Oh boy. Rant incoming.
I worked in retail and as customer support agent for largest ISP/telecom in my country. I've done 6 month tour in Afghanistan. If i had to pick one, send me to sandbox, at least i can shoot back.
During HS and some University years, i worked in largest retail chain in country. Back in those days, there was enough staff. But people are sometimes entitled a holes. To this day i remember one guy who gave me naughty word cause i didn't sliced his watermelon precisely in two halves. We had refrigerated shelf with watermelon halfs and quarters. I sliced them at the beginning of my shift, some 30 nice ones of various sizes. Yet every now and then, someone would pick whole one and wanted half of it. Sure, i'll cut it (they were big, 6-8kg on average). Once you stick knife in it, it kinda cracks naturally and you just follow crack line. So this guy is pissed cause it's not perfectly in half and gets another one. So i cut another one, same thing. Now i'm starting to get pissed. He is holding up line, and giving me naughty word cause "it's not perfectly in half and i'm doing naughty word job". Yeah buddy, i'm paid 2.63 euro per hour. Long story short, he jerks me around 15 minutes and doesn't take friking watermelon at all. Also, i liked when people come at 20:55 (we closed 21:00) at deli station and asked to slice them 100 grams of some salami or cheese. After i already cleaned machine. Yes, i know, we work till 21:00, but i need to clean deli station and i'm not getting paid after 21 ( it was common knowledge that retail workers aren't paid overtime for those 30 minutes after store closes but it takes for cleaning everything up).
Now days, it's even worse. My aunt works as store manager in that same retail chain, one of smaller neighborhood stores. They are all severely understaffed. Back when i worked, store that size had 4 employees per shift. Today, there are 4 employees in total and student or two now and then. There were days she had to close store at 14:00 cause there was no one available to work afternoon shift. They started to hire Philipinos and Nepalese people, but there is language barrier. You can't put someone who doesn't speak local language on the cash register or deli.
Do i need to mention that training was 30 minutes of where is what, how to operate meat cutting machine and it's off to the races ( students, new employees, everyone got same very fast crash course).
Next thing, customer support. Oh boy. At least it was 3.5e / hour, weekends and nights 50% more. First rule was, you can't hang up. No matter what. And you can't tell customer to hurry up. If someone want's to hog the line with nonsense, you need to talk to them. Catch is, performance is measured by how fast do you deal with customer problems. As lv 1 support,you are reading off script (there is list of common problems and solutions). So, yes, i was obliged to tell people to turn off and on their router, even though most of them already did that. And then if they say they did it, you clik it, next prompt comes up, then tell them something else, and like that until it's resolved or program tells you to contact level 2 support. And more often than not, if problem isn't resolved within 5-10 minutes, cursing starts ( how good for nothing, stupid, useless etc i am). Remember- can't hang up, need to be polite and professional, while making peanuts. Worst were people that got their phone or internet disconnected cause they didn't pay their bills. Dude, it show's you haven't payed. I can't help you. When system flags your payment, you'll get phone/internet back. Again, training for that job was very minimal, couple of hours. That's it.
So, after being on both sides, i get it. Most of those people are understaffed, under payed, overworked and probably don't have enough training for the job. I try to be patient, polite and sympathetic, but not pushover or take BS.
