Time Flies

It's been a long while since I last posted.  Life happened.  I work retail.  I come in contact with hundreds of people every day.  I am acutely aware that every thing that I say and do is scrutinized and judged whether it's a customer or other associates.  So I do have a little to say about the interactions that we experience throughout the day.

Why has it become common place for people to express their displeasure in an encounter via facebook, twitter or other social media interface?  Every time someone has a rude cashier or an employee who doesn't know if we have a certain item, all of sudden the store itself is "horrible" and the individual will never shop there again.  Wow, really?  If I stopped shopping at every establishment where I had been treated poorly at some time or another, I probably wouldn't shop at any of my community stores and would resort to online shopping only.  Oh, wait...sometimes I would have to deal with those "surly" phone operators.  Do you see my point?

When did we become such whiny, demanding, childlike people?  Why do expect that everyone is going to treat us like their best friend?  We have no idea what is happening in that other person's life.  If their life is anything like mine it could be any number of disasters at one time.  I still have to work.  I still have to deliver customer service, but I may be preoccupied by something going on in my personal/family life as well.

As I write this, I realize that some people will automatically think, "oh, she's had a complaint launched against her", however, I am not that employee.  I usually get nothing but compliments from my customers.  I just see the complaining as a trend while I am perusing facebook or hear different tweets from people.

If I have a bad cashier or associate, I generally will avoid them next time I'm in the store, but not to the point of making a scene it they are the only one there.  Likewise with restaurants.  If I have a bad encounter, I'll usually give them a second or third try.  If it is consistently bad, I just don't go back; I don't complain and whine about it on social media.

What do you do?  How do you react?  Can we not get back to extending grace and forgiveness to others?  How about we just don't share our bad experiences on social media?