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I Quit!

This certainly seems to be the week for dramatic exits…with Steven Slater of Jet Blue of course taking the cake.  Slater got into an argument with a disobedient passenger who would not close his overhead bin and sit down until the plane taxied to a stop.  As the passenger took his bags down, he accidentally hit Slater in the head with his suitcase.  When he refused to apologize and instead hurled curse words at Slater, the Jet Blue attendant proceeded to get on the plane’s intercom, curse out all the passengers as he announced that he was quitting, activate the emergency slide, grab a beer for the road, slide down, run to his car, and drive home.  He was later arrested and charged with reckless endangerment and criminal mischief.  There is already a “Free Steven Slater” Facebook page, and several articles about the incident feature encouraging comments towards Slater, with the majority of readers chastising the rude passenger.

If you have ever worked in customer service at any point in your career, as I have, I’m sure this story brings a smile to your face.  How many of us have fantasized about forgetting that the customer is always supposed to be right, and telling him how stupid he is, how inconsiderate, how selfish, how unrealistic?  And even if you haven’t worked in customer service yourself, how many times have you been stuck in line behind somebody like this—who won’t accept that the expiration date on the coupon passed two weeks ago, or who insists on arguing they were overcharged by one dollar, or that they know better than the employees?  No wonder customer service jobs have such high turnover compared to other industries! 

If you are an office worker, imagine that your boss allowed your co-workers to miss deadlines, break rules, speak rudely to you, and make you jump through hoops to get your work done.  Now imagine that not only did you have to put up with all that, but you also had to do it with a smile, and even apologize to those very same co-workers for their own behavior.  Sounds like an unhealthy work environment, right?  Welcome to customer service!

Perhaps the Steven Slaters of the world wouldn’t be driven to such extremes if customers were made to follow basic rules of courtesy in any type of transaction.  In any job, a worker who is not backed up by his or her company and/or boss will feel disenfranchised, deflated, and most likely—disengaged.  And what happens to disengaged employees?  They breed disengaged customers.  Maybe saying goodbye to that irate customer who is screaming at the top of his lungs will make it so a few more of those nicer, quieter customers stay in line rather than walking (or sliding) out the door, along with your employees.

 And for another equally funny, but legal, quitting this week, I give you Jenny and her dry erase board.