General Chat

after working with my company for 15years i can truly say that dealing with the general public has been an eyeopener.especially when the old people are always moaning about young people not having any manners but my 15years experience has taught me that the elderly are sometimes the ones that need to be taught manners .have you had any encounters with bad customers and have they been the elderly.?

Terri, I hope the "old bat" doesn't read this column!

How about this!! I'm the manager of a charity shop & due to the layout of the premises along with insurance reasons there is no way the public can use our loo. This week a customer became quite annoyed when we refused her. Eventually she gave up and went into the fitting room to try on a garment, after she left we found a teapot in the fitting room filled with !!! yes you've got it!! Is this a new way of warming the pot? After all the customer is always right.

I served a lovely older lady today must have been nearly 80 and she was buying jeans! Had to help her get them on but she looked great and only wears jeans she was very kind and grateful for the help. In my experience, the worst customers are always women normally middle-aged with "i'm in a hurry" line, so why are you shopping and asking me to get something for you??? Also really wealthy people can be quite rude. I don't know if these people think we have no qualifications and do the job out of love?? I have a first class degree and when studying working at a supermarket mother and child shopping and she told off child and said this is what you will do if you don't study hard at school i.e. end up working at a supermarket!!! really zoë x

I definately agree that the older you get the more you do not want to listen to what anyone is saying. I have had that numerous times. They ask you a question, you answer, but they don't seem to hear your answer so ask it again, eventually ten minutes has gone and again they ask you the same question. If they are not going to listen then why do they ask.

Quite true, Siobhan. Len

My grandmother is 99 bless her and has got a bit techy in the last year but her rule is "A smile is a valuable gift you give to people, because it costs you nothing and could really mean a million to the person receiving it" She even has a poem about smiles in her purse which she reads once a week!! ;O) She's a woman who has spent the last 27 years without the only man she ever loved (she married him when she was 25 and he died when she was 72, she bought up 4 children (3 of them profoundly deaf) to be exactly the same..... she reckons she's going to make 100 and then go and find my grand-dad..... a lovely thought for her but I'll so miss that smile!!

My grandmother is 99 bless her and has got a bit techy in the last year but her rule is "A smile is a valuable gift you give to people, because it costs you nothing and could really mean a million to the person receiving it" She even has a poem about smiles in her purse which she reads once a week!! ;O) She's a woman who has spent the last 27 years without the only man she ever loved (she married him when she was 25 and he died when she was 72, she bought up 4 children (3 of them profoundly deaf) to be exactly the same..... she reckons she's going to make 100 and then go and find my grand-dad..... a lovely thought for her but I'll so miss that smile!!