What happened to customer service?

I'm sure we've all experienced poor service at one time or another. Sadly, the bad experiences seem to outweigh the bad in the world today.

Blame it on burnout, stressed out workers. Blame it on poor training and lack of follow up. Blame it on lack of any work ethic which results in a workforce of people who don't care of they perform well.

Unfortunately, all of these things play a factor in the workplace today. Too many huge companies that don't take care of, or pay attention to, their employees mixed with workers that feel unappreciated lead to poor service, slow response times and lost revenue.

Even employees with strong work ethics are being dragged into this vicious cycle of unstructured, absentee management enabling lazy, inefficient workers.

Employers seem to micro-manage everything or step back and refuse to manage at all. Most employees would probably say an approach somewhere in the middle works best.

In this story, a Cracker Barrel employee actually liked his job and was offering good service but was fired for it. Perhaps the management should take his lead and allow their employees to "comp" customers on occasion to build customer loyalty & satisfaction. I'm not saying every shift but allow them 1 or 2 comps a month that don't require approval and then require manager approval after that. Sure would make employees feel more vested in the company of they had some empowerment to do things for customers if they think it's warranted.

The world owes you nothing

Saw an article today that says a woman is suing her ex boss because the rush hour commute made her ill.

Why do so many people refuse to accept responsibility for their own lives? If you didn't like the commute you were free to move...Or quit. You are free to make your own choices and it's not your employers fault that your commute wasn't easy.

Did you not know what the commute would be when you took the job? Exactly! Now, suck it up and take responsibility for your own actions.

REMINDER: Your kid's in the backseat

There have been way too many instances where parents leave their kids in the car and the child dies due to the heat. We all say "how could you forget your child?" but it seems that the majority of these cases are due to a change in schedule where the "other" parent is supposed to drop the child off. Anytime you change the daily routine, you run the risk of something not being done as usual.

A middle school boy invented an item to help prevent these deaths and calls it the E-Z Baby Saver. It's a device you can make from rubber bands and duct tape that, essentially, straps between the back of the driver seat to the door so you can't get out without running in to it. It's supposed to be a reminder to check the back seat.

I am glad people are thinking about ways to prevent these tragedies but I really don't think this will work. And here's why:

1. Parents may use this a few times but if they are responsible for dropping the child off on a daily basis, they aren't going to be the ones that forget the child in the backseat to begin with.

2. If it's the parent that doesn't normally have the daily task of driving the child around, they aren't going to want to have this "strap" in their way on a daily basis and they will remove it. Hence, making it non-functional because it's not being used.

3. The use of the strap still requires that the parent actually check the backseat before leaving their vehicle for the day. If they leave it on full time and get used to ignoring it because they don't normally have the child in the care, it's not going to work because they aren't going to get in the habit of checking the backseat because they don't normally have the child in the car.

Basically, it all comes down to human error. Unfortunately, people get preoccupied and don't pay attention to what they are doing. Everyone needs to slow down and pay attention to life, instead of worrying about what they are going to do the rest of the day. Worry about now!

Are we ready for CO-ED dressing rooms?

A blogger recently wrote a story about an experience a male friend of his had when helping his daughters try on clothes at a department store.

At first I thought, what person would actually complain about this to a manager, but then...I started thinking...this man was with his wife and 2 daughters. Yes, he has the right to help them choose clothing but why didn't his wife go with them into the "ladies" dressing room?

And then I thought, what would have happened if he was a single father with no female to help him in this situation. I'm torn...what should have happened here.

Could he have taken them into the mens changing room? Would that have been preferable? What if his daughters had encountered a man changing in that dressing room? Isn't it possible that they would have been equally as "traumatized" as the daughter of the woman filing the complaint?

The mother that complained most likely worried that her daughter might be seen by someone of the opposite sex and feel uncomfortable by the encounter. Do you really blame her? Would you want a man wandering around the ladies changing room when you are in there trying on clothes? I'm sure seeing little girls wandering around the mens room with their father's is awkward for many men.

Even if the rooms are all private, there really is no true "privacy" when you are in a public place and you're getting naked. Anyone could open the wrong door at the wrong time and...BOOM! Instant awkwardness!

Maybe it's time to install "family" dressing rooms that are larger and in a more neutral location to allow either parent to assist their children. I don't know how this changing area was laid out so it may have been such an intimate setting that there was no way to avoid her daughter running into the man but I think this issue needs to be addressed. There are way more single parents these days that have children of the opposite sex and could be subjected to this practice. Much like the lack of changing tables in mens rooms, we need to have a more universal place for parents to help their kids without being subjected to nasty glares and rude complaints.

So, what "disorders" do you blame your bad behavior on?

It sure seems we have become a society that refuses to take responsibility for our own actions. There's a diagnosis for everything these days but the symptoms of these "disorders" are no different than they were when I was a kid. We just called it something different.

Munchausen's has been around for a while but this one is really hard for me to accept. I mean, you're basically an attention whore that tortures your children to get the desired attention, which often kills them. While I can understand people may do extreme things for attention, I do not believe this should be a valid defense for being acquitted of any crime. I'm very interested to see how this case turns out: "Mommy blogger charged with murdering son with salt"

I think the disorder that makes me the angriest is what they call "Affluenza" aka: The Spoiled Brat defense. In this article, the psychologist admits he wishes he hadn't used that term and says that "we used to call these people spoiled brats". In this court case, the defendent was placed in a treatment facility and will be on probation for killing 4 people and injuring 2 while driving drunk! Basically, his family's money got him a break. That is NOT acceptable but as long as we have idiotic judges on the bench that are willing to give people breaks, this could continue!

My son was in trouble alot at school and eventually ended up in the juvenile court system for truancy. He was diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). Basically, he has a problem listening to and respecting authority. Sound familiar? When I was a kid, we called this being an a$$hole! There was no disorder or "treatment". You learned to deal with life, the good and the bad, you sucked it up and you eventually grew up. Many people are now treated with anti-depressants for this disorder, which have been known to cause crazy side effects, including suicide, in teens. Um, thanks but no thanks. I chose to homeschool my son and he's been in much better spirits. It may take him longer to graduate but at least we aren't caught up in the justice system which just wants to lock him up and medicate him til he's an "adult".

As a society, we need to stop blaming all our issues on some psychological "disorder" and take responsibility for our actions. By the time you are in high school you are old enough to make your own decisions, choices, etc. Stop blaming your bad decisions on other people or your "messed up brain" and get your life together.