Angry Customers
Here’s something I’ve picked up on over the past number of years working in a guest-centric industry as well as running my own forum and assisting with the upkeep of several others…
People who have a problem will very, very often refuse to actually pay attention to where they are directing their complaints. On forums, I’ve noticed that a large number of the mis-placed tech issue threads are started by people who are more often than not the type to be threatening legal action against the publisher and the developer for producing faulty software (to the best of my knowledge, despite all of the claims and threats that Presto, Ubi, and Cyan have recieved over Exile, Uru, and Revelation, not one has actually followed through on it). They are also the type who will ourtight ignore the directions of other forum members who try - at first politely, and then later rather bluntly - to direct the person to a more useful forum for their problem. Instead, these people will without fail become even MORE angry and threaten to have the whole lot of you banned for being assholes and not answering their question. They will eventually take the problem to a moderator, berate them unnecesarily, and then never be heard from again when the moderator puts their foot down and sets the person straight. The lesson here: angry people don’t like being proved wrong. They do everything in their power to force the world to conform to their wishes, and if all of their own personal efforts fail, they will invariably try to find someone in a position of authority to get them to change the world. However, more often than not (at least in communities where the people in charge have two nurons to rub together), the people in charge will simply roll their eyes, try not to sound too insulted, and smack the moron upside the head with their own stupidity (this works best if you also have posts from other members to back up your claim that the person’s being an ass, which is almost always the case), thus resulting in the idiot being thrown for a loop, trying to figure out why the world is against them.
I’ve also noticed that, in the service industry, people are actually *more* likely to complain to a bottom-rung employee than to a manager. I think there’s a reason for this. If you complain to a manager, and there’s even the slightest possibility that you’re just trying to be an asshole, the manager can and often will ask you to leave. However, a bottom-rung employee doesn’t have the authority to tell you to leave, and can actually be disciplined by the management if they tell a customer to shove off, because then the customer can take that issue to a manager and, if they’re slick enough, get the employee in trouble. However, bottom-rung employees often don’t have the power to do much of anything else to resolve any serious service issue either, so it is my conclusion that angry customers, on the whole, don’t actually want their problem to be fixed, they just want to be able to treat someone else like shit because they’re having a bad time of things.
This is a puzzling behavior, and one which I’m sure speaks volumes about the person’s character and the state of the world these days, but I have to work, and so will leave this for further discussion at a later date.
And on a totally random note, I might have another web dev contract coming up, though this will be a *lot* simpler… just a few static HTML pages with some client-provided text and graphics. w00t for easy money ;).
April 26th, 2005 at 12:57 am
eeee-yup. you’ll remember the tale of when I was working floral and this male and his female humanish forms came up and started complaining that the community board was in a place where nobody would immediately see it. I really should have thought to tell him that it was a free service, and that if he wanted decent ad space, he would have to pay for it. unfortunately, I only thought to tell him that we didn’t have space anywhere else (which is true too).. then he goes off about how the bathrooms are always locked. we do this so that the tweekers can’t go in there and shoot up, so that nobody can get raped in there, and to prevent other general nastiness, like people tagging the bathroom and making a huge mess. I told him that we have to keep it locked for the (one of the) afformentioned reasons, and he told me that he wasn’t a criminal. I told him that I didn’t think he was, and he said he knew, but he wasn’t a criminal. I try not to roll my eyes, and tell him he may speak with a manager if he would like to. he says he’s just talking. I try not to say “yes, you are. now shove off and let me get back to work..”
bastard moved off JUST before I lost my temper. I’ve been very tempted to rip down his ad since. in fact, I can.. because the ads are only supposed to be up for a week.. hmmmm.. I will have to remember this