@Loststaterecs
Trey Hanawalt
@Loststaterecs · 2:15

The emotional cost of working customer service jobs

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And I think that's why you see what people say is a labor shortage, which I don't believe labor shortage is a real thing. It's people realizing that they don't want to be working jobs where they're not making enough to survive and being abused and being treated unfairly. But yeah, I'm just curious if anyone else has any stories or what their experience working customer services in any form

Working customer service jobs can be taxing on your mental and emotional health, what can change to make customer service not as terrible?

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@Loststaterecs
Trey Hanawalt
@Loststaterecs · 3:50

#boomers #workinglife #capitalismsucks #workersoftheworldunite

I'm really happy to see that all the actual stores have been unionizing. Which will, in a way, make things better for everyone else. Unions are great solidarity with working class. This is how we make this country better. Is by banding together. To bring everybody up together. It's that's my two cent. But yeah. Thanks for responding
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@ZLisbon
Zara Lisbon
@ZLisbon · 4:34
Hey, yeah. I absolutely agree. The way so many people treat people in customer service is really outrageous and kind of has just always been very hard for me to wrap my mind around how you could treat somebody that way or feel entitled to treat somebody a certain way because their title is customer service. Just because their customer service doesn't mean you can walk all over them and treat them like s***, yell at them, tip badly
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@barbarakb
Barbara KB
@barbarakb · 4:51

elderly ❤️

I find it interesting that for you, you see the old people as doing something bad, as not being kind, not being nice. And I would completely agree. I am completely convinced that these are people who come in and are mean and awful. And I get it. But I was raised that basically that's just old people. Old people are crabby. Old people are demanding. Old people have lost their brains a little bit. They've lost social grades. They're in physical pain
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@kylecrossman
Kyle Crossman
@kylecrossman · 0:56

The Idea That Respect is Earned

I definitely grew up understanding that, you know, old people will be old people and respect your elders. I think with my generation, with Gen. Z, there's just a greater emphasis on respect both ways in that sense. So more young people are just more confident in speaking out when something seems unfair to them. And I think a lot of that comes with the empowerment that everyone has seen in our generation that has come from our generation in recent years
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@Loststaterecs
Trey Hanawalt
@Loststaterecs · 3:44

@barbarakb

Hey Barbara, I appreciate your response to my swell to your main point, which I think you're stating that, you know, younger generations don't understand. Maybe like how older generations, when they get to a certain age, they're just grumpy and they're sore and hurting and just kind of how you're supposed to just kind of go, well, they're old. That's just how it is
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@Loststaterecs
Trey Hanawalt
@Loststaterecs · 2:28

@kylecrossman

And I don't know if it's just how they are raised or societal influences or maybe they just aren't very polite and you can't really control other people, but you just have to take things astride. And part of this thread talking about customer service jobs is that I've learned over the years to deal with people that are rude or people that are mean or abusive. I handle things very well
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@rocio
Rocío (Ro) Christensen
@rocio · 2:48
Like we don't really want that to be the way that we operate as a standard way of treating people and being treated and growing up in the kind of world that we want to create and leave for further generations. And I also thought that Barbara's point was really interesting because it is a different perspective and it seems like maybe she's from a very different generation from the one that we're in. And I think it sparked some really interesting questions
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@barbarakb
Barbara KB
@barbarakb · 4:03
I'm just curious as to how many of you actually have adults in your life that are in their 60s, 70s, 80s, not on a regular basis. You hung out with them, or is this just sort of a new thing for you that you're dealing with because you're in that sort of situation? I'm just sort of curious and again, I appreciate this conversation. It's actually very helpful for me
@Swell
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15

Welcome to Swell!

@Taylor
Taylor J
@Taylor · 3:36

@barbarakb

Pretty much everybody I hang out with is older than me and significantly so. I take care of both my parents. My dad is 77, my mom is 67. And then we just take care of my grandma until she passed. And I've just always been around older folks. I used to go see my grandma at her retirement home, and it was like a nursing home. It wasn't a retirement home, I should say that
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@akanksharai
Akanksha Rai
@akanksharai · 0:03
It's very true
1
@no5isalive
Jennifer Ryan
@no5isalive · 2:51

#customerservice

I think it's been really hard for us because we did stay open throughout the entirety of the Pandemic and every day in office, every day in apartments, risking our staff, risking a lot to take care of people and their homes throughout the whole of it, because everybody went to Quarantine for a long time and we didn't get to do that. And now what I have is a skeleton crew of people who are just exhausted by the last two years
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@ElasticBD
Greg Dickson
@ElasticBD · 3:13

I found it invigorating albeit demanding tune

I guess I got to say, I definitely have a bias. I've only worked in customer service a couple of times in my life. Most of my life it's been selfemployment. So I have kind of have a different view. I've worked with entrepreneurs to help them run their businesses. And I think there's like a blindness that takes place. People don't see the people that they're doing business with or that are processing the order or taking the cash or any of that stuff
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@allowthesun
Chelsea Hanawalt
@allowthesun · 4:33

#customerservice #compensation

So I feel like I would do above and beyond and never really question like, how much I was getting paid, just being like, oh no, I'm just like grateful to make this money but realizing that I was doing probably way more and putting up with way more than what I was actually being compensated for. I think that's what is true right now, what's happening with so many jobs being like, I'm not getting paid enough to do this
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@Loststaterecs
Trey Hanawalt
@Loststaterecs · 3:19

@allowthesun #sharedmisery #comrades #camaraderie

And I would be so sad not because I gave a s*** about the shop. I'm not going to see these people that I've made these bonds with for give or take, however long you've worked there. And I remember leaving Whole Foods in San Louis Obispo. And I remember going to my car and just sobbing because I made so many cool friends and so many connections that on my way out I was like, I hate this place, but I was just really sad
@NiquaJ
Niqua J
@NiquaJ · 4:45

Excuse the background noise

Since the pandemic has happened with many of us, people have gotten more disgusting with how they Trey, people like a sense of entitlement, of being treated like crap, as if we're not all human beings going through majority of the same thing. And I just came to conclusion that I had enough. I've been dealing with my own mental state that it actually put me in a very bad, deep depression
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@Loststaterecs
Trey Hanawalt
@Loststaterecs · 2:30

#corporateamerica #labormovement #unionstrong #voteunion

Hey, Niqua, I'm right there with you. I feel, I feel you. Thank you for sharing your story. I found that very moving. I almost felt like tearing up a little bit
@NiquaJ
Niqua J
@NiquaJ · 4:36

I can talk about this all day

And what the older generation, what they're trying to do is they're trying to keep it. And you are correct. People are starting to realize that we can no longer keep taking this BS because eventually like the pandemic business failed, business had to close down because nobody wanted to work. It wasn't that nobody wanted to work. It's a simple fact that that was the opportunity for business to realize that how you are treating people and how we have been treated, we're tired of it
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@Loststaterecs
Trey Hanawalt
@Loststaterecs · 2:54

#preach #thisisamerica

But I don't know. I don't believe that it has to be that long and that small. People say, like, the system with Congress and our government, it's like things don't just change overnight. And I understand that. But also, like, why not? Why can't things just change? Like right now? Cancel student debt. You'll give everyone a new lease online
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@widow.me.this
Lindsey Johnson
@widow.me.this · 2:07
Hi Trey. I love your thoughts on working customer service. I also have working, working, working customer service jobs can be. Most notably, I worked at a bookstore, Barnes and Noble, and I worked at the Starbucks cafe that was there. I loved it. It's so funny because I loved the regular customers that would come in that you could form a relationship with
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@Loststaterecs
Trey Hanawalt
@Loststaterecs · 1:01

@widow.me.this #olddudes #creepin

Or they just kind of sit there and stare at me for a minute and then walk away. But every story I've been hearing, especially just like yours, is the same story of just people not realizing that you're a human and things are out of your control and you're just doing the job. Yeah. No, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts, and I like listening to you as well. Thank you. Bye
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@Loststaterecs
Trey Hanawalt
@Loststaterecs · 3:32

Post covid tip stiffing, whats the deal?

I don't really fully believe that, but it's kind of like a custom, like at this point, if you don't tip with how our society is set up and how economically screwed over people and food service industries are by the tipping system, if you don't tip and you go out, you're kind of an a******. And that's commonly agreed upon by everyone, in my opinion
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@Purchasedby1
K B
@Purchasedby1 · 1:51
So they look at people like that as the bottom of the totem pole, when people like that is the ones that's keeping everything together, serving everyone, and make sure everything is put together for everyone to use or to experience or for everyone to eat or whatever it is that you're doing. And so I just feel like customer service workers should be more appreciated. Thank you for the question
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@zaireukuu
Zaire Ukuu
@zaireukuu · 3:04
Trey are over stress. I always make a conscience. I think I've went off once and I even apologize to the woman. But yeah. I don't know. I just think it's interesting when people become customers how they actually change
2
@Luchianna
Eluchianna Olive
@Luchianna · 4:42
You're trying to make money to support yourself or your family, and you have to hear someone who feels they have an entitlement complex coming and cuts you out because their fries were cold. I think I blame some of it on social media because people act based on what they see. If there's something else going on with them, they tend to lash out of the ones that they feel that they're superior over or serving them versus the person that they're truly mad at
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@ElasticBD
Greg Dickson
@ElasticBD · 1:19

Popup soap shop we are not on the front line

It's like one of the other dragons spoke up and said, it's not over, especially if you're working the front lines. Now we are now with our soap pop up in a mall. And it's very interesting to work the front lines of your own business and, you know, trying to create that customer experience, trying to be engaging with people, but not overbearing. It's a real challenge. And then once a while, you get a grumpy person that comes along
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