Get Mad

1029 words

Don't get mad

I always try to be nice to people just doing their job, especially in high-pressure situations. At busy coffee shops when they make me a latte instead of the iced latte I asked for, or a conductor on a train that's broken down, generally if it's not their fault or it's an easy enough mistake that's not a biggie, cut them a break, just get on with it. We all drop the ball sometimes.

• They might be having a bad day
• They might be tired
• They might have too much to do right now
• They might be distracted by something in their personal life
• They might have a coworker who's a dick and making their job difficult

Getting mad at people who are doing their jobs will probably only give you one of these things

1. You could make them upset
2. You could have been wrong (gasp)
3. They might not want to help you in the future

Generally, when people are providing you with a service they're trying to get their job done with as little drama as possible, make you happy and move on to the next person. My stepdad always says that the dinner staff at school were always good friends to have, so I always enjoyed a little chat with them, and they enjoyed it too I hope. Either way, I'd get a bit of extra cheese on my jacket potato or a bit more custard on my flapjack if they were feeling charitable.

A service worker's worst nightmare is them just doing their job and someone coming in with unreasonable demands and kicking up a stink. Obviously, the person kicking up a stink could be having a bad day, but how you act towards service workers can say a lot about you. Being rude for no reason is just bad form.

Annoyingly in this world, there are people who treat respect from customers/clients as a licence to not do their job, walk all over you or treat you like less than them. That's not ok.

Story time

I've spent the last three months at the centre of a dispute between my landlord and my letting agent. It doesn't involve me at all, and it doesn't involve my partner either. My landlord said the letting agent wasn't going to be involved without reading the small print on his contract which said the letting agent would always be managing the property. We'd never seen this contract before and we signed on with the landlord directly, paying him instead of the letting agent.

Long story short the letting agent has been threatening legal action against us for unpaid rent, telling us everything was fine on the phone, not changing anything, not replying to calls or emails, still sending us regular threats via text and email, asking us to pay £100 more a month than usual and to sign a new contract with them. I'd been pretty cooperative and said I'll do whatever we need to straighten this out, calling to follow up and ask them to stop sending chasers when they knew we had paid, sending politely worded emails asking nicely for them to write down the situation.

The chasers keep coming

I asked multiple times for an email to confirm what was going on and what was happening to sort this out, but I got only verbal confirmation on the phone, which means jack. I rang several times to get them to stop sending the legal threats and they didn't. They asked us to sign a contract that didn't even have all the correct people on it and then kept sending automated chasers to sign this invalid contract. I'd had enough. I said if I got another chaser I'd write a complaint, and he calls me and said it wouldn't happen again and brushes me off.

I got another chaser a few days later, which was the last straw. I wrote a formal complaint to the letting agent's customer service and CC'ed the property manager, and lo and behold he is trying to call me within 30 minutes. I specifically said in the email that I hated getting called randomly during the day as I have meetings and work to do and all I wanted was something in writing. He calls again, and again in the morning, leaving messages telling me to call him back. I sent an email asking him to stop calling and write me an email, and he gives me a sarcastic reply. I couldn't believe it.

The thing is, this guy didn't care about me until I actually raised a complaint. I'd brought this up with him multiple times, and he didn't stop the threats or annoying reminders in the middle of the night, and he didn't email me like I specifically asked him to until after I'd raised a formal complaint and sent another email saying flatly I wasn't going to pick up his calls.

Doing business

This is not a case study on how to keep your tenants happy, this guy doing less than the bare minimum has bitten him in the ass after 3 months when he could have sorted it in 20 minutes. I appreciate that this guy doesn't care if his tenants are happy, just that they pay on time.

When the person representing your business behaves like this, how do you think that looks? I've worked customer-facing roles and I still do. I couldn't imagine acting like this guy.

The lessons

As a human being, you should treat strangers with respect, and know that they're people. As a customer, being nice to a worker can make their shift more bearable, lead to an interesting conversation, or even get you an extra perk. As a worker, being nice to a customer can make their day better, lead to an interesting conversation, or even get you a nice review/tip/whatever.

If someone violates that dynamic, you should take an appropriate level of action to make sure you make it right. You can't just let someone take advantage of your good intentions, or professionalism, without consequences.

Getting mad is something that you should only really do as a last resort, but don't be afraid to be if you're being taken advantage of.