The United States has been in a civic crisis for decades. It’s not “just about manners,” but the lack of mannerly behavior is a widespread indicator of this problem. And manners are no small thing.
All societies have rules for how we engage with other people in a variety of settings, both formal and informal. Japan has “manners,” just as we do, even though the specific actions the Japanese take to signal good will to other people are different from the specific actions Americans take.
About seven seconds later, he finally offered verbal confirmation that he was aware of my existence: a monotone ‘’Sup.’
In the U.S., especially in Democrat/blue areas, manners are nearly extinct. The death of courtesy is a marker of a much deeper problem:
- We no longer prize quality workmanship, functional products, or value for money. We only care about making the cheapest item or importing it from China.
- Young people (roughly, those under 40) do not believe they owe work in exchange for their salary. They do not believe they owe even eye contact or vocal responses to customers.
- Companies no longer care about customer service or fulfilling orders correctly because they do not have to care.
- Americans have no “union,” if you will, of “ordinary consumers” who can exert pressure on big telecom companies or big-box chains. These companies have power because they make things we need, and they know we need them. Because consumers are not organized in a way that can exert leverage, companies do not experience much market punishment or market correction except in outlier cases like the recent kerfuffle over Cracker Barrel’s rebranding.
Best intentions
The story I’m about to tell you is typical and common where I live. This is the normal, everyday, standard experience. Those of you living in heavily blue/Democrat/woke/progressive areas have similar experiences; that’s where the social rot has set in most deeply.
I make a podcast/”TV show” every week. Both high-powered computers that process and transmit video in my home studio were zapped by a power surge. So I had to run to the big-box store to spend north of $2,000 for another computer so my business partner and I can make our show. My business partner ordered and paid online. I went to pick the equipment up. The order included a $2,100 computer and $200 in additional small merchandise like webcams and data cables.
The customer service desk at my local Best Buy had one employee serving another customer. When that customer left, the employee just stood there staring down at his computer. I waited quietly with my hands clasped in front of me. Nothing. He didn’t look up; he didn’t signal that he knew I was there. (I assure you, he did know.)
Gen Z stare
Why did I wait a full minute? Because experience has taught me that most requests for service from an employee are met with bemused detachment or hostility. I thought, “Better to just tolerate this and wait for him to acknowledge me than risk that angry glare because I spoke before I was spoken to.” No customer should have to make these calculations, but today we do.
Still nothing. So I walked a few steps closer. “Noah” (not his real name) looked up at me and gave me the “Gen Z stare,” vacantly gazing at me from behind black chunky glasses that covered half his face. No expression. No change in posture. No greeting. It started to feel uncomfortable.
Noah presented himself in the way that an astonishing number of young staff do today. Noah is the kind of person whose odd and slovenly appearance would have kept him from being employed at all when I was his age (about 20).
He was morbidly obese, as so many people are, but it wasn’t just that — I’m not making fun of fat people. It’s that he wore a skintight shirt that accentuated every curve, including — I’m sorry to write this — his breasts. I’m carrying 30 extra pounds myself, and I don’t walk around in Lycra stretch fabric inviting people to partake visually of every detail of my anatomy. But this is the “new normal” in public for employees today.
First contact
About seven seconds later, he finally offered verbal confirmation that he was aware of my existence: a monotone “’Sup.”
I saw my opening and took it. “Hi, there. I’m here to pick up an order that my friend placed online and paid for. I’m having a little trouble pulling up the receipt on my phone, so would you like me —”
“Bar code,” he interrupted me.
That’s what he said. Just the two-word phrase “bar code.” Was it a question? A command? A password challenge for access to a secret, actually helpful, customer service counter?
“I’m not sure what you mean by bar code,” I responded. “But if that’s something included in the email, again, I’m having trouble pulling it up. Can I give you some other kind of information that would help?”
Smooth customer
I am polite when I do business in public. I maintain a warm tone of voice. A dozen years as a waiter and bartender, a few years in retail, plus two decades counseling grieving people by phone trained me in how to smoothly communicate with anyone, including people who are upset. I know how rude customers can be, so I take care to be friendly and approachable when I’m a customer.
All that to say, I was actively nice to this young man. I’m polite to every staff member of a business I patronize. Far too often, I get nothing back at all, or I get hostility, as I did last night.
“What’s your name?” Noah demanded. I told him.
Staring down at his iPad, he walked into the back room. He emerged carrying two small boxes containing the cables and the webcam. He did not have the computer. He placed the boxes on the counter and continued to look at his iPad without speaking to me or looking at me.
I waited about five seconds before saying, “I think there is more merchandise to this order.”
Notice that I did not say, “You forgot my computer.” I used a gentle, roundabout way to say it because I’ve learned that if you signal that a staffer has made a mistake, they will sometimes melt down.
Noah did not glance up at me. He kept staring at the iPad as he went back to the stock room. He brought out the computer and put all three boxes in my hand. Then, after a few words (I think I heard him say good night in a perfunctory way) he went back behind his counter.
He did not give me a receipt; he did not stamp the boxes to indicate that I had paid for the merchandise. I wondered about this, as the store has a lectern at the exit to stop shoplifters by checking receipts.
Trust fail
Here’s what I didn’t tell you until now: Noah never asked me for a driver’s license or a credit card to prove that I was the Josh Slocum who paid for these items. He made no effort to determine that I was the paying customer, not a thief. What if he had handed it to someone else, and when I arrived, the store told me, “Yes, you did pick these up already because our system says you did”?
At this point, I needed to leave the store to keep my temper. So I just walked out with my merchandise (paid for, but how did they know?). None of the three employees at the shoplifting/receipt-checking lectern at the front glanced at me as I walked by. Two were talking to each other, and the third was running his thumbs over his phone.
This is why we have so much shoplifting. There are no consequences to naked, caught-on-camera thievery.
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Gilbert Uzan/Getty Images
Punching out
There are certainly no consequences to employees who are incompetent, rude, and who allow expensive merchandise to simply disappear. They do not get fired. Why would they? Do you think a manager in this Best Buy can’t see how these employees fail to do their jobs? She sees what I see. It’s either that she doesn’t care, or those above her don’t care, so she’s just stopped putting in any effort.
What are we going to do? Is there anything we can do? We don’t have market power as consumers, so that’s out. Government regulation usually brings more problems than it solves, so that doesn’t seem like a good way to go. But this cannot go on.
Well, it can, actually. We can become like former Soviet states; hell, we’re already three-quarters of the way there. When I tell stories like these to older people who immigrated from communist countries, they get a pained look and say, “This is what it was like for us, and it’s happening here. But no one will listen to us.”
If you see a way out that I do not see, please share it in the comments.
The post The decline of customer service — and why it matters appeared first on TheBlaze.
