Yes, I do make money from training people. That's very True. But I will also take this time to congratulate you for another thing. Having the sheer balls to actually try to shame someone into giving you something for free when you know full and well that I do make my living doing this.

What I have is a specific knowledge base that people find valuable. You yourself admit this by trying to tap into it. Our whole economy is based on that: specialists with skills we prize but don't have the time to learn ourselves. You wouldn't go to an Architect and say 'Oh, just draw the plans for me. I'll get it built'. You wouldn't go to college and say to the professor 'This is a scam job. There are tons of books out there that I can read and probably learn the same thing'. So why is it when it has to deal with the body, people short change the importance?

Well, that's where the last thing that gets on my nerves.

People do not have any respect of how little they know about their body. Especially the functioning.

There's so much to get into that last topic that I really don't even know where to begin. You'd be surprised how many people are shocked to find out that they a.) have been walking wrong their entire life and b.) might be the reason why their bodies ache or have constant breathing and/or fatigue problems. Yeah, we can work our bodies, but it's like a sword. Any idiot can swing around a sword and kill someone. But have you ever seen a true swordsperson work? It's frightening what he or she can do with the same instrument that other people so crudely wield. That comes from knowing their body. That comes from hard work. And a lot of the time, it comes from instruction.

Ok, I can go on for hours, but I'll stop here. So, in your vocation, what are some of the things you'd love to tell the clientele that they just don't seem to get?

 

[Nightvalien]

Ok, I can go on for hours, but I'll stop here. So, in your vocation, what are some of the things you'd love to tell the clientele that they just don't seem to get?[/quote]

Mate I feel ya, I only do the machines without anyone telling me anything but I do appreciate the trainer changing my routine every few months. Sadly I cannot answer your post because I work on tech support and have nothing but rage to spew on the clientele, some people need a license to use computers.

 

[Fiad]

I work at a cafe and the most idiotic statement I have heard was "You diluted my latte with milk."

For those who are unaware, a typical latte is a double shot of espresso and then the rest of the cup is milk.

 

[Hagi]

This pretty much sums it up for my line of work:

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell

So many idiots believing that a good interface is one you notice. It's not. That's a bad interface.

A good interface is one that makes you notice the actual content of a website, ideally you shouldn't even remember the interface. Only the information you came to find.

 

[COMaestro]

Working in IT, you get lots of this. Here's a few pointers for everyone when dealing with your IT person:

The monitor is NOT the computer (in most cases, damn iMacs and their ilk). Don't tell me you have a Philips computer when you have a big box that says HP on it sitting under your desk.

Windows has power settings that will make your laptop go to sleep if you close your lid. Plus, because we are an enterprise environment, you will need to input your credentials to log in again. Your computer is not broken, it is functioning the way it is supposed to.

You are running Windows XP with 4 GB of RAM and you are complaining that your computer is slow when you have 20 freakin' applications open and you want more RAM to fix the problem? You do realize that XP can only use 3.2 GB of RAM or so, right? Close some of your applications!

Make sure your docking station is plugged in before complaining things aren't working. For that matter, check every device on your desk is plugged in. The number of times I've been called to someone's desk, just to move the power cord a nanometer into the device...

If you tell me you have backed up all of your data, I am going to assume you have backed up all your data when I wipe your computer to upgrade it. Don't cry to me when you are missing data.

I could go on, but I'm sure you all don't want to read a novel.

 

[bearlotz]

You'd be surprised how many people are shocked to find out that they a.) have been walking wrong their entire life and b.) might be the reason why their bodies ache or have constant breathing and/or fatigue problems.

This part grabbed my interest, could you go into a bit more detail on that part?

OT:

Spoiler: -snip-

I work in the engineering office for an industrial electronics manufacturer (transformers, rectifiers, etc.) and since the boss's notion of quality control is something along the lines of "if it's not actively killing anyone at this very moment, it's good to ship", we get a LOT of calls from people trying to get their magic electricity boxes to work. Most of these people have no technical background or skills whatsoever, but they sure have managed to grab onto a few phrases of technical jargon. By using these incorrectly, they lead the entire troubleshooting process in the wrong direction and each call ends up as hours of trying to figure out what is ACTUALLY going on at the customer's site instead of 15 minutes to have them take a few readings and make some adjustments.

I share an office with the head of the engineering department (small company) who ends up handling a lot of the customer calls where he usually gets treated like a tech support phone operator. It's always amusing to hear them trying to get to "Tier 2" tech support while already talking to the guy who designed the bloody product...

 

[michael87cn]

There are huge signs showing categories of food products in the grocery store. You don't really need me to help you find a box of rice. There's a sign 6 feet wide hanging above your head that says "RICE".

If something is out on the shelf, I can't "go in the back" and look if its in stock. Typically, freight crew and clerks wear compeltely different uniforms, and clerks don't really know how to do the back room of the store. That said, everything is in massive boxes and wrapped with tape/bubblewrap, so even if I did SOMEHOW find your specific can of soda pop you wanted amongst the hundreds of different brown boxes that aren't clearly labeled, I'm not allowed to break into them and fetch you items. Yet, we can't say "no" we have to put on a little act and run to the back of the store, stand in place for 2-3 minutes and come back out and say "I'm sorry, we're all out of that item. We'll be getting a shipment on X". -_-

 

[fix-the-spade]

I was once offered about £500 to paint a very nice AGV moto helmet (a GP-something), including getting a hold of the helmet.

The helmet would have been £450, painting one properly takes about 25 hours spread over several days to let the paint cure, leaving around £50 for almost a week's work, yeah...

... the guy actually started choking when I quoted him £1700 if he provided the helmet, that was an amazing phone call.

 

[BrassButtons]

I used to work for a medical billing company that handled accounts for a few dozen offices. Each office was covered under a separate database, so if you needed to find a patient's account, you first had to go to the database for the correct office.

If you are a patient of a doctor's office, and you need to call about your bill, know the name of your freaking doctor. Better yet, know the doctor's name and the practice name (if they're different). I'd think you'd have this information anyway--you're trusting your doctor to give you shots and pills and put his hands who-knows-where, you should know his damn name.

Also, putting church fliers in with your payment isn't going to convert anyone.

 

[Johnny Impact]

Passive-Aggressive Circuits, engage!

As anyone who has ever worked food service can tell you, it's amazingly difficult for many people to perform the simple task of ordering a meal. Lots of you folks out there are making things harder on yourselves, and on us. To help you all understand when and how you're messing up, I present eight rules I'm not allowed to explain to you while I'm on the clock. May they make things smoother for everyone.



1. DO NOT WASTE OUR TIME. Feel free to call us without having any idea what you want. We are here to help. However, we have things to do other than help you. We are not here to listen to ten minutes of, "umm, uhh, I guess I'll, hmm, umm." MAKE UP YOUR MIND OR CALL US BACK.



2. DO NOT USE THE DUMBEST MEMBER OF YOUR GROUP to place the order or pick it up. If the person we speak to has to yell to someone in the background to get the name and address for your delivery order, you have screwed up. People have walked into the store in the middle of a Friday supper rush without a single crumb of information -- didn't know the order, didn't know the name or phone number, nothing. If you do this you are going to waste a *lot* of our time when we can least afford to have it wasted. Very possibly you will leave empty-handed. USE THE GUY WHO KNOWS WHAT'S GOING ON.



3. DO NOT HASSLE US OVER TAKING A BIT OF INFO. We use a computer ordering system. It requires certain pieces of information, in a certain sequence, before it will allow an order to be entered. If you do not give us this information, you will not be ordering. If you blurt out your order right away, expect to repeat it after we take your info. We do not control the program. We are not doing this to give you a hard time so don't give us one. JUST ANSWER THE QUESTION.



4. DO NOT MODIFY EVERYTHING AT THE VERY END. If you say "Smith" at the beginning and then at the end say "Mary will pick that up" you better make sure Mary knows the order is placed under Smith because the name can't be changed at the end. Do not say, after placing a very long order, "and I need all of these to have fill-in-the-blank." Doesn't work that way. Often we will have to re-enter the entire order so it will price correctly -- and yes, we are going to make you wait while we do this. If you have a request that applies to the whole order, TELL US AT THE BEGINNING, we can incorporate it as we go.



5. DO NOT EXPECT US TO KNOW what a firecracker, hoagie, hero, downeaster, junker, italian, tornado, grinder, dagwood, or any of your other funny words mean. I've heard at least ten different versions of the supposedly universal "italian sandwich" and have no reason to believe any one of them is more accurate than the others. If you can tell us the ingredients to your special thing we can probably make it. If you can't then it isn't as distinctive as you think. BE READY TO EXPLAIN.



6. DO NOT DIVIDE YOUR ATTENTION between talking on your cell phone and placing your order. Would you like it if I did a crossword puzzle while you were trying to order? Didn't think so. This is quite rude and may well result in your order coming back wrong -- not on purpose, but if you're too distracted to answer our questions, we'll try and figure things out for ourselves, and, well, we don't know what you like. TEN SECONDS OF YOUR FULL ATTENTION IS NOT TOO MUCH TO ASK.



7. DO NOT IGNORE US. If you ask how much food you need for three people, we will tell you. If you ignore us, order triple that amount, then balk at the price, you've got only yourself to blame. If you ask for something and we tell you it won't work or can't happen, we don't mean we just don't feel like it. We mean it cannot happen. You might be very smart but chances are we know more about our food than you do. LISTEN TO US.



8. DO NOT INSULT OR THREATEN US. Let's get one thing crystal clear: Nothing you say or do could even come close to actually threatening our jobs. We're human. We make mistakes. So do you. If you're unhappy, we'll work to fix it. What we won't do is perform better after your ten-minute accusatory rant. Puffing up for some alpha male bullshit does not make you superior; we left the caves a long time ago and generally I think it was a good move. Calling us incompetent does not make you particularly clever; if you were competent you'd be making your own dinner instead of paying us to do it for you. Claiming to know the owner does not impress us; we all know him too -- better than you do. Don't say you've been a customer for thirty years, don't tell us how much money you make or how much you spend here. None of this has any bearing on what you can or cannot expect us to do. None, zip, zero. Got it? We find your attempts to bully and belittle us to be amateurish and insipid. THERE IS A MINIMUM LEVEL OF COURTESY YOU OWE TO EVERY HUMAN YOU DEAL WITH WHETHER YOU THINK YOU DO OR NOT. MEET THAT MINIMUM OR GET OUT.

 

[Longstreet]

Couple of things that happen pretty much all the time when i am on my mail delivering route.

Are you the mailman?

No i am the bloody eastern bunny walking around with this 16inch stack of mail on my arm for shits and giggles.

Do you have the mail for number X

I just GOT here, barely got off my bike. How the fuck am i supposed to know? just because i deliver it doesn't mean i know what every single number gets.

Or what annoys the shit out of me, if they see i am busy, and go stand 2 meters behind me and just stare. Come back in five bloody minutes.

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

You'd be surprised how many people are shocked to find out that they a.) have been walking wrong their entire life and b.) might be the reason why their bodies ache or have constant breathing and/or fatigue problems.

This part grabbed my interest, could you go into a bit more detail on that part?

Oh sure. The first thing we want to keep in mind is the term of Kinetic Chain. It goes with the idea that the human body is like any other machine. Things need to be alignment to keep it functioning correctly. Little things like the shoes we wear, if we slouch, how we even land on our footfalls (most accepted idea is that your foot should land on the ground mostly equidistant between your heel and the ball of your foot, or in other words the majority of your instep) can do wonders to mess up your kinetic chain, thereby creating imbalances all through out your body. Mainly through synergistic dominance.

Synergistic dominance is the idea that every bone, ligament and muscle in your body was created for a specific function. It, of course, has a network of muscles and nerves to aid it in its tasks. Now, Synergistic dominance is the idea that you are no longer using the prime mover or muscle to do a task. A good example that anyone can do is a simple sit up. Now, this only works as an example if we keep in mind we're doing the sit up just for an abdominal exercise.

If one lays down with their back on the floor, and lift the body up just using the abdominal muscles correctly, they should feel only the abs clinching and stopping around 45 degrees off of the floor with the body straight. Mainly because that's the 'max contraction movement' that the abs can do. But we don't do sit ups like this, do we? we do it like we were taught in high school. We lift our body up until it's touching our legs. But if you pay attention to your body, you're starting to feel tightness in the top of your thighs. That's because the abs can't lift your body up any more, and to complete the movement that you asked of your body, the Hip flexors had to take over to lift you to your legs. Now, like I said, this example only works if we're taking the sit up as a pure abdominal exercise, which most people do. It can be a core exercise, and in that case it's ok that you feel your hip flexors move as it's apart of your core. But I had a lot of people complain to me that they don't like sit ups because their legs hurt and they didn't know why. Once I corrected the form and made them limit themselves to around 40 degree flexion they felt it completely in their abs and lower back (which is ok) only.

Ok, so how does that relate to the question about how the way they walk is a.) wrong, and b.) fatigues them? Well, say you have knees internally rotated. That means instead of pointing towards were you're walking, your knees are pointed towards each other. This can happen for a good number of reasons, but thankfully the most common is that a muscle group is tight, or another one needs to be strengthen. but like we just discussed, Every muscle has a support system. To help, to aid, to stabilize, and to act against for counterbalance sake. If that one thing is happening, imagine the chain going upwards (and it's usually upwards) of muscle groups now having to compensate for that one thing of your knees being internally rotated. A lot of times, lower back problems can be traced to how a person is walking awkwardly and the back happens to be one in a long list of groups affected by it. But since we think of the back more when it's hurting, we just think 'oh, we have a bad back'.

This is not to say you might not have a back problem. But when I had back issues, I noticed it only happened while I walked or more so when I ran. Not when I sat and did nothing. When I went to the doctor, she said the only thing that I needed to do was work out and correct my posture. You'd be surprised how many ailments in the body that are muscle or soreness related are just linked to you holding yourself wrong.

... this was longer than I thought it'd be. It goes better when I vocalize it.

captcha: hold your horses. Given to me after my first captcha didn't go through. Cute. real cute.

 

[TakeyB0y2]

I work as a receptionist at a family clinic. While I don't have to deal with the whole "the customer is always right!" jargon, I still have to deal with the odd bits of stupidity:


1. Our clinic does NOT do walk-ins. It says so on the front of the clinic, on a easy to see sign on our front desk,and when you call us, the first thing you hear is an automatic answering system that also tells you we do not do walk ins. If someone happened to cancel their appointment today just before you walked in, then congratulations, you got lucky. But otherwise, NO WALK INS!

2. The girls who work in the back assisting the doctors are NOT nurses! They can't prescribe you anything, they can't give you samples without your doctor's permission, they can't diagnose you or even tell you what they think about your recent exams, diagnostic imaging, ect. An no, they will not bend the rules of our scheduling system so you can see the doctor earlier even though he's busy.

3. Speaking of the girls in the back, I'll have you know we at the front answering the phones are capable of looking up the same information and doing the same things they can on the computer. We can check to see if your test or lab results are in, book you an appointment, see when you're due for another check-up, injection, ect. So when you call, tell us what it is you're calling about before instantly asking to be transferred to one of them, because they're busy and we can probably handle it ourselves. And if a doctor is busy for the next week and we can't get you in to see him/her right away, don't ask to speak with the girls either, because as I said before, they won't break the scheduling rules to get you in faster either.

4. If you are taking prescriptions that you need to get refills for on a monthly/bi-monthly basis, DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT TO GET REFILLS! SERIOUSLY! I hate having people calling me to make an appointment and when I say the earlier I can get them in is a week from now and they're like "Oh... But but but, noooo! I only have two pills left in my prescription, I need a refill now!" Well you decided to wait until the last minute, so you screwed yourself over there. There's lots of responsible patients here who make their appointments a whole month ahead of time to guarantee they'll never run out, maybe you should take note.

5. You know what, if you're frustrated, go ahead! Yell at the staff! Swear out loud around the children in the waiting room! Shout shout shout! When your doctor is running behind, go ahead and pace back and forth across the waiting room while loudly muttering "Jews, they're all fucking Jews" (Yes, a patient did do this)! Because you know what? The doctors and managers in this clinic do not tolerate this behavior or abuse of any staff members. So yeah, I'll enjoy watching you get kicked out of the clinic and told personally by your doctor that he/she doesn't want to see you in their clinic again. Oh and, did you know doctors can put abusive patients on a blacklist for other doctors to see? Because they totally can! So go on, fully grown adults, throw a loud hissy fit and temper tantrum! Have fun finding another family doctor.

 

[jetriot]

Parent teacher conferences and IEP meetings. You haven't had to deal with irate idiocy until you become a teacher.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

I pretty much don't give a fuck about the customers or what they do, I work as a cashier.

It's remarkable to me how when something doesn't come up the right price they will ALWAYS make a joke about how it should be free. Rarely are they serious, they just genuinely believe they're being clever and witty and I hear the same line from every single one of them and I've been doing this 5 years!!!!

 

[Grant Stackhouse]

I'm sure the IT guys on this forum have plenty to say, so I'll keep my complaints short.

1) Haggling. We aren't in some shitty marketplace in South America. We are a computer repair shop. We quoted you a price before fixing your computer, and you okayed it. Don't play the "I didn't think it would be so expensive" game with me. I'll hold onto your computer until you pay me in full. If you take more than a month to pay, then I'll sell your system to recoup our losses. You agreed to this when you hired us to fix your shit.

2) Conspiracy Theories. You might be convinced that Microsoft puts a virus in every system to make it fail after 3 years, but I don't want to hear it. I am not allowed to tell you that you are an idiot, so I have no choice but to politely nod, lest I provoke you into ranting about me being "in on it". You waste my time when you ask me to fix something that doesn't exist.

3) Adding to the list of things to do, after being quoted a price and timeframe. If you want to pay me to come to your house for an hour and install a new computer for you, I'll be happy to do it. However, setting up a new computer does not mean installing every piece of software that you own or vainly hunting for Windows 8 drivers for a 90's era scanner that you found in the neighbor's trash. These things take time. If you want me to do them, expect me to take longer than the initially quoted hour.

4) Wanting free work if you could have done it yourself. Yes, I had to look up your Outlook 2007 error on Microsoft Technet. I did not have every possible error solution memorized for your 6-year-old email client. I thought to look up the error code and follow the advise of people who have tread this path before me. You didn't even think to google the issue before before phoning me for help. Just because I took the easy way out, does not mean you get it for free.

5) Being under 30 and claiming to be "computer illiterate". Well, perhaps I'm being unreasonable here. It's not like these things were around when you were growing up. Oh...wait.

6) Wanting warranty coverage on something you did not buy from us. Yes, we can fix it. No, not for free.

7) Acting betrayed when your laptop's 5-year-old hard drive fails. Did you honestly think that your laptop would last the rest of your life?

8) Accusing us of "not standing by our product" when the cause of failure was obviously something you did. Oh, so you say that your 2-year-old child was playing with your laptop, and it suddenly lost all of its keys, developed a crack in the screen and stopped turning on? And you want a new laptop and a full refund? Honestly, customers like this are rare, but they are memorable for the level of tantrum-throwing and accusation-spewing that they do.

9) Threatening to tell all your friends to avoid us if you don't get your way. A company lives and dies by it's reputation, but we won't be blackmailed with it. We promise to treat you fairly. If you demand something unreasonable, you and your friends can go to our competition. We won't miss you.

 

[Pinkamena]

SNIP

There's something I've always been wondering about. Why does laptops start to slow down after a few years even if you do a clean install? And why will it heat up like a toaster on speed even if it's not really under much load and the fans have been cleaned for dust? I have never been able to answer those questions when people have asked me.

 

[Higgins05]

SNIP

There's something I've always been wondering about. Why does laptops start to slow down after a few years even if you do a clean install? And why will it heat up like a toaster on speed even if it's not really under much load and the fans have been cleaned for dust? I have never been able to answer those questions when people have asked me.

Depending on how old it is, some of the components could be wearing down. The heat issue is most likely the thermal grease for your heat sinks drying out. Less effecting cooling means hotter computer and sometimes slower operation.

 

[TheDoctor455]

I've got you all beat.

I'm a substitute teacher.

Its my job to go into a room full of argumentative trolls that take it as a victory if they cost me my job or actually manage to hurt my feelings.

(they haven't managed either yet, thankfully)

Do get some weirdos though.

Had one kid asking me what I thought the black market value of various poached animal body parts would be.

I kid you not. A student actually asked me that.

 

[Higgins05]

3.)

That's bull. You just make money from training people and you don't want to give anything out for free.

Well, I have to congratulate you for getting it half right. Yes, I do make money from training people. That's very True. But I will also take this time to congratulate you for another thing. Having the sheer balls to actually try to shame someone into giving you something for free when you know full and well that I do make my living doing this.

What I have is a specific knowledge base that people find valuable. You yourself admit this by trying to tap into it. Our whole economy is based on that: specialists with skills we prize but don't have the time to learn ourselves. You wouldn't go to an Architect and say 'Oh, just draw the plans for me. I'll get it built'. You wouldn't go to college and say to the professor 'This is a scam job. There are tons of books out there that I can read and probably learn the same thing'. So why is it when it has to deal with the body, people short change the importance?

This is what drives me nuts more than anything. I think anyone in a skilled profession has had to deal with this. You spend years and often a lot of money to build up a specialized set of skills and people expect you to give it too them in five minutes for free. I used to work tech support in a retail environment, and most of the peple wanted me to just teach them how to do these things so they never had to pay a dime.