Service work and the right to be rude

[AnthArmo]

I'm going to make a quick assumption and state that most of us, if not all of us, have done work in the service sector at one point or another.

I'm going to make another assumption and state that most of us would have found it to be highly dehumanising, repetitive, and fustrating work.

I last worked at a service job 3 years ago, as a cashier at a KFC. This sort of work is humiliating, not only because you must take orders from your boss, but you must take orders from customers as well. In most cases this isn't necessarily a bad thing, most customers tend to know what they want, aren't troublesome. However there is always that "arsehole" customer that comes along and makes things difficult for everybody.

What's troublesome about these situations is the doctrine of "the customer is always right". Now clearly, that isn't true, the customer ISNT always right. However this "golden rule" forces cashiers to maintain the utmost in fake politeness, even in the face of a highly arrogant and demeaning customer.

My question is a simple one, under socialism, how should this be changed? Should workers have the right to insult or speak informally to consumers? Should the constant "fake smile" be maintained at all times? In a nutshell, what should be the guidelines for service workers when interacting with consumers? How should things change?

[meow]

why would there be service workers? i think that in any sensible society people will be polite. if they arent people wont be polite to them. whether or not there a waiter or other service worker or not.

if a person was rude to me and i was meant too serve them i would tell them to fuck off. and in a communist society where i am boss...

[Quail]

Hopefully by the time we acheive communism, a lot of mundane and demeaning jobs will be able to be done by machines, or won't be necessary (for example, we probably won't need people to work in shops, because goods can be checked out using an electronic system). Some jobs might be more difficult to replace with machines or eliminate. However, in a society based on mutual cooperation, respect and politeness are quite important, and everyone should have the right not to be treated with undue disrespect. The only real reason we have to maintain "the customer is always right" is because our bosses are worried about losing business. This would be irrelevent in a communist society. If someone was rude to me while I was voluntarily providing them a service (as a worker would in a communist society), I would call them out on it and refuse to help them unless they treated me with respect, and I think that's a perfectly fair reaction.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

When i worked in a grossery store i used to be myself, if someone where rude they couldnt expect me to be nice towards them(observe that it often happens that some people thats just pissed off or inmature will come to different service workers and yell, say shitty stuff and so because they dont expect the staff to be rude back). I would never be able to smile and play happy when im not, in return some few god mad/chocked but many others where glad to see that you where more down-to-earth.

[Dr Mindbender]

What's troublesome about these situations is the doctrine of "the customer is always right". Now clearly, that isn't true, the customer ISNT always right. However this "golden rule" forces cashiers to maintain the utmost in fake politeness, even in the face of a highly arrogant and demeaning customer.

My question is a simple one, under socialism, how should this be changed? ?

http://images.gizmag.com/hero/4573_130905120137.jpg

I'd also like to think that the 'Colonel's secret recipe' will finally be revealed and that people would be informed and self motivated enough to make their own damn fried chicken.

[mykittyhasaboner]

I'm going to make a quick assumption and state that most of us, if not all of us, have done work in the service sector at one point or another.

I'm going to make another assumption and state that most of us would have found it to be highly dehumanising, repetitive, and fustrating work.

I last worked at a service job 3 years ago, as a cashier at a KFC. This sort of work is humiliating, not only because you must take orders from your boss, but you must take orders from customers as well. In most cases this isn't necessarily a bad thing, most customers tend to know what they want, aren't troublesome. However there is always that "arsehole" customer that comes along and makes things difficult for everybody.

What's troublesome about these situations is the doctrine of "the customer is always right". Now clearly, that isn't true, the customer ISNT always right. However this "golden rule" forces cashiers to maintain the utmost in fake politeness, even in the face of a highly arrogant and demeaning customer.

My question is a simple one, under socialism, how should this be changed? Should workers have the right to insult or speak informally to consumers? Should the constant "fake smile" be maintained at all times? In a nutshell, what should be the guidelines for service workers when interacting with consumers? How should things change?
This is an interesting question, although there are fairly obvious answers we can think about.

A socialist economy doesn't run along any principles which would require workers providing service to be polite for the sake of it, because there is no competition among enterprises to have the "nicest workers" or the "best service". A service worker in a socialist economy is protected from economic exploitation, so it only makes sense that they are protected from psychological pressure associated with capitalist exploitation. Of course its the opposite in todays world. Everyone knows that to work in service for a very large monopoly like KFC you not only have to facilitate the sale of commodities but you also have to sell your personality, so to speak, in order to maintain the status quo.

However I don't think this is always the case. It's a misconception to think that all those people who work in service are subjected to the same standards as common service workers like cashiers at large chain restaraunts. A smaller restaraunt will operate on much more lax regulations when it comes to things like this. For example, I work at a franchised quasi-fast food restaraunt, and I reserve the right to tell a customer to go fuck themselves (most of the time, figuratively) if they are way out of line, my boss told me so. Sure my boss tells me to try and be nice, but I won't get fired or chewed out for doing my job while I'm half awake or not in the mood to be "nice". I'm generally calm and speak normally with people who are polite enough to do so, and I refuse to give service to rude customers (as well as cops, if i can avoid them). It wouldn't be a far stretch to say that in a socialist society, it would work this way; if you were rude to service workers, then the workers wouldn't give you any service.

I would guess that since service workers aren't by definition a homogeneous section of workers, under capitalism or socialism, they cant follow universal guidelines. The cashier at KFC or a restaraunt like the one I work at has a very different job than a doorman or a maid. So its a question that falls into a subjective realm of possibilities. The bottom line is that workers should not be forced to give service to satisfy bosses and customers--this clearly represents a situation where workers are powerless.

[the last donut of the night]

I worked at a summer camp in a nearby little rich town. The 6-year olds are fine, what's tough are the Mercedes and BMW driving parents. I know exactly what you mean, OP. Service industry jobs, in my opinion, can be the toughest because we gotta deal with huge amounts of bullshit on a daily basis.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

I worked at a summer camp in a nearby little rich town. The 6-year olds are fine, what's tough are the Mercedes and BMW driving parents. I know exactly what you mean, OP. Service industry jobs, in my opinion, can be the toughest because we gotta deal with huge amounts of bullshit on a daily basis.

Hell yeah! I also have noticed that rich people tend to be far more discusting in theire behavour then workers. Suddenly i realized why gulags was introduced once. :rolleyes:

[Bilan]

Hell yeah! I also have noticed that rich people tend to be far more discusting in theire behavour then workers. Suddenly i realized why gulags was introduced once. :rolleyes:

uh...

Anyway, I have worked in the service industry since I was first employed - in cafés, at the cinema for 2 years, and as a waiter [this entire thing spanning over 5 years in different parts of Sydney].
There are definitely problems with how people treat you, but it's not just because you're in the service industry. Depending on where you work will effect how you're treated.

A personal example: I worked at one of the major cinema corporations in Australia. Customers were unbelievably rude and patronising. Being an employee was, frankly, a dehumanising experience.
Where I work now is a relatively bourgeois restaurant. There is a higher level of expectation, but also, a greater appreciation of you as an individual. You are able to build rapport with people.
Some are, however, just rude. You've got to learn to just blow it off. Assholes will be assholes.

In any case, I think that the type of industry you're in (Fast food) might be a cause of why you feel the way you do, and are treated the way you are. Fast food employees are some of the worst off AFAIK (in terms of pay, security, status, etc.)

EDIT: Also, as for 'workers' being 'better' than 'bourgeois' people, that is ridiculous. Workers can be prats as well. Just about anyone, from any social standing, can be charming, friendly and a pleasure to be around.

[Pavlov's House Party]

I agree that working in the service industry is humiliating, but the extent of which really depends on what kind of store you work in. For example, my friend worked as a cashier at McDonalds and had to deal with being yelled at by both her boss and customers. On the other hand, I work at a cornerstore/liquor store and since the first day I've been instructed by my boss never to trust customers ("the customer is always wrong") because of robberies and the like. If a customer gives me shit for no reason I have the authority to make them leave and even call the cops if they don't.

I'd much prefer a system that is much less formal where the workers don't have to treat the customer like royalty, and where the customer can't treat the worker like shit. When I'm at work and a regular comes in, we can both talk informally and it is generally more comfortable for both parties than the hierarchal style of capitalist retail.

[Dean]

A significant factor in the dehumanization of the service industry is the lack of control over the customer and employee relationships.

So employees will have the right to "be rude." But they will also have the right to dictate their own terms of the relationship - not having that false politeness will probably go a lot further to keep things civil than the predetermined narrative ever did.

I find that employees frequently find ways to "be rude" and obstinate in the context of this forced narrative, so I see this as more a problem of hierarchical modes of economic organization.

[STI]

Having worked almost exclusively as a service employee (most recently at the front desk of a 3-star hotel), there are a few things that have been made pretty clear about the relationship between the service worker, the commodity, and its value.

One is that our primary role as service employees is to mediate the relationship between the commodity and the buyer. In line with commodity fetishism, the commodity is expected to be an ideal, immaterial bit of perfection, and humans have trouble dealing with the material limitations and imperfections thereof (especially in my industry, I've noticed, where the "commodity-ness" is less shrouded by an actual physical "thing" like a sandwich). We're able to perform this mediation because, while at work, we are both "a person" and "a commodity" (or at least a subset of the commodity). We have a commodity relationship with the people and a physical relationship with the commodity.

So, when something goes wrong with a commodity, it's not just frustration that a customer feels, it's pure disbelief. We can believe it, though (we "see how sausages are made") and we're to mediate that space, the way only another human can.

We wouldn't have to worry about this in a communist society (after a generation or so, maybe), since commodity fetishism (the root of all this) will have been washed away).

The other aspect of the "service" industry worth looking at is why, exactly, somebody would want to be "served" by somebody who is, in effect forced to.

For the most part, I think it's because it allows for the tables to be turned, if only temporarily. Yes, you may have a boss breathing down your neck and making you do things you may not want to do just so you can survive, but when somebody is waiting your table or handling your complaints, you are the boss - and you can escalate any issue you want, potentially getting your servant in crap... and this is a weapon you weild like a Sword of Damacles. It allows for a temporary relief from the social relationship of production to which workers are subject, one wherein they're holding all the cards.

So, once we get rid of all this shit and change the social relations of production, that commodity (being a pretend boss) won't be nearly as appealing, and most service jobs (which, in terms of nuts-and-bolts use-value don't necessarily add that much) should disappear, freeing a ton of people up to do more valuable, fulfilling work.