Customer service manners suck

[Mim]

I used to work in a busy truck stop. I haven't clocked in at that job in six and a half months now, and I haven't actually worked a register or had anything to do with customers for a year and a half. I rarely set foot in there anymore; no reason to. It's out of my way now, and the few of my former coworkers with whom I'm friendly I see elsewhere.

When I was at that job, I used to be polite and passingly friendly--remember names and usual choices, joke a little--just because that's how a person should behave in a customer service job. I hated it, because people seemed to take it as an invitation to come up to me in random public places and talk as though I'd been their bestest pal for years. I'm a socially crippled hermit. I don't deal well with that kind of thing, and I don't like it when people presume to pry into my personal affairs. I usually avoided personal questions, just for the sake of professionalism on and off the job.

(I confess, much of my annoyance with this was that two-thirds of the people who did this called me by one or the other of my sisters' names. It's really tiresome when the person asking me nosy questions about my romantic life isn't even paying enough attention to notice he's talking to the wrong person.)

Yesterday absoutely took the cake. My oldest sister had a baby boy in February; he was preemie, so they spent some time in the NICU of a children's hospital. I was at Target yesterday evening, paying for a couple of new t-shirts, and some random woman came up to me, said "I didn't even know you'd had a baby!" and attempted to hug me. It was the Baily's Beads as irritation eclipsed good sense completely. I wasn't rude, I don't think, but I did tell her, in no uncertain terms, first of all not to touch me, and second of all that I was not [my sister]: I'm taller, weigh more, have much longer hair (over a foot longer--not a small difference), and consistently dress completely differently, as I have done for years now. I'm talking her jeans and bright colored girly tank tops versus my out and about, no one to please, full goth regalia.

I realize I'm bitching about something basically pointless. It's just that it pisses me off to no end that people who clearly don't care enough to suss out the very obvious differences among us still feel perfectly justified in this pointless crap. I just wanted to vent. Over and out.

[olga]

I used to have the same thing. I'm one of three sisters, with only 4 years separating us. We were all in high school together and I spent years with people mistaking me for one of my sisters.

I hated it. If you have social phobia, this coming up to you in stores must be excruciating.

Great vent! *wild applause*

[justme04]

that would be really annoying. I'd be annoyed if somoene called me by my sister's name or confused me for her. one time one of my dad's cousins whom i hardly ever see introduced me as "this is <my name>, she's <dad's name> middle child" um...this aggrivated me b/c I'm the oldest, not the middle child, that's my sister! i think that's the closest though.

i don't think the lady should have come up and hugged you like that. i think that is a little rude.

i hope venting helped you!

[crtclms]

I don't touch customers. Unless they are dogs. That is just too much. You were calmer about it than I would have been.

[Calypte]

I am baffled by the fact that a woman who can't even tell you and your sister apart would try to hug you. That's just really inappropriate. I think you handled it well, though.

[Indigo 'n dye]

Agreed: a damned fine rant.

[Mim]

Thanks, everybody. I thought I was just being my over sensitive self again; seeing the agreement is validating, haha.

Calypte, when it comes to people's sheer blithe inattention, having worked at the truck stop has made it difficult to pretend surprise anymore. In dark moments, I sometimes think it's a little depressing how much I find which seems to support giving up social acceptance as not only a lost cause, but a pointless one.

I'd handle it better, I think, if not for being socially anxious. You're right, Olga. It does cause me some distress at times to be randomly accosted. I've learned to handle it better as a result of working that job, though. So there's a silver lining.