A co-worker apparently was irritated that I gave a customer $1.00 off since the digital app for selecting their coupons didn’t go through. We were getting heavy traffic pretty soon if she made the checker wait there any longer, and she does this patronizing, motioning gesture for me to come to her. She professed that she was in the process of showing the customer of getting their pin number set up, but she wasn’t cognizant of the fact that it takes at least 15 minutes, or so, to get the account set up. Ergo, the checker would be waiting longer than intended to reach the same impasse with the processing along with 2-3 disgruntled customers that would be screaming at us for not getting this done and over with.
For me taking off $1.00 their order to get them out as quickly, friendly, and efficiently as I can, she expresses this patronizing disposition with a visage as if she’s going to prowl on me. She prefers that customer going through so many layers of equivocation as to why they have to wait that long for a coupon is pragmatic. She gives me the detached justification that if we take it off just like that, what would be the point of the digital app. So instead of patronizing her with some existential nihilism as to why it’s utterly meaningless for there to be an app, I just did a clever conversation of playing dumb, and asking her on the workflow of what to do next time until she feigned that kind disposition.
The ultimate objective for the role is to simply alleviate traffic, and utilize whatever workflows and authority you have to get it done. Think like the customer is the initiative instead of thinking about the customer. It’s clear that from her gesture and disposition at the time, she has some kind of conflict with me that doesn’t cater to her textbook logic. I ended up talking to the manager in charge who agreed that what she was doing wasn’t sound logic whatsoever; just make the customer happy.
If I started to humiliate her by informing the customer why they had to wait so long for one fucking dollar off, along with the more despicable disposition of how utterly incompetent she was in wasting more time than needed, I probably would’ve gotten in trouble. But, I would’ve had sound logic to justify my actions. She has moments of consternation in general with getting things right, and I thought I was the perfectionist, but I was proven wrong. Just think on the fly based on the circumstances, and understand that the store leadership completely understands that you bended the rules just a bit, especially for one fucking dollar off. If it was more than 10 bucks, then yes, it would be understandable for her to be irritated, but why bother wasting your energy expressing a demeanor that feels that I did something wrong when I didn’t?
My higher-ups informed me gently that I should be more serious, but this was for a different circumstance. However, the last time I was serious before shifting to this location ended up with me talking to the unit director, and him saying how I can get in a lot of trouble if I’m like that. My boss in this one wants us as managers to treat each other as best friends, and I’m sure friends don’t motion their finger demanding you to come to them. It seems that the next time she foams in her mouth for a trivial amount, I will ultimately have to make a complete 180 in my working persona, which is the last thing I wanted since everything was running so smoothly.
On a positive note, my bosses want me to be prepared to move higher in potentially being a store leader. But with where I am now, it seems I can’t have a neutral disposition that fixates mostly on work ethic vs. trivial, petty things like a $1.00 off coupon. Are you fucking kidding me? You work for 9 years, and think having someone wait for one fucking dollar is a better normative work ethic vs. just giving it to them, and then shifting them to an empty register where they can get a 1 on 1 interaction vs. disgruntled customers giving us the dead eye?
I’m saving up for a punching bag in the future.