PET PEEVES.....

[bella]

....WHY WHY WHY are there 3 million threads for the same subject???? WHY for the love of the Copelandia, why? sniff...sigggghhhhh....

[Kalypso]

Because this is what happens in ALL message boards. Sad but true.
At least they are all about Stewart!

[bella]

Yeah, I also hate it when snotty cashier's don't look me in the eye when they are ringing up my crap. What ever happened to customer service? Is it a dying concept?

[Kalypso]

Dead and gone, Bella. My parents visited from Europe and were shocked at the rudeness of the store assistants here. I explained that they are paid shit and there are virtually no unions, and this makes them cranky on the workplace.

I have a small list of pet peeves too.
People you barely know start asking questions like 'How much do you make?"
Nosy neighbors. Obtrusive people in general.
People who ignore you when you address them with a question.
Ass kissers.
Type A personalities in a work environment (had my share before becoming self-employed)
Talking on the phone (especially to people who use you as a tape recorder to blabber about themselves. You know, the kind "But enough about me. What about you? What do you think of me?").
James Blunt.

[bella]

No No NO. It's got nothing to do with the money they make. I didn't make jack shit when I was a kid at my first job in retail, but we were taught customer service was the most important thing. Pride in yourself and your work, no matter how menial the task. You treat customers with respect. They have no respect nowadays. I hate it when I walk into a store and I can walk down the aisles and hear the employees talking trash about that skank that was messing around with some other skank's boyfriend or bitching about...whatEVER! What' wrong is their bosses have no balls and can't tell them to shut their traps and get to work! Oh my. I could go on forever on this subject.

[Kalypso]

It is very interesting to get an insider point of view.
Wow. Don't they have supervisors? Not at the Gap, I'm sure, I saw the behavior you are talking about there and at the defunkt Tower Records.
I won't even mention Macy's, that has the WORST customer service EVER! Once I was literally given the paper and the ribbon to wrap a present MYSELF. Needless to say, they lost me.

In Europe it really depends about the money. In good stores, where the ppl are union, you get Nordstrom-quality service (at least here on the West Coast, the service there is impeccable, I only complain because they always have sales for men, never for women!) In stores where the assistants are hired illegally, you get the annoyed look, the silent treatment, and the stuff slammed on the counter.

[plutonic]

[quote="Kalypso"]I have a small list of pet peeves too.
People you barely know start asking questions like 'How much do you make?"
[/quote]

Man, oh man, would you hate living in DC.
Every conversation here begins with, "So, what do you do?" And you can actually watch as the person your talking to calculates how much you are worth to them.

[Kalypso]

plutonic [best.name.ever]!
Not surprised to hear that. There is a lot of people that calculate if you are worth their time and attention based on your net income.

Here around Silicon Valley this attitude was stratospheric before the bubble burst. I had just moved to the US and was appalled, but also observed that several Americans did't seem to mind about burping in public or bringing home doggie bags with leftovers from restaurants, things that would make a pariah of you in Europe.

Now here it's all about house prices. "How much your house is worth NOW? And for how much I bought it?"
Find a Northern Californian who has never heard this question

[conroy]

[quote="plutonic"][quote="Kalypso"]I have a small list of pet peeves too.
People you barely know start asking questions like 'How much do you make?"
[/quote]

Man, oh man, would you hate living in DC.
Every conversation here begins with, "So, what do you do?" And you can actually watch as the person your talking to calculates how much you are worth to them.[/quote]

That actually happened to me on a date one time many years ago! Needless to say I never saw her again.

[policerule]

toll/turnpike cashiers. bitches... all of them.

[Rusty James]

[quote="Kalypso"]Now here it's all about house prices. "How much your house is worth NOW? And for how much I bought it?"
Find a Northern Californian who has never heard this question [/quote]

Same up here in Van Kalypso. When I'm asked how much our house was/is I simply respond "market value" (no indication of actual amount) followed up by a scowl that usually ends the conversation.

[Kalypso]

I just LOVE Van. I come once a year for work, usually in January, but that has not deterred me in my dream to retire on the Island.
They are both very desirable places to live, BC and the Bay Area, so the house market went crazy for a while. I think people are obsessed with finding out if they were ripped off when they bought their houses.

I play the "foreign idiot woman", "Oh, you know, I don't deal with any of these things, I leave it all to my husband"...it usually works

[Divemistress of the Dark]

[quote]
Man, oh man, would you hate living in DC.
Every conversation here begins with, "So, what do you do?" And you can actually watch as the person your talking to calculates how much you are worth to them.[/quote]

Heh. Of course, everyone there isn't like that, but it took me a pretty long time to realize, once I left D.C., that people were actually interested when they asked that - not trying to figure out whether to suck up to you or not.

[Donna]

wow - I would have associated that more with LA than DC

[Kalypso]

Well, I would have thought that in LA the question de rigueur would have been "So, are you working?Any project I'd heard of?"