Saturday, December 15, 2007
Customer Service, Chicago Style
This morning my sister and I went to a post office near our house. At least, it looked like a post office -- it had the sign out front, a listing in the phone book, a sassy lady in a uniform inside -- but when we took our package to get weighed, said lady looked at us like we were crazy.
"I don't have no scale here," she said.
"Oh," I responded. "Well, can I maybe just buy some stamps to put on it?"
"We ain't got no stamp machine," came the reply.
So apparently this was a post office in the same sense a mailbox is a post office -- they can take mail you've already stamped, but that's about it.
But this is how customer service always works in Chicago. Not only will people not help you, they act like you're a moron for even thinking they might. Whether it's a lady at Taco Bell telling you "We ain't got no nachos here. This a Taco Bell Express." or a customer service rep for Comcast informing you that your appointment was canceled before you even scheduled it, any question you might ask is something the service rep is pretty sure you already ought to know.
I think I've finally found the job I was born to have.
This morning my sister and I went to a post office near our house. At least, it looked like a post office -- it had the sign out front, a listing in the phone book, a sassy lady in a uniform inside -- but when we took our package to get weighed, said lady looked at us like we were crazy.
"I don't have no scale here," she said.
"Oh," I responded. "Well, can I maybe just buy some stamps to put on it?"
"We ain't got no stamp machine," came the reply.
So apparently this was a post office in the same sense a mailbox is a post office -- they can take mail you've already stamped, but that's about it.
But this is how customer service always works in Chicago. Not only will people not help you, they act like you're a moron for even thinking they might. Whether it's a lady at Taco Bell telling you "We ain't got no nachos here. This a Taco Bell Express." or a customer service rep for Comcast informing you that your appointment was canceled before you even scheduled it, any question you might ask is something the service rep is pretty sure you already ought to know.
I think I've finally found the job I was born to have.
