We’re living in a time where podcasters are telling customers they don’t have a right to complain about anything. A time where dashcam and security footage are being used to treat customers as pee-ons, and “prove” that somehow, customers are to blame for the lousy working conditions employees endure – rather than the business owners (who are actually to blame, duh).
Do worker rights matter? Yes, of course! Workers need higher pay, fewer hours, better benefits, decency and dignity in the workplace, bathrooms… Lots of things workers need and aren’t always (or sometimes even usually) afforded. I fully stand with all workers in these needs getting met!
Thing is, worker rights end where customer rights begin. Customers aren’t equals to workers – we, when we are their customers, are absolutely above them when something doesn’t go right in our interactions with them, because it’s our money putting bread on their tables. Their jobs are not charity and if they don’t want to do them well and right, then they need to quit and watch their homes evaporate and their family lives fall apart, before we customers work to ensure they get fired.
Yes, I’m writing this after an umpteenth time being treated like trash by an agent working in customer service. The details don’t matter. What matters is that it’s time customers everywhere were willing to stand up for our rights and not be afraid of “blow-back” from nasty little ingrate workers whose real anger is at their employers, but who are afraid to stand up for themselves to their employers, so they take it out on their customers. It’s time we customers were meticulous and honest about it when we do see or hear something blatantly wrong that we know we personally would never say or do to other people who we value. We have to stop being afraid to stand up for ourselves, even when it’s two workers to one, out in the near dark, when there aren’t recording devices around.
The same is true for delivery people (who otherwise are not customers) when they go to pick up orders. Deliverers, deliver us customers from this insanity! You’ve got to start going through the orders before they’re put in your vehicles, and ensuring that at least perishable food quality is excellent! When you don’t do that, when you don’t demand replacements or refunds, you’re teaching curbside workers to not care about whether your customers live or die. Yes, it’s that important. When you teach curbside workers to care, they will teach their employers to care. That benefits everyone. Your customers get fed food that won’t kill them, you get 5 star reviews, and the stores you pick up the orders from continue to profit off of the customers who don’t die from food poisoning. For added points with your customers, check the packaging of packaged foods too, to ensure it’s high quality and within the use-by dates. Want your customers to love you? Make sure all items are bagged and hidden from neighbor views when you drop them off, and knock on peoples’ doors unless instructed not to – loudly.
Anyway, yes, ultimately, employers need to adult-up and start providing groceries and other items that are worth paying the ever increasing prices for. It’s no one else’s fault that they’re not doing that, particularly regarding the produce. But it’s certainly not the customers’ faults. We don’t deserve to be yelled at, berated, or told “Go do it yourself if you don’t like what we brought you” just for the “sin” of ensuring that the food we will be eating, that we paid top dollar for, won’t kill us. Talking like that to a customer is akin to peeing in someone’s vegan soup at a high-end restaurant, just because they didn’t want anything put in it that they’re allergic to. You do not do that, period. That’s not “Workers Unite!” It’s trashy, and it makes you evil.
In any event, when you’re getting paid to do a job, it doesn’t matter which job it is nor what you’re being paid, you do not take anything you don’t like out on customers. If a customer is asking you to break the law, then don’t, and get law enforcement involved. But barring that, shut up and do your job, with a big ol’ fuck’n smile on your face. You have a problem with your employer? Unionize or quit, but leave your customers’ happiness out of it. Your employer is at fault, not your customers, for your employer treating you like junk. You refuse to recognize that? Kiss your paycheck goodbye. I, for one, will not help you keep your job. I’ll ensure you get fired for treating me like crap.
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