Help Me! It's your Job!

I'll admit it, I did not read Jason's last entry, but he did tell me it was about good customer service and I know it's not original to write about the same subjects, but I really can't help it this time. Going into a store and getting rude, impatient employees attempting to service you is the worst. I worked in retail for many years and one of my favorite things about it was helping the customers. I never felt fake about it and it always felt good to find what they were looking for. And it was a relatively easy job to perform. So now when I get bad service in this terrible economy, where you should be happy to have a job at all, I get furious at them. Just put a smile on and help me, it would take ten seconds of your time. There are the rude customers you get every so often that helping them just feels dirty, but you suck it up and help them regardless.

Now getting back to the positive, when I receive really nice overall treatment at a retail store I leave in a great mood. I remember the faces of those for helped me, hoping they will again help me when I return. I had that kind of friendly, helpful service at Wegmans today. It's the busiest time to go the grocery store, since Thanksgiving's in two days, so it was packed. But regardless the employees there helped me along the way. I'd never done a big grocery trip there before so I was a little hesitant going in knowing how insane it was going to be. The customers were a little pushy and rude (I call people rude when they aren't friendly, it's the southerner in me.). There was a Wegmans employee down almost every aisle who was happy to answer any of my questions. They were very approachable and funny. They really run a great customer service regiment there.

The best part happened when I was leaving, I did not have a member card yet, so I approached the self-checkout lady and asked her advise. She said "Why don't I swipe a member card for you at the self-checkout aisle here and start ringing and bagging you items while you go get a card at customer service. That was a tremendous gesture from her. When I came back with my card, she had already rung and bagged half my groceries. I didn't have to wait in any long lines, except when I hit traffic at the 5 o'clock rush time.

It doesn't take much to please me, just a friendly smile and a little assistance goes a long way.

Things Will Get Better

I read a great article a few months ago by one of this country's most respected financial advisers. I unfortunately lost the article and now can't remember who wrote it or what it was called. But it was a summation of everything he'd learned through his career. One of the most interesting entries had to do with recessions and depressions.

As we all know, the U.S. has seen our economy cycle many, many times. We've weathered through our share of economic downturns, some more severe than others. But for every one of them, taking the stock market as a barometer, not only has the market recovered to pre-crash levels it then went higher. No matter how low it sinks it eventually recovers and does better. Every time. Why should we imagine our current predicament would be any different?

I'm sure during each of our previous downturns there were plenty of doom-and-gloom prophets declaring their respective recessions the end of life as we'd previously known it. It's easy, in the moment, to be swept up in fear and panic, and imagine the world about to self-destruct. But even at it's lowest point in history, it didn't. It got better and then improved further.

I think part of the reason this downturn seems especially significant is that media coverage has never been so ubiquitous. We can't blink our eyes without seeing something on television, in print or online, and much of those messages are sensationalistic. So we, as a country, and possibly as a global community, are much more fearful than we've been in the past, eroding consumer confidence and potentially worsening the situation.

But it will get better. Put our current situation in it's rightful historical context, and you see that this is no more than a massive hiccup. This isn't the end of days. It's just a long string of bad ones. And the pendulum will eventually swing back.