As soon as I read the words I felt the flush of heat, and I knew it had colored more than my cheeks. I knew my entire face had gone red. I was embarrassed. I was angry.
I don’t remember the circumstances surrounding the encounter between me and the customer who decided to air her dissatisfaction with it by personally attacking me on Yelp.
The truth is: I have been condescending. And I’m very aware that I can possess, at times, a tone that isn’t always the most cheerful. I own that. But I’ve also been the most helpful man in the room, the man who goes out of his way to get the customer what he wants, the man who has ‘em laughing as they walk out the door.
I’m human. I make mistakes. I have bad days. Don’t we all? But to attack someone, citing his birth defect, in the first line of a Yelp review is nothing short of vicious…and a little Trumpian.
For the record, I don’t hate myself, and I’m not miserable.
Customer service is not the easiest of industries from which to earn a living. People can be difficult. I know. I have been one of those people. Regardless of what transpired between this customer and me, I don’t believe such a nasty personal attack was necessary.
But we live in the social media age of the Trump era. We hold in our hands access to a plethora of apps from which we can post a smear about someone we don’t like on whatever platform we choose. (I myself am guilty of harsh criticism on Twitter toward political views I oppose and toward anti-LGBTQ statements.) We can post a picture of a person who pissed us off and caption it in any degrading way we like. My favorite of the social media mores is the absurd behavior of videoing a fight, an attack, an accident, yet refusing to help the person in need because for some reason the footage is more important than the human being.
I sat quietly at work for most of the day after reading my first known Yelp review. Contemplating. Stewing. This customer did not so much critique my bad customer service as point out my crossed-eye, question my gender, and note my nail polish. She viciously attacked my personal attributes and choice of expression. Was she trying to belittle me or shame me?
The more I contemplated the more I wanted take it all off...right then: the eyeshadow, the mascara, the nail polish. I wanted it gone. I wanted to not be seen. I wanted to hide in the corner. That would be the easy way. That would be me succumbing to safer more comfort-filled tropes. But then I said: No! She doesn’t get to have that much power over me. Her comments were nasty, negative, and hateful. But what can I learn from this? How am I going to react? I am strong and courageous and her opinion of what she saw when she looked at me doesn’t matter. Our transaction may not have gone the way either one of us would’ve liked, and I can learn from that. But she has to look at herself in the mirror every day and know that she lashes out with hate.
Also for the record, I regret that my interaction with this customer was unpleasant enough to make her lash out at me. Clearly I affected her day. Maybe she felt better after posting the review. Who can know? I don’t think we often stop to realize how one human interaction can affect another. An interaction I had had prior to the one I had with her could have soured me for the next few hours...or the rest of the day. And in turn, the interactions she had post me could have impacted those experiences.
Actions may speak louder than words, but words have the power to leave a lasting sting. We should choose them wisely. Of course, we would have to care about their power and their lingering effects, and many of us just...don’t.
