Be Kind to Employees

Today is a special observance day of my own making. Do you ever make up a holiday or a special day? We do this sometimes here at The Manse.

One reason I dislike going out much, is the awful way the customers act. We've really gone overboard with the "customer comes first" motto, because many people are now taking advantage of it and going over the top with abuse!

They are not just mean to the employees, they can be mean to other customers too.

Just yesterday I observed an elderly woman, yes, an elderly one, yelling at a store employee. The employee was probably a teenager, who was putting away shopping carts. I was walking behind this elderly woman when she screamed at the young person and said it was the second time he had walked past her.

Because I was rather close to the incident, I was able to observe that the young employee was diligently attending to his job, was not trying to harm anyone, was not harassing any customers and was certainly not rude.

I told the older woman it was not necessary to cause a scene and disturb the other customers and that it was quite upsetting. I said the employee had pushed the collection of carts across the aisle at least 4 feet away from her. I also had walked in front of this woman, but to that, she answered, "Yes, but THIS IS a STORE EMPLOYEE!"

I explained to this loud, rude, obnoxious older woman that she was in a shopping area, and inevitably there will be other people walking past her, walking across in front of her, etc. but that she had not been harmed.  The woman again replied that this was a store employee!

Later I saw the woman at the customer service area and a young girl who was putting away the shopping carts asked me to go over there and tell the managers what I had seen and heard, and so I did.  The woman was going on and on about how rude it was that a store employee had walked across her path.

After I explained this to the managers, the woman denied she had yelled or raised her voice. Then she asked me what business of it was mine.  I told her I was there when she was creating a disturbance and that it interrupted my nice shopping experience ;-)

The woman swore at me and showed an obscene gesture!

The problem I am seeing is the number of elderly women, who should have by now grown in graciousness, attacking store employees.

Not long previous to this, an elderly woman in another store  shouted at a young man who was putting away merchandise in an aisle. She claimed he was standing in her way, standing in front of her and that he had pushed his cart too close to hers.

Not many people are trained to deal with these rude people.  The rude people are very well  versed in what they are doing and are looking for trouble, even a chance to make money. Sometimes it is a scheme to sue a business.

It is dealt with in various places throughout the Bible: avoid them, cast them out of your midst, disfellowship (ignore) them, discipline them, bring them to repentance, etc.  I would say for the most part, people would do anything to avoid trouble, so they walk away from it. It may be time to confront some of them.

I have seen this sort of thing in all my experiences in churches.  Someone will come seemingly out of nowhere (they are not known to any of the members of the group and have no history with the group) and want to be a church member, and in a very short time will be criticizing, complaining and condemning. Then they will ask how much money the church has, and express the need to have some kind of compensation because they have been offended.  The offense is never clearly stated, but they will aggravate a while and then when they can't get their way they will stage a huge blow up and leave. After that there is no stopping the bad press they give the church, the business, the group (even a ladies Bible class!).

I am not taking the day off  or having a cake but just keeping the employee in mind--whether it be in retail, or at the airport,  roadwork---I have seen these people suffer a lot of abuse at the mouths of  these ne'er-do-wells.  And what is even more astonishing and shameful to me, is that many of them are the elderly!!  While we might expect it to be typical of youth, because of their lack of knowledge or experience, we find no excuse for the elderly to behave in such an aggressive and threatening way to employees.

Also, I no longer remain mute when someone is yelling at an employee. I always correct the abuser. If they ask who I am, I say I am an advocate for the oppressed or say they are disturbing the peace.  I wonder if they know how they sound.

I heard one man respond to a rude, abusive customer, "Ma'am, I am not paid extra to endure this abuse."

I suppose this is one advantage in using the employee-less checkouts. If they don't like the employees, they can just yell at the machines.

A friend of mine told me the best question you can ask one of these obnoxious people is: "How have you been harmed?"

To those who are ready to jump all over this and protest about rude employees "on the other hand" I will say it is not the same at all, because a CUSTOMER HAS A CHOICE--he can leave, report to the company or the manager, the employer, etc.  He has all kinds of "rights". But the employee cannot walk off the job and choose a different place of employment on the spur of the moment like a customer can choose another place to shop. The customer can choose another place to take business and trade, but an employee cannot get the customer of his choice. He is stuck with the obnoxious ones if he wants to maintain his employment.  The employee has to keep his family fed, clothed and sheltered and does not always have the luxury of chosing a job that is nice and fulfilling and uses his talents, is a pleasant place, etc. The employee's whole life is affected:-his house payment, or rent, his transportation costs, just about everything is tied up in his employment. A customer on the other hand has the choice of not frequenting the business.