Customer service.
Right now, I’m at work. This is the only place I can write on this thing from, since my home computer is not working at present. I just blasted about a pound of dust out of it, though, so maybe it will stop overheating.
Anyhow, that’s not what I’m going to talk about. What I’m going to talk about is customer service.
One of my jobs here is to give people keys to various meeting rooms and so on around campus. If you want to run a study session, or dance classes, or what have you, you come here and fill out a form and I give you the key(s) to the building or room.
Now, my office is located in a larger building, the outside door to which automatically locks at 9 pm or so, to keep the bums out. If you’re a student, this isn’t a problem, because your key card will unlock the door. A problem presented itself recently, however, because some girl from the med school had checked out a building key this afternoon for the purpose of “Case Sown,” according to what she scribbled on the form. Med students don’t get key cards, so she couldn’t get in to return the key at night.
When this happened last week, she just kept knocking on the door. Generally, I don’t get up to let people in when they do that, because a. the door is locked for a reason and b. it’s all the way down the hall and I’m busy reading a magazine. She kept at it for like twenty minutes, and eventually got in somehow and returned the key.
The same thing happened again tonight. She came in and complained that the keys she got (to the other building) didn’t open the door. I was thinking, “they aren’t magic keys . . . you’re going to be a doctor?” I explained that you have to have a key card, at which point she pointed out that since med students don’t have key cards, and she is a med student, there was no way for her to get in to return the keys on time.
On the bare facts of the case, she was absolutely right. I should have checked and let her in, because there’s no other way for her to return the keys. However, the art of customer service is not to be governed by bare facts.
The art of customer service is: I hate customers.
Right now, I’m torn between the logical part of my mind, which agrees that it’s a stupid system, and the employee part of my mind that doesn’t give a shit about customers and their problems, and won’t lift a finger to help.
All the other jobs I’ve had (library clerk, grocery store back room guy) have consisted in large part of putting things on shelves in the right order, or preparing them to be put on shelves. The great thing about things and shelves is they don’t bother you with dumb questions or logical complaints. This job, for the most part, consists of sitting around reading and getting paid — a pretty high Fiskian Ratio — but the downside is that I have to deal with dumb freshmen and loud med students.
I don’t think this is going anywhere. I’m just complaining — “ranting,” if you will. The only lesson is that if you’re the boss, you don’t have to deal with customers OR put things on shelves, and you usually get paid more. So stay in school, don’t do drugs until you’re rich enough to get away with it, and invest in a power tie.
{democracy:21}