You hear it all the time: "The customer is ALWAYS right." This is quite accurate, nine times out of 10. For that other 10 percent, I think it is more of an excuse for rude customers to be rude. They can be rude and then use the excuse that "Hey, I'm the customer and I'm right!"

I work at a local car wash as a sales person. My job is to sell car wash packages and recommend the best services for the customers. I am aware that sales people can be pretty annoying and pushy. Unfortunately, I'm commission based and make my money off of the people that like to take care of their cars. I follow the rule to a T that states once a customer says no, you should stop asking. I most certainly do that. Even though I'm the annoying sales person, I get customers that are downright rude. I understand having a bad day, but being extremely mean to the person that is helping you is out of line. I could give a huge list of terrible customers, but I'll just stick to a few concrete examples.

Being in customer service, you're going to deal with rude people. This is my biggest downfall because I don't play well with these kinds of people. If you're rude to me for no reason, it's pretty difficult for me not to give sass right back at you. This gets me into some trouble sometimes, unfortunately. When a customer pulls up to me and asks for a car wash, I will tell them about our packages and the best one they can purchase. I've had several people pull up to me, not say hello, throw their hand out the window with the money in hand, and say "Just the base, don't ask me about anything else." This is not the way to start a conversation. A simple "hello" will go a long way, especially with me. When starting off like you're already annoyed with me, it turns me off and makes me angry and it will probably show. In this case, the customer was not right. Yeah, they know what they want, but there is no need to be snippy with me before we've even started our conversation.

Without sales in the picture, I've had some ridiculous customers. One time, a customer wanted to purchase a 12 dollar wash with a 100 dollar bill, which is completely fine. It happened to be the first thing in the morning, so all I had to give him was all ones and fives. I explained to him that he could either give me a smaller bill, pay will a credit card, I could give him all smaller bills, or I could get a manager to get me change really quick. Well, none of these options suited him. He began to go on a rant about how it's really not a difficult task to break a 100 dollar bill and told me how ridiculous I was. At this point, I just shut down. You're not going to sit there and call me names because I can only give you ones and fives back. Absolutely not. In this case, the customer was not right. At least it wasn't as bad as the customer that called me stupid, but I won't get into that one.

Recently, I finished a transaction with a customer and I was going to give him a brochure with some information on it and a 10 dollar coupon. I said "Here is a brochure..." and then he cut me off and said "Don't give me that!" I proceeded to tell him that there was also a coupon in there for him and then he said "Well then give it to me." He interrupted me, and then demanded me to give it to him. He noticed an eye roll from me and told my manager, of course. In this case, the customer went and told my boss that I was rude and rolled my eyes but I'm pretty sure the customer didn't mention to him that he was a total asshole to me, but hey, the customer was right! Right? No.

With everything being said, I just hate the saying. It makes me feel defeated right from the beginning. If you're the meanest person in the world, you can get away with treating people in customer service like absolute shit. At the end of the day, it's me that gets reprimanded for standing up for myself for once when I am being treated poorly for no reason. Just do the world a favor, and be a cooperative customer. This of course goes the other way as well. If you're in customer service, be pleasant!