Archie the Gopher - - Serving Education Delivering Quality

OK, so you think you understand. Just because you get to....

Yes, Bill, I think your insights are right on! Seriously, the changes in our culture, our society, and our personal priorities make things very interesting. We are in challenging times and defensive/aggressive reactions to situations is becoming common.

As one of the old-guys still working to deliver quality-as-process and quality-as-result I’m wondering what tomorrow will bring. Will we lead or follow, or will we get out of the way allowing good things to continue to happen. The times are changing.

I close with a smile, with optimism, and I’m heading to get a cup of coffee that I made to my standards keeping me happy as I do my work. I serve as a contributing professor through the Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership within Walden University. Contributing to successes of teachers.

After coffee I’ll be looking for my yellow chalk! Someone took it. I know they did!

Jerry Brong
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I could not agree with you more. I am also a service provider in my own line of business, and pride myself in delivering quality service and customer satisfaction. I feel for those that work in a McDonald, or like you said Starbucks that have to deal w/ people that in a reverse role probably cry and then hang themselve from a tree.
I run into Schlubs probably more now than ever as people are also getting increacently in the mode of blaming others for their own unhappy life. I think this issue of what you as a customer expect from others (incuding service providers) relates to how this newer generations of Americans have gotten into a mode of believing something is owed to them. Common courtesy, and respect has gone out the door. How many times have you driven a car and saw someone wanting to cross the street; you stopped to let them cross, and what you got in return was a "I am king/Queen - see me cross the road" look and actually slowed their pace down while in front of your car? Those are also Schlubs.

-Toast example is a thief not just a schlub imop.
-Overheard a couple of guys who walked into an oyster house complaining about the prices on the menu. Proceeded to order anyway and scheme about how they weren't going to pay the bill. After consuming everything they ordered, and reordered, they asked to see the manager and then complained the oysters were too salty and the shrimp tasted like it had been frozen. Mind you these are oysters on the half shell no prep just shuck em and you pick the type malbeque, blue point pei what have you, As the manager came over and started apologizing I let her know they planned it from the beginning.

-Minutes away from a flight being diverted a friend and I informed an unruly passenger that refused to comply with direction just exactly what happens when a passenger is escorted off a diverted flight. Employees might be in a bad position trying to be pleasant to a schlub but you don't have to be.

I often get a kick out of the perception that the times they are a changin' and my how much more of this awful behavior or situation we have today. I don't think it is any worse that in used to be.
First of all - do we really have that many more interactions with service personnel? 30 years ago we all had to go to the department store, the grocery, restaurant, doctor and hair stylist. I wonder if we really have that many more interactions today? How do we get the idea that bad behaviors, attitudes, etc. are worse today? I bet the number of schlubby people abusing service providers is the same percentage of customer-service interactions as it always was. Or at least within some reasonable amount of normal variation. Only media and communication make it sound worse today.
And this newer generation of Americans believing something is owed to them? Yeah - I get it because I see a lot of young people with that entitlement attitude, but I think the retiree demographic gives 'em a pretty good run for their money. SO this is not an area where the older generation can claim moral and ethical superiority. But it sure seems to mean a lot to them. I hope they can get over it and live in peace with the ever-changing world.
And I'm not defending the schlubs - I get a kick out of some of these things myself sometimes. Yes - the toast lady was a thief. Who hasn't witnessed an outrageous behavior in public in a service setting? I'm just glad I never acted rudely or in any way gave the appearance of having the wrong attitude. Be thankful for the attitude police.
Too bad about the airline guy though. A quitter! And he's probably so mis-guided by his hero status that he can't even see he's a quitter. I say he has a brief flirt with glory, then years of denial, loathing, misery, therapy, etc. and eventually engages in a significant role reversal where he is the schlub. That should snap him back to reality.

...but they are always the customer. In manufacturing, we have a culture of bending over backward to please our customer. We want to have "raving fans", go the extra mile, be great not good, go over and above to meet OR EXCEED expectations. After 30 + years of this mentality, I must admit it irks me to receive mediocre (or less) service as a customer myself, whether that is in the grocery store, restaurant or even the doctors office. I don't know that we have more contact nowadays. In fact, it seems with FaceBook, Twitter, Ebay, etc..there is less and less face-to-face interaction. The bottom line is that applying the Golden Rule is still the recipe for how to communicate whether you are the customer or service provider. There is a difference between explaining and complaining. The sad fact is that most dissatisfied customers probably don't say anything about their experience, they just take their business somewhere else. Beware of the customer who answers "fine" to the question, "How was everything?".........