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Here's an anecdote from my time working in an outdoors store. It's a fairly busy Saturday and the owner and I are busy helping customers and maning the checkou

Here's an anecdote from my time working in an outdoors store. It's a fairly busy Saturday and the owner and I are busy helping customers and maning the checkout. In comes this angry looking guy with his daughter and immediately throws a pair of pants on the counter. He's so furious that he can't even explain what his problem is, just shouts something about the product being garbage. As he starts walking towards the exit - he has been in the store for less than 30 seconds - the owner picks up the pants from the counter and casually remarks that he couldn't have had bought the pants in our store as we've never carried that brand, that he must have bought the pants at a competitor nearby. Angry "customer" suddenly bursts into laughter, takes the pants from the counter and leaves the store without an apology or explanation, having spent maybe less than a minute in the store. I am sure that there are lessons to be learnt here, but working in retail can expose you to all kinds of sudden bullshit with no closure or deeper meaning to be had. Shit just happens and you have to shrug it off. But the negative experiences do add up and they come to shape you in some way. That's why I believe that entrepreneurs should work in retail. You get to understand the nature of business under challenging circumstances and learn how to (not) handle difficult customers.

deepGem 10y ago
I do second your recommendation. Even going on a sales call exposes you to highly stressful scenarios under which you cannot buckle but you cannot explode either. This skill helps you in all walks of life, managing a team and even managing your family. It could also go the other way for some people, as it happens in Seinfeld's 'Serenity now' episode
klenwell 10y ago
> I am sure that there are lessons to be learnt here, but working in retail can expose you to all kinds of sudden bullshit with no closure or deeper meaning to be had. Shit just happens and you have to shrug it off. But the negative experiences do add up and they come to shape you in some way. You also have to factor in the vagaries of human beings dealing with human beings. I guess you can say I paid my dues working in customer service (actually, "Guest Relations") at Disneyland for a stint in the late 90's. A couple episodes stand out: 1) Middle-aged father, clearly angry, storms into City Hall one weekday morning around Spring Break and says, "I'm ready to blow this damn place up." I happen to be in an especially good mood that morning so I just laugh and say, "Well, sir, you can't do that but maybe I can help solve your problem." He vents a bit, calms down. Turns out it some silly misunderstanding (I don't remember exactly, but something on the order of nobody warned him that Pirates of the Caribbean was going to be closed for refurbishment that day.) I apologize, give him a couple freebies we keep just for this occasion, and peace is preserved in the happiest place on earth. It was an otherwise unremarkable encounter, one among thousands fitting the pattern. Still, I guess I remember it but I do see a lesson to be learnt. I often think how easily it could have gone a different direction. If I'm in not so great a mood, or someone else is in my place that morning, or even if it's a couple years later post-9/11, oh the possibilities... 2) "Gypsies." Not the most politic phrase but that's what we called them and working the closing shift, you came to recognize them as a distinct category of obnoxious professional. People, families, who make a living off of scamming businesses. Here's one of the more infamous cases: http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1993-10-06/news/9310060151_1_disney-property-disney-hotel-normile http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1993-10-06/news/93100601... Every once in a while, when confronted by one of this class, if I was particularly grumpy or bored and things weren't too hectic, I might play Columbo and, after patiently and sympathetically listening to their tale of woe in all its sloppy details and taking notes on a notepad of the pertinent facts, point out the obvious plot holes and call them on their bullshit. If management had ever caught wind of one of these incidents, I probably would have been written up. They preferred to just pay the negligible cost-of-doing-business tax and keep things humming. I don't disagree with that approach. So I can sympathize with airline workers perhaps to a slightly greater degree perhaps than most. What caught my ear in the case of United CEO's first response to the passenger being dragged off the plane was not so much the tone-deaf off-note of an out-of-touch executive impervious to the miseries of the schmucks who are his customers but rather the echo of a decent boss who understands the kind of shit his employees have to put up with and is trying to stick up for them. I agree that his response was a disaster. But I suspect those who act like this was an obvious blunder and Munoz should have just accepted blame profusely and unconditionally for his staff's incompetence and promised the obligatory additional training to avoid issues like this in the future may be underestimating the importance of staff morale, in both the soft and hard (as in dollars and profits) sense, for the airline industry.

deepGem 10y ago

I do second your recommendation. Even going on a sales call exposes you to highly stressful scenarios under which you cannot buckle but you cannot explode either. This skill helps you in all walks of life, managing a team and even managing your family. It could also go the other way for some people, as it happens in Seinfeld's 'Serenity now' episode

klenwell 10y ago

> I am sure that there are lessons to be learnt here, but working in retail can expose you to all kinds of sudden bullshit with no closure or deeper meaning to be had. Shit just happens and you have to shrug it off. But the negative experiences do add up and they come to shape you in some way. You also have to factor in the vagaries of human beings dealing with human beings. I guess you can say I paid my dues working in customer service (actually, "Guest Relations") at Disneyland for a stint in the late 90's. A couple episodes stand out: 1) Middle-aged father, clearly angry, storms into City Hall one weekday morning around Spring Break and says, "I'm ready to blow this damn place up." I happen to be in an especially good mood that morning so I just laugh and say, "Well, sir, you can't do that but maybe I can help solve your problem." He vents a bit, calms down. Turns out it some silly misunderstanding (I don't remember exactly, but something on the order of nobody warned him that Pirates of the Caribbean was going to be closed for refurbishment that day.) I apologize, give him a couple freebies we keep just for this occasion, and peace is preserved in the happiest place on earth. It was an otherwise unremarkable encounter, one among thousands fitting the pattern. Still, I guess I remember it but I do see a lesson to be learnt. I often think how easily it could have gone a different direction. If I'm in not so great a mood, or someone else is in my place that morning, or even if it's a couple years later post-9/11, oh the possibilities... 2) "Gypsies." Not the most politic phrase but that's what we called them and working the closing shift, you came to recognize them as a distinct category of obnoxious professional. People, families, who make a living off of scamming businesses. Here's one of the more infamous cases: http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1993-10-06/news/9310060151_1_disney-property-disney-hotel-normile http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1993-10-06/news/93100601... Every once in a while, when confronted by one of this class, if I was particularly grumpy or bored and things weren't too hectic, I might play Columbo and, after patiently and sympathetically listening to their tale of woe in all its sloppy details and taking notes on a notepad of the pertinent facts, point out the obvious plot holes and call them on their bullshit. If management had ever caught wind of one of these incidents, I probably would have been written up. They preferred to just pay the negligible cost-of-doing-business tax and keep things humming. I don't disagree with that approach. So I can sympathize with airline workers perhaps to a slightly greater degree perhaps than most. What caught my ear in the case of United CEO's first response to the passenger being dragged off the plane was not so much the tone-deaf off-note of an out-of-touch executive impervious to the miseries of the schmucks who are his customers but rather the echo of a decent boss who understands the kind of shit his employees have to put up with and is trying to stick up for them. I agree that his response was a disaster. But I suspect those who act like this was an obvious blunder and Munoz should have just accepted blame profusely and unconditionally for his staff's incompetence and promised the obligatory additional training to avoid issues like this in the future may be underestimating the importance of staff morale, in both the soft and hard (as in dollars and profits) sense, for the airline industry.