Please and Thank You

Where has “Please” and “Thank You” gone.  In this world of customer service and customer appreciation you would think these would be just some of the polite gestures that would be mandatory, but just today…I found that customer appreciation, doesn’t mean they are pleased to see me and would thank me not to come back…or so it would seem…I had to get a few things today and went to my local hardware store.  It just so happened they wer having a customer appreciation day…so as I walked down the aisles a gentleman approached me and asked if he could help me…I told him what I needed and he said, “Oh yes we have that, please follow me and I will take you right to it.”  Which he did.  He even stayed and showed me all the different sizes, told me the pros and cons of each brand, etc.  When I made my decision he smiled and said, “If you need anything else, please let me know and thank you for coming today.”

With a smile on my face, I thought, now that is customer service.  He asked, he helped and he thanked me…

As I walked to the front of the store, I passed a few more employees…some smiled, some said hello and a few pretended to be looking at the shelf they were walking past…but it overall, it had been a pleasant trip…and then…

I get in line to pay and I see the cashier laughing and talking with the woman in front me and I wondered to myself if all the staff is nice like this all the time or just today…then it happened.,

The cashier looked at me and then looked back at the woman and rolled her eyes.  They said their goodbyes and the cashier grabbed up my item to run it across the scanner.  The whole time looking at me with a look of “I can’t believe you are bothering me today.”

I couldn’t figure it out…did I look like someone who picked on her in High School?  Did her spouse/boyfriend run off with a girl that looked similar to me?  Did she hate the color blue and was angry that I decided to come through her line wearing my favorite blue t-shirt?  I just couldn’t figure it out.

She snatched my money from hand and I honestly think she growled at me as I took my bag to leave.

I got outside and stood there…shocked.  What had just happened?  I had been treat wonderful by most everyone in the store…but the cashier treated me like I didn’t deserve to shop there…

This got me thinking…Do we treat our residents differently also?  I know there are residents that I have had in the past that  just rubbed me wrong…but did I treat them differently than those who didn’t rub me wrong?

The point to this story is to make you think about how you treat your residents…do you treat them all the same?  I’m not talking Fair Housing different, I’m talking do you smile, wave and speak to everyone, every time you see them…or do you pick and choose (like the cashier) which residents deserve your customer appreciation?