Sorry, You're Wrong!

I've been thinking about my job a lot lately.
Mostly because, though work is remarkably thin across the ground (thanks to the GFC, cheap overseas labour, competition in the field, etc.), I'm really not sure if I'm suited for the task.

I've always considered myself to be reasonably good at my job - retail work is hard, but it's not that hard, after all - but recent events have made me wonder if I'm actually suited to it. I've always been super nice to the customers, I don't steal cash or stock, I show up to all of my shifts... eventually... (blush)

My major concern here is where my loyalties lie. In the past, I've been inclined to give the customers the benefit of the doubt, but is that necessarily the best way to go about my job? The motto "The Customer is Always Right" may have held sway once upon a time, but there are some patrons who take that idea to an extreme, and assume that because you wear a polo shirt with your name on it, you become their serf, or at the very least someone of lower standing.
Should I really be giving people like this the advantage? I really ought to be giving my employers support, since they are the ones who hired me and are giving me paid employment! The fact that people are giving us money for a service doesn't mean we should be letting them get away with arrogance.

Yeah, okay. Not everyone I serve is nasty - in fact the vast majority of people I serve are civil if not kind- and I'm sure there are a few customers who could raise valid complains against me (hey, after five years I doubt anyone would have a perfect track record).

Anyway, I make this post to share another link I found: (The Customer Is) Not Always Right - which is a blog dedicated to the admittedly bizarre part of standing behind a counter... namely, the freaking weird folks you get every now and then. I could add a few interesting stories, like for instance:

• the customer who refused to buy an ice cream because I'd have to touch it to do the sale (mind you, the ice cream was fully wrapped and otherwise untouched by human hands)
• the woman who called me up to make a complaint about an incident that had occurred at a totally unrelated shop
• the two stray dogs who came and hung around the petrol pumps, and sat underneath the customers' cars
• the regular customer who stopped coming because I didn't give him a piece of battered fish
  
• the person who moved their hired truck across the forecourt because they didn't know that Distillate and Diesel were the same fuel, and wound up running into another bowser
• the patron who asked us if we stocked a brand of catfood - while we were dealing with a fire on the forecourt (just don't ask...)

There are many more, but I'm sure anyone with a few years' retail experience could share a few golden stories about the weird people they get to meet.

I could use this post to complain about the busy two weeks I have coming up... but I won't because that's just petty and immature. (And no, that statement doesn't count as a complaint. IT DOESN'T.)