I wrote recently about the reversal of litter programs and the now debris laden highways that I drive daily. Not it’s time to look at customer service and the service industry as a whole and the deterioration of pride in these jobs.
I hated these jobs when I did them too.
The difference is I still did a good job. I was a grocery store stock boy with a friend of mine and we took pride in a well played out shelf, organized products, and packing someone’s bag at the checkout properly. You know, separating cold items from cardboard to boxes don’t get wet, not putting cans on bread, and seemingly other tasks the modern grocery store worker can’t manage.
My experience today was at BJ’s Warehouse during an in-store pickup. I checked in on the app giving them 5-10 minutes to prep before I made the door. I selected in store and not curbside, and I was in the store before my order was ready to go. So far so good.
My order was pulled and placed in the cart to go to curbside. Then it was left sitting out for close to 10-minutes with perishables in the cart on our first 75 degree day of the year. Then when they do figure out that I was in the store the stock person proceeds to casually toss my goods into the cart. Except for the milk that they dropped from about 10 inches up. Mind you I have already been charged for these items and I just want to get them home.
After all that I am finally acknowledged at the door to the pickup area. Not only am I disappointed that the employee’s took no pride in providing a service, the management clearly does not care or can’t be bothered with showing them how to do it correctly.
Training?
Do service workers receive training anymore? Going back to being a bagger in a grocery store. We were trained how to bag groceries so as to not damage items. We were watched for weeks before we could do it solo. It was instilled in us to make sure the customers items were in the same condition when they got home as when they left the store. Where did that go? It’s not as simple as just a money issue, paying more hasn’t garnered better service, if anything it’s gotten worse. What’s your theory?