It's amazing how much of our life we spend at work...I spend more time with the people I work with than my family...doesn't seem right in the whole scheme of things but that's the way our life is right now. I don't consider myself a "career" woman. Been there, done that...worked the 60-80 hour weeks, nights, weekends, sacrificing family and friends for the job and more money. Having a major health crisis five years ago made me take a good hard look at my life and how I wanted to spend my time.
My job is "Marketing Coordinator" for a medical device company, which means I coordinate all the trade shows, seminars and events for our company. It's a job I like and do well. Once a month, we host a three day in-house training seminar and approximately 25-30 people from all over the US and occasionally from other countries come to learn how to use our equipment. I work long hours those three days and my role during that time is sort of a "hospitality hostess". I welcome our guests, provide them with food, lodging, etc. I cater in and serve all the food, snacks, beverages, plus am on hand to assist with any special requests. Having owned a scrapbook store for several years where we hosted weekend retreats for 50-75 women at a time, this is "second nature" to me...and yet, every month, I come away from these three days utterly exhausted and surprised at how demanding and downright rude some people can be.
If any of our guests have dietary issues, they are supposed to let me know in advance so that I can order the proper food, and yet, most of the time, they arrive and then tell me...which makes for some last minute scrambling. This month, we are hosting 28 people plus three instructors and in that group I have two women who are gluten and wheat free plus kosher (and let me tell you, Portland Oregon doesn't have a huge Jewish community - we have only one kosher restaurant and it's nearly 15 miles from the office...so we've been running there once or twice a day to pick up food for our two guests); two who are vegan (no animal products of any kind) and one who is lactose and wheat intolerant. The company I work for was just purchased by a larger company and several of the new owners are sitting in on this seminar, so that has added extra pressure to this seminar.
I have a snack basket with approximately 3-4 dozen types of snacks...nuts, candy bars, gluten-free snack bars, snack mix, fruit snacks, etc. and plus we serve 14 types of soft drinks, juices and energy drinks plus bottled water, coffee and hot water for tea...and yet, even with all that, I have requests, complaints and demands for different types of snacks, teas, etc. 95% of our guests are happy and appreciate the variety and types of food and snacks I provide, so why do I let those 5% who complain, make demands and rude comments weigh on me so much? Our guests fill out evaluations at the end of the course and also have the opportunity to comment on any staff person...and yes, we are "just doing our jobs" but sometimes, we go above and beyond and it's nice to at least get a thank you. A couple of the guests in this current seminar seem to have that "entitlement" attitude, and so all of us on staff are on edge as we try and navigate the tight rope of satisfying the customer and yet, not going over the edge with unreasonable demands. Some of our groups are really fun and it's easy to please them...others, like this one, push us to the point of exhaustion and it's hard not be be crabby.
It makes me more conscious of my own behavior and how much I want to be positive and grateful. Really good customer service is rare these days and should be acknowledged...how often do we take the time to thank someone when we have received great service. More often than not, the only time we contact a company is when we have a complaint. What if all of us went out of our way in the next week to notice someone who gives us extraordinary service and take the extra couple of minutes to write a note, send an email, call his/her manager or just tell them thank you for doing such a great job...it would be a guaranteed day brightener for the person who provided the service...
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