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dragonlady7via https://ift.tt/2rjWbti
So there is a clerk here today, out on the sales floor. I’m in the back, as usual– there’s a doorway that leads to the back area, kind of behind a shelf, on the opposite side of the large room from the counter where the cash register and display shelves are. There’s another doorway behind that counter, and the back room connects on both sides, kind of wrapped around the sales floor area like an L; the other end of the back room has all the big loud machines for printing and such, and this end, the short leg of the L, is pretty quiet, if totally un-ventilated. (There are, of course, no windows at all; the sales floor’s front wall is entirely glass, but I can only see a reflection on the ceiling to tell me whether it’s light outside or not, and I can only make it out because the closest light fixture is burnt out.)
(cut for semi-boring work vignette and unilluminating rumination on human nature, which i thought writing down might illuminate something but so far no; I guess I’m just practicing descriptions.)
So, my job is mostly done in this back room. The phones ring throughout the store, and I can hear everything on the sales floor, but not reliably. There’s a wall for part of it– he long leg of the L has a real wall, the short leg has this shelf-wall that’s like eight feet high but doesn’t extend to the ceiling (which is why I can see the reflection from the window), so I can easily have conversations with people out on the floor, but if I don’t speak up, people don’t usually know I’m there. When I type, it’s audible on the sales floor as a vague background noise.
Anyway. Clerk’s out there, with a customer, having trouble getting the self-serve photo kiosk to work. He’s been asking me questions over the wall and I’m answering: the network is fine, I can get to the printer no problem. I’ve wandered around and woken up various machines: the photo kiosks just aren’t working right and I don’t know why. Maybe restart.
Another customer comes in, and the clerk, distracted, doesn’t greet them right away; he’s like, midsentence discussing with the other customer what the matter could be, trying to get the kiosk computer to come up. I hear the door but I forget about it; the door goes a lot, and I have a kind of awareness of who’s in the store or not, but.
I’m sitting back here typing, answering online emails and downloading orders and fucking around, in the usual combination. The clerk and the first customer are conversing, trying different methods of connecting the memory card reader to the kiosk. I can’t tell what’s wrong and I know I can’t contribute further to fixing it so I’m staying uninvolved. I know that if he needs help, the clerk will ask me for help, so I’m not paying close attention.
A soft voice behind me: “hello?” The second customer has walked into the back room, where I am, startling the everloving fuck out of me.
The clerk says, “Oh, hey guy, I’ll be with you in just a second.”
“Oh!” says the second customer. “I thought you were a customer too.”
…
Imagine, really, you walk into a store, and there are people in it, and you really think that the store’s sole employee is going to be sitting in the back office typing on a computer and totally ignoring not one but two customers who are clearly having trouble with something???
Scared the hell out of me. I hadn’t realized how absent-mindedly I keep tabs on the people out in the store; I genuinely didn’t realize that dude was there at all.
But I’m trying to envision myself as a customer walking past a couple of other customers and just assuming that the clerk was ignoring them and we were all sitting around wasting our time for no reason??
I don’t know; maybe I’ve just had really boring bad customer service experiences.
(Your picture was not posted)
So there is a clerk here today, out on the sales floor. I’m in the back, as usual– there’s a doorway that leads to the back area, kind of behind a shelf, on the opposite side of the large room from the counter where the cash register and display shelves are. There’s another doorway behind that counter, and the back room connects on both sides, kind of wrapped around the sales floor area like an L; the other end of the back room has all the big loud machines for printing and such, and this end, the short leg of the L, is pretty quiet, if totally un-ventilated. (There are, of course, no windows at all; the sales floor’s front wall is entirely glass, but I can only see a reflection on the ceiling to tell me whether it’s light outside or not, and I can only make it out because the closest light fixture is burnt out.)
(cut for semi-boring work vignette and unilluminating rumination on human nature, which i thought writing down might illuminate something but so far no; I guess I’m just practicing descriptions.)
So, my job is mostly done in this back room. The phones ring throughout the store, and I can hear everything on the sales floor, but not reliably. There’s a wall for part of it– he long leg of the L has a real wall, the short leg has this shelf-wall that’s like eight feet high but doesn’t extend to the ceiling (which is why I can see the reflection from the window), so I can easily have conversations with people out on the floor, but if I don’t speak up, people don’t usually know I’m there. When I type, it’s audible on the sales floor as a vague background noise.
Anyway. Clerk’s out there, with a customer, having trouble getting the self-serve photo kiosk to work. He’s been asking me questions over the wall and I’m answering: the network is fine, I can get to the printer no problem. I’ve wandered around and woken up various machines: the photo kiosks just aren’t working right and I don’t know why. Maybe restart.
Another customer comes in, and the clerk, distracted, doesn’t greet them right away; he’s like, midsentence discussing with the other customer what the matter could be, trying to get the kiosk computer to come up. I hear the door but I forget about it; the door goes a lot, and I have a kind of awareness of who’s in the store or not, but.
I’m sitting back here typing, answering online emails and downloading orders and fucking around, in the usual combination. The clerk and the first customer are conversing, trying different methods of connecting the memory card reader to the kiosk. I can’t tell what’s wrong and I know I can’t contribute further to fixing it so I’m staying uninvolved. I know that if he needs help, the clerk will ask me for help, so I’m not paying close attention.
A soft voice behind me: “hello?” The second customer has walked into the back room, where I am, startling the everloving fuck out of me.
The clerk says, “Oh, hey guy, I’ll be with you in just a second.”
“Oh!” says the second customer. “I thought you were a customer too.”
…
Imagine, really, you walk into a store, and there are people in it, and you really think that the store’s sole employee is going to be sitting in the back office typing on a computer and totally ignoring not one but two customers who are clearly having trouble with something???
Scared the hell out of me. I hadn’t realized how absent-mindedly I keep tabs on the people out in the store; I genuinely didn’t realize that dude was there at all.
But I’m trying to envision myself as a customer walking past a couple of other customers and just assuming that the clerk was ignoring them and we were all sitting around wasting our time for no reason??
I don’t know; maybe I’ve just had really boring bad customer service experiences.
(Your picture was not posted)
