The Return of the Horrid Customer

Work has been wonderfully fun so far and the only down point happened when i was all on my own in the shop one day and had an avalanche of customers all DEMANDING my attention at the same time which caused me to end up being scolded by one lady.

I had just finished serving that particular customer and so I hurried off to attend to the other customers who were loudly rushing me. Then on her way out she stopped by me and said nastily,"Young lady, it is very irritating to be one step away from leaving and have you disappear like that! Next time finish serving one customer before you go off to the next!" Caught off-guard at the unexpected scolding, I just hurriedly apologised to her. After that I thought about it and realised all I'd done was not pass her her bag of cat food from the counter and that she ought to have been more understanding since she'd have to be deaf not to hear all the other customers yelling at me.

But anyway the point is, yesterday when she came again I was rather nervous and tried not to antagonise her, getting her everything that she wanted and all that. But then she asked me to repack a huge bag of cat food and I told her that we don't repack promotional items such as that bag and she said snootily, "Yes you do. If i pay the disgusting sum of 50cents per bag."

Personally I agreed that it was a stupid policy too, but still she didn't have to be so nasty about it. SO anyway, usually I'd just repack it myself but I was afraid I'd make a mess of it under pressure, so I asked the Kennel Keeper (aka Cat Guy) to help me and she imperiously demanded "Tell him to be careful and not spill everything like last time!" I hesitated awhile because 1. I had to think about how to translate that and 2. be tactful at the same time so I stood there for awhile before saying "er... xiao xin dian, ta hen xiong" and then it occurred to me that oops maybe she understood me even tho she looked caucasian! i don't know if she heard me or if she just sensed my hesitation cos she then said "sorry, i'm just being a typical singaporean bitch."

I guess she got bored while waiting for the food to be repacked because she deigned to actually engage me in conversation which went something like this:

HC: You're not Singaporean are you?
Me: I am!
HC: Oh but you're mixed?
Me: No, pure Chinese!
HC: You don't sound Singaporean! Surely there's some mix somewhere?
Me: Nope. I'm pure cantonese in fact. But yah I get that a lot, people always speak to me in Malay and then I can't reply!
HC: You don't have the Singaporean accent though! ... And you're polite! Sorry (laugh) but yes Singaporeans aren't exactly polite.
Me: (didn't know what to say but figured the easiest wld be to give her some kind of answer) Oh well my mum's quite strict. she used to be an english teacher.
HC: Oh i wish more parents would be more strict then! Young people these days are all so rude!
(me: inwardly thinking that this conversation is strange because she looked mixed too and didn't soung singaporean either and that despite complaining about people being rude, she wasn't exactly very nice herself.)
HC: which school are you from?
Me: er SMU?
HC: and before that?
(i told her)
HC: and before that?
(told her)
HC: OH! I was from there too... but for pre-U
Me: oh my mum too!
(her whole demeanor changed. she rested her arms on the counter, cocked her head to one side with an interested "ohhhh?" and started asking me more stuff...)

So anyway at the end I told her, "Oh I won't charge you for the repacking" cos as i said i thought it was stupid too tho i didn't tell her that and she said "Well that's a nice Christmas present! Thank you and Merry Christmas and all that!"

(and then she was nice to the Kennel Keeper when asking him to help her carry her stuff out, probably cos he actually doesn't like her and seemed unwilling and it showed on his face...)

So anyway the point of that is, I'm proud of the fact that despite getting scolded by her the last time, I've proven to her that I DO give good customer service and she went away satisfied this time! So there.

crap now i'm going to be late for work.