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Why Do We Tolerate Awful People?
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/6/1/115724.shtml ^ | June 1, 2004 | Neil Cavuto

Posted on 06/02/2004 5:40:46 AM PDT by Maria S

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To: daler

Genealogy research tends to be a more 'happy'(?) field. The other folks in my office have to deal with people coming in to file complaints, divorces, etc or to pay fines. These co-workers have an amazing ability to calm people down and difuse the situation. The people who are rude to me are the ones who think I'm their own private, personal researcher and they can't understand it when they have to 'get in line' when others are waiting for information before them. THEN in gets a bit nasty. (I want the information - and I want it NOW!)
Sometimes you can be too friendly and cheery though - especially over the phone. I had one deluded guy who was hinting that he wanted to go out with me. Then, he showed up unexpectedly and boy, was he shocked! (Let's just say my voice and my face don't match!) He never showed up again. I just can't understand why ever not! LOL!! Come to think of it, he never called either!


61 posted on 06/02/2004 7:19:19 AM PDT by sneakers
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To: wizr

" You just are not supposed to have fun at work, or have pride in your job.

Ain't progress fun? "


In my area one can't think about having fun in the work place when 60% of the co-workers are on drugs, yes on the job too. One restaurant here closed down due to the wait staff peddling drugs out the back kitchen door and a very high end department stores shipping and receiving clerk is doing the same out the back door. The employers don't care cause they're(the druggie workers) are cheaper by the dozen. The honest hard working nonsubstance users like me fall through the cracks. Basically, ain't greed fun? HECK NO!


62 posted on 06/02/2004 7:22:03 AM PDT by SunnySide
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To: Skooz
Butthead heated some cheese on the stove, poured it on his head, then poured some chips on the cheese and went as nachos.

That reminds me of Homer Simpson's nacho hat. At a sporting event, Homer got a sombrero made of a fried tortilla, with cheese sauce in the depression on top.

63 posted on 06/02/2004 7:25:17 AM PDT by Sloth (We cannot defeat foreign enemies of the Constitution if we yield to the domestic ones.)
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To: Maria S

I was surprised at the attitudes of two Taco Bell employees recently. I pulled in by their exit door, and two employees were smoking there. They looked at me and saw that I was customer. When I went inside the restaurant, there was no one at the counter. I yelled Hello! twice. Another guy and his kid came in behind me. I said to him, they're having a smoke break out back. He nodded, rolling his eyes. We waited another minute before one of the smoking employees returned to the counter to wait on us.


64 posted on 06/02/2004 7:27:53 AM PDT by Ciexyz ("FR, best viewed with a budgie on hand")
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To: basil

If he's living in the NYC tristate area, I'm not at all surprised. We just left there after over a decade of living in CT, NYC and NJ, and boy, Ohio is a whole different world. Polite toll booth attendants - heaven! Fast food workers that speak clear, concise English - what a pleasant surpise. And people actually say please and thank you, while they SMILE. It's truly amazing.


65 posted on 06/02/2004 7:28:35 AM PDT by agrace
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To: FITZ
...thrown into the job completely untrained, unknowledgeable about the company and it's policies.

Perhaps, you are jumping to the assumption that the company cares about its customers. Too many companies like to treat customers like so many cows at a slaughter house. Just get the employees to cram them through the process, extract as much from their wallets as you can, and forget about the niceties. Customers have fewer choices these days and good customer service is just so much sunk cost.

Once upon a time we use to be able to call a local number to have an attentive knowledgeable person pick up the phone. Today we have been conditioned to just sit there and listen to an often pathetic automated answering machine. Despite the rethoric most companies couldn't care less about their customers. The whole customer service thing is on a fast race to the bottom.
66 posted on 06/02/2004 7:30:59 AM PDT by ARCADIA (Abuse of power comes as no surprise)
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To: Alouette

"The rudest country in the world is...

...ISRAEL!!"

A few weeks ago we ate at the Norweigan restaurant at Epcot. When my son forgot to say "please" when he asked for a refill I reminded him. The waitress, who was from Norway, told us that she wasn't offended because while people in Norway don't go out of their way to be rude, they consider Americans excessively polite.


67 posted on 06/02/2004 7:37:10 AM PDT by Gone GF
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To: AmericanInTokyo

The Netherlands is a schizo country when it comes to customer service. You either get treated like a king by outrageously kind and attentive service people, or you get treated like the servant's mangy dog who has scratched the door begging for scraps once too often.

A truly weird place.


68 posted on 06/02/2004 7:38:57 AM PDT by Skooz (My Biography: Psalm 40:1-3)
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To: Xenalyte

"You are the exception. How do you manage to keep your job? Every time I've dealt with the federales, it seems they're hand-picked for surliness."

I find them to be like at most any other place -- some good and some bad. Some helpful and some totally unhelpful.

Take the dreaded IRS. I've had some pretty bad luck getting correct answers when calling the help line. But then one time we got a notice that we had screwed up our return and we owed a bunch more money plus penalties and interest. I won't go into details but the bottom line was we HAD screwed it up, but we didn't owe anything more. After all the horror stories, I knew we were in for a bad time getting it straight. I was stunned when the person at the 800 number immediately understood what had happened and in 30 seconds eliminated the problem. A week later we got written confirmation everything was OK and we never heard about it again.


69 posted on 06/02/2004 7:44:53 AM PDT by Gone GF
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To: Maria S
It seems generational to me. The younger people who work in the same place as I do are rude almost all the time. Their entire attitude, from the momment they get on the elevator (and incessantly push the "close door" button in order to shut others out), to their bathroom habits, is disgusting.

It's a "me first-screw you" attitude. I am old enough to be their parents so it's my generation that's to blame I guess.

70 posted on 06/02/2004 7:45:34 AM PDT by Protagoras (Control is the objective , freedom is the obstacle.)
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To: Gone GF
we ate at the Norweigan restaurant

I'm dying to know. What kind of food do they serve at a Norwegian restaurant (other than lutefisk)?

71 posted on 06/02/2004 7:48:10 AM PDT by Alouette (Dear Dad & Uncle Ira & all USA vets--Thank you for my Freedom.)
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To: Protagoras

Well, a good old fashioned Depression that lasts 5 or 6 years would clear that attitude right up.


72 posted on 06/02/2004 7:51:10 AM PDT by Skooz (My Biography: Psalm 40:1-3)
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To: ravingnutter
Sometimes when the phone rings and I have had a bad day, I say "What the h*** do you want now!" and then when I pick up the phone, I am as sweet as I can be to the person on the other end.

You're obviously a woman; no big suprise here. You gals are masters at being duplicitous.

73 posted on 06/02/2004 7:57:14 AM PDT by streetpreacher
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To: Riley

I used to go to work sick. Now I just stay home. My tolerance for annoying people is not that good when I'm roasting with a fever.


74 posted on 06/02/2004 7:58:15 AM PDT by cyborg
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To: Alberta's Child

Here on Long Island there's a lot of peasantry...

- to people who are nothing more than ignorant peasants in their outlook, manners, etc. The flip side of this is that reducing your costs often requires you to hire people who are nothing more than ignorant peasants in their outlook, manners, etc.

*** excellent observation and pretty much sums up what's going on today


75 posted on 06/02/2004 7:59:22 AM PDT by cyborg
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To: Skooz

I find working in the service industry to be a study in social psychology, maybe even abnormal psychology *LOL*


76 posted on 06/02/2004 8:00:48 AM PDT by cyborg
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To: Maria S

I was in KMart the other day, needing to purchase some lawn chairs they had on sale. The price was not marked, and the chairs were way to heavy and bulky to take over to the self-scanner machine attached to a column in the aisle.
I went over to a young male employee who was kneeling on the floor in the garden department, opening some cartons of water hoses and said "Those lawn chairs don't have a price marked on them. Do you know how much they are?" Instead of hopping up and checking on the situation, he said, "No. I sure don't know how much they are," and kept right on opening his carton! I drifted back over to the chairs, thinking he'd finish the carton he was working on and then hop up, but HE JUST WENT RIGHT ON OPENING BOXES!
I was too hot,tired and disgusted to complain.


77 posted on 06/02/2004 8:04:19 AM PDT by hispanarepublicana (Mr. Fox, give us our water!!!)
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To: M. Dodge Thomas

I won't go into detail, but my job was coordination between The Company and my client. Sometimes my client needed something from The Company, and sometimes The Company needed something from my client. No cash involved.

Either way, I felt my job was to find out what my clients needs were, and to coordinate any problems to get a win/win situation. Whenever possible.

I loved my job. I said it was like walking a tightrope over a pride of lions, but there was great satisfaction in solving problems. No finger pointing, no delays, no excuses, just a'holes and elbows.

Until people inside The Company started working against me.

I bet there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of stories just like this one. There are many of us that just got tired of trying to do what's right, and moved out of the way of the steamroller.

Work your fingers to the bone and what do you get. Bony fingers.

Thanx, for listening.


78 posted on 06/02/2004 8:11:19 AM PDT by wizr
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To: ARCADIA
we have stopped caring about our society.

...or, perhaps it has stopped caring about us.

Once country, cultural integrity, religion, language, and values, are sacrificed for either political power, or personal wealth; there is no society. It is just every man out for themselves.

Not to detract from what you are communicating, but I find it slightly amusing that this thread dealing with the coarsening of society is also interlaced with warm comments about "Married with Children" and "Beavis and Butthead".

How much of our "rudeness" is merely symptomatic of the poor excuses for entertainment that Sitcom Land and Hollywood shovel out of the manure pile, and for the most part, we seem more than willing to devour?

79 posted on 06/02/2004 8:12:53 AM PDT by streetpreacher
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To: Maria S

I don't know how many times I've told a waitress,"You know honey, you don't seem to be suited for this type of work, don't you think you could find a job that you would enjoy?"


80 posted on 06/02/2004 8:14:55 AM PDT by fish hawk
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