My Pet Peeve...

If I had to list one thing that irritated me above almost everything else, I believe I'd have to say poor customer service. That's not hard to understand, considering it's the field that I've been in for over 30 years. There's no excuse for poor customer service, especially when you consider that without customers we wouldn't have a job...or a paycheck. In essence, our customers sign our paychecks. Would the rude individuals in a customer service capacity treat their boss the same way they treat their customers? I don't think so!

Poor customer service stems, in my opinion, from a couple of different things--poor training and the self-involved attitude of many of today's individuals. You can train a person in the skills of customer service but that doesn't mean that those skills will be applied once the worker is past their training. The individual worker has to have the mindset that goes along with those skills. If a person doesn't care about the people they're supposed to be serving, then they have no business being in Customer Service. A degree of caring must be evident in order to be successful in this area. You must care whether, or not, your customer has received the help that they were looking for when they called or stopped by. Did they get what they needed? In other words, were they satisfied?? Perhaps the Customer Service title should be universally changed to Customer Satisfaction. That's truly what we're after--to satisfy the customer's needs.

I suppose I can be a little extreme in my reaction to being ill-treated as a customer. I had a bad experience with a fast-food establishment many years ago. It was a particularly ugly interchange wherein I was trying to point out that I was being overcharged dramatically for something that was on sale. The manager got involved in what started out as merely a math error on the part of the sales person. Apparently, the manager didn't have math skills either for he ordered the sales person to return to him and bring our product with her. The experience prompted me to write a letter to the corporate office of this particular chain. I explained what had happened and that I was writing to let them know that certain skills, such as common courtesy, were required of their workers. I also stated why good customer service is especially important to me--even including one of my business cards. At that time I was a Customer Service manager.

One would expect, with a large corporation, that customer satisfaction would be paramount. One would expect, also, to receive a reply to such a letter. Did I? No! ...not even a form letter. So irritated was I by the entire episode that I refused to do business with that particular location again. My husband thought it was funny. I told him he was free to do business with whomever he chose--even that location--but I would not give them another penny...and I didn't.

A couple of years later that location closed. It remained closed for some time and several years after that was torn down and a new establishment from the same corporation was built. I have done business with the new crew and have found them very courteous and helpful.

My point is this... The money we spend at businesses speaks. I chose to withhold my money from that particular business because of the way I had been treated. Do I think my refraining from spending money there made them close? Hardly! But...how many other patrons may have had a similar experience? The location closed for a reason--perhaps not that one but, obviously, their business had fallen off enough to be closed. You don't close a gold mine! Oh, and the new one is doing a great business...

Time Marches On...

It's been several months since I added on to this part of the blog. Work has been really busy! I've got the paper monster back and he's managed to barf all over my desk again. Sometimes, there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day. The phone has been really busy and I wish my desk could look like a couple of my coworkers. It's amazing! It has to be the phones that make the difference. Some days I feel like the ringing is constant and I don't feel like I've accomplished much at all. I'm the only one that seems to need to work any OT and that makes me feel bad. I know I can't have become incompetent and unorganized--it must just be the work distribution. I just know it drives me crazy at times.


Some of the people that had been working on our floor moved to another location. Talk about busy!! It got much quieter in our area after they moved out but, strangely, I'm still getting calls for them that I have to transfer. In fact, I'm getting calls for a LOT of people that I've never heard of... Someone said they felt that's because our 800# is listed on the website and everyone is just calling the Customer Service number. Well, I believe it!


I've also been getting a bunch of wrong numbers lately. I have no idea what that's about--maybe it's the phase of the moon. Of course, the boiler room calls are easy to recognize as are the telemarketers. What I really enjoy are the people who call in who are "working so closely" with the person they're looking for that they totally butcher the person's name. Sometimes, the butchering of the name is so bad I can hardly figure out who they're calling for!


Then there's the people whose call rolls from another area because no one was there to answer it and when you answer they say they're "holding" for so-and-so. Mmm-hmmm...yeah, right. Kinda hard to be holding when I'm the first one that's answered the phone. Maybe they don't realize that I can tell that by the coding that shows on my phone.


I think my favorites, though, are the ones that call in and want to talk to a sales person about buying some of our product. Now, you do remember that we're a poultry processor, right? ...specifically, chicken. That's all we sell...although we do have different areas of sales depending on the type of processing--commodity sales, foodservice sales, retail sales, etc. I must get one of these calls several times a week:


"I want to talk to someone in sales."


"What type of product are you looking for?"


"Chicken..."


Now, at this point, you can't laugh. That wouldn't be cool, believe me! The next step, of course, is to gently ask them which area of sales they're interested in. Most people that call in know which area of sales they're after and they'll ask for that area or the person's name they're wanting to speak with. It's the hesitant ones that usually say chicken.


That's just a little taste of what happens with the phones but it will give you an idea of the kind of thing that goes on. I really love what I do--even if it does drive me crazy at times. Where else could I enjoy such entertainment without having to pay for it?? My brokers think I'm crazy, too, but that's a story for another time. So, until then, enjoy your life and laugh a lot!!

Did you say 2007???

Whew! It's been a while!! Maybe those hecklers of Columbus had something about the world being flat for I must have fallen off to have waited this long between posts...

I've just reread my old posts and I figure I've probably got enough material floating around in my pea brain to add some additional comments on some of them. After all, it's 18 months of new movie viewing, I can tell you how that bus trip really turned out...you get the idea.

It won't all happen today, but I'll be adding to this more frequently now. So keep your eyes peeled and drop by when you need a chuckle, or two.

Flexibility, anyone??

In my profile I was asked which I thought was more important--flexibility or expandability. Now, we all know the purpose of those stupid questions--it's to flesh out our profile and give the viewer something to frame a picture on...no pun intended. When I filled that thing out, I answered with what I felt--flexibility. To me that really is more important...

That's a good thing, too, because the last year has proved to be one that really required a great deal of flexibility here. I still have the Western Region and things have settled in nicely. I was able to get almost all the paper that seemed to have taken up permanent residence on my desk removed around June or July. The great former military guy I worked with retired the end of August but was available on a consulting basis til the end of September. Our Assistant Manager "resigned" on September 1, we got our old Assistant Manager back who left us five years ago and we have another new team member who is in her mid-20's. All in all, it was an interesting year, to say the least.

When I named this blog "As the Chicken Clucks..." I did so for a reason. Work had turned into a soap opera and things could be interesting at times. How people can find time to carry on the way they do is beyond me. I've always found that work kept me plenty busy. Maybe that's because I've never foisted my work off onto other people. I suppose that could be how they find the time to keep things stirred up. I've always said this is the best place I've ever worked...and it is. There have been a few minor irritations but, for the most part, it's been great.

No one likes to find out they've been flim-flammed, but I did this year...and it had been going on for years. Oh, it's not that the warning bells never went off--it's just that they didn't make any sense when they did. Fortunately, for me, I've always been the "older" part of older and wiser but now I've actually had some wisdom added to that.

The Banana Man

When I was a kid things were a lot different and a lot simpler than they are now. I can't imagine what it's like to be a kid now--it's certainly not simple. I look at my grandkids and think how much more savvy and mature they have to be at their tender age than I ever had to be. Of course, that's not to say that Desi and I had it easy--for we didn't...but that's a story for another time.

One of my fondest memories was of seeing the Banana Man on Captain Kangaroo. It never seemed like he visited the Captain anywhere near often enough to suit me, but it was always a very special treat when he did visit. Kids today would probably look at those of us who remember his act with fondness and wonder where our brains are. I'm sure they would think the act was extremely cheesy. Looking at the world, as they must, with much wizened eyes, they couldn't understand the fascination he held for us.

I was constantly amazed by the amount of "stuff" that he was constantly pulling out of his coat...bunches of bananas, musical instruments, other fruit. It was hilarious to me. I've only found a couple references to him on the web and it's sad that this bit of our childhood should achieve so little remembrance in my contemporaries minds. Maybe it was only those of us who were the dreamers that could feel such longing for something so simple as a grown man who found his delight in amusing children with silliness. The world has, indeed, grown too sophisticated for its own good. How sad...

Customer Service

I've worked customer service for over 30 years in various fields. I really enjoy dealing with all the varied personalities. It's a lot like raising children--you have the well-behaved ones, the scalawags, and the problem children...

VA Hospital
The first documented stint was working as a pharmacy clerk at a VA hospital in Tucson, AZ. I was much younger then! It seems like a hundred years ago. Some of those vets can get pretty irascible when they want their meds. We used to have to keep a sharp eye out for there were quite a few who tried to get their meds early or tried to double up. Many of them were downright nasty. The time spent working the window was not the most pleasant time I've ever spent. I remember that I used to go home drained from the day's battles.

What I failed to consider then, but realize now, is that by the time the patients waded through all the interminable waiting and unending bureaucracy that are inherent in the VA system of patient care, they had little, or no, patience to deal with more waiting on meds. Meds, I might add, that they needed to make them feel better from whatever ailment was plaguing them at the current time.

Most of the vets were considerably older than I was at that time. Since I'm at that age now that those vets would have been when I worked there, I can quite readily understand their lack of patience. I am a far more patient person than most, but when you're tired and don't feel well, the patience wears very thin very quickly...and irritability sets in and colors your whole world.


Appliance Industry
The longest spell in my customer service years, so far, were spent working for a supplier to a large appliance manufacturer. That sounds a lot less complicated than it really was. Anyone who has ever worked in a production environment will readily understand what I am about to explain.

We supplied parts for the manufacturer that were used directly on the assembly lines. That means that our parts had to be there on time and in the correct order to feed those lines. Different models that ran down that assembly line used different groups of parts--some more than others. We fed not just one line, but three, with different sized units and, obviously, different parts. A few of the smaller parts were common among all units, but many were not. It was my job to not only interact with the customer but schedule those shipments, in the proper sequence, as well. Add to that the fact that I had to analyze customer releases for current, and future, production requirements and let the production department know what would be required. I think you can see that working that job was a bit of a challenge. Oh, did I forget to mention that their schedule could change at a moment's notice? This usually happened because some supplier didn't deliver their required parts in time for the run--or there was a quality issue--and adjustments would have to be made.

If that had been all there was to it, I might still be there. I enjoyed the challenge of getting the parts to them "just in time". We ran five, or more, full trucks each day to the manufacturer and it was part of my job to get the sequence in the proper order. If need be, they wanted to be able to pull the parts off the back of the truck in the proper order to feed the lines.

Alas, that's not really all that was involved in taking care of business. We had a production supervisor who, quite often, decided that what I said we needed wasn't really what we needed. There were also a lot of quality issues with our parts. The people in other areas didn't have to answer to the customer when the complaints rolled in--I did. It was a constant battle trying to get what I needed to supply the customer. I stayed a lot longer than I should have there--almost 16 years. I kept hoping it would get better but it never did. Before I left there, I wound up as the Customer Service manager but that only made things tougher. Leaving there became a necessity.


Poultry Industry
I took a major paycut to change jobs. I was so burned out when I left the previous job that all I wanted to do was work 40 hours a week and go home. I wasn't interested in management--I'd had more than my fill of all the crap that goes with that. I took a position as a regular CSR for a poultry company not three minute's drive from my home. It was the best move I've ever made!

Crossing from one type of industry to another turned out to be more of a challenge than I thought it would be. Silly me, I thought customer service was customer service. Well, yes, it is BUT... It's that but that made all the difference. There's a world of difference between supplying a production line with parts and supplying customers with frozen chicken. The structure is totally different, too. I had never worked with brokers before. At first, I was a little afraid of overstepping my bounds with the brokers--I neglected to realize that they worked for us. It took some time before that sunk in. Brokers are like children, too...some are great, some push the envelope, and some are just downright lazy and/or sloppy and make you want to take up drinking!

I was constantly amazed after I went to work here. At the end of the week, I actually had all the product to ship that I had orders for--week after week!! I didn't know what to do with myself, I was so ecstatic. What an unheard of concept--having product to ship...ON TIME!! Now, the exception is having to short someone because of lack of inventory rather than the rule we live by.

Our production guy is absolutely super! I can't sing his praises highly enough. He makes my job so much simpler by the sheer fact that he makes sure we have product. That's no small feat, either. Consider that there are just under 200 orders each week for a constantly changing combination of our product line--which is not small. I have a great respect for what he does. Maybe my appreciation is enhanced because of the scheduling I did previously but I know I wouldn't want his job.

Something different about working CSR where I do now is the different things that are part of the job--such as credit memos, check requests, and commissions. Where I worked before this was all a secret function of the Accounting Department and really hush-hush. There were a lot of adjustments that I had to make. I learned my area well and bumped along nicely for several years.

Recently, however, the need has been seen to make sure that everyone is cross trained. This has been sorely lacking and we were each pretty compartmentalized. I had Retail, someone else had Foodservice, another individual has National Accounts, etc. It was decided that things should be adjusted to give everyone the ability to fill in in case of vacation, emergency, etc. To that end, our areas have been restructured and we've each been given a georgraphic portion of the country. We've been cross-training all this month and the change is supposed to become official soon. In the meantime, we're handling the accounts we'll have but the official line is that we're cross-training. So far, there hasn't been any comments from the field about what we're doing. That's probably because the thought is that the change is only temporary. Management is expecting some separation anxiety when the change is announced officially.

I'm ready! ...and so is my Foodservice counterpart. Each of us would like to get this show on the road but time marches slower at higher levels. We'll get there eventually. I feel fortunate in the region I drew.

I have a brand new Regional Manager on the Retail side...he's younger than my youngest child and fresh in sales. I really feel he needs someone to help him find his sea legs. I seem to fill that role quite a bit--but that's okay, it fits well. I think he'll do fine--he sure has the gift of blarney! I enjoy working with young people--they keep ME young.

The Foodservice Regional Manager and I are well suited, I think. He's former military and so am I. We're both a bit anal retentive and sticklers for detail. He's firm in his boundaries while still having the ability to be flexible. He'll give me room to spread my wings a bit while still maintaining those boundaries and he knows that I'm familiar with, and exercise respect for, the chain of command. Yup, we'll do fine.

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with the region I'll be handling. I got to keep my favorite Retail customers--even a couple that aren't in my region. It was deemed appropriate that I keep two other accounts due to the nature of their business. That was fine with me because while I wanted the Region I drew, I hated the idea of giving up those other two customers which were in another region. I've got the best of both worlds, I think.

The thing I'm having fun dealing with is absorbing the volume of orders that the Foodservice side generates in that Region. I know it's only a matter of time before it all smooths out, but right now I feel like I'm constantly behind the power curve. There's this huge black hole whose gravitational pull is sucking me right in and it takes every ounce of strength I have right now to stay ahead of it. I feel like someone barfed paper all over my desk! This is a learning curve, yes, but it's like getting a new pair of shoes. Obviously, I've worn shoes before--they're nothing new. It's just that these "shoes" are new and I've got to wear them a bit before they're "mine". I'll feel much better about things once I'm able to get some files set up. That's always a good sign. Right now, there's barely time to take a potty break!

Well, I didn't even touch on things I wanted to today. Guess I'll have to cover that another time. No matter how many headaches my customers/brokers give me, I really do enjoy working as a CSR. It surely keeps me on my toes...

Movies...

The girls at work make fun of my taste in movies, sometimes. Oh, I like all the regular mainstream movies that star all those big stars. Comedies are okay and the romance movies are, too. I draw the line at movies that underwrite Kleenex production, however. If I can avoid watching one of those, I will.


TEARJERKERS OF NOTE

I have, however, gotten sucked into watching those before. I remember the first time I can recall really having a bad reaction to a movie. We rented the movie because I absolutely love watching Richard Dreyfuss movies. So, when I saw he was in the movie “Always”, I naturally wanted to see it. BIG MISTAKE!! I blubbered most of the way through that movie. Although the movie was good, I vowed I’d never watch it again…and I haven’t.

Then there’s the time that I was laid up with my back and unable to move about much. Hubby went and rented some movies for me. He put this one in and either went to bed or left the house. I just remember that he wasn’t available to put me out of my misery! The name of the movie was “Change of Heart” with Christian Slater. I had never heard of it before…nor had I heard much of Christian Slater, at the time. The movie bumped along okay until the guy dies at the end. Talk about a blubberfest!

I hate movies where everything is hunky-dory and then one of the main characters dies at the end. Like two other movies I’ve gotten sucked into watching, “Up Close and Personal” and “Message in a Bottle”. The cast members drew me to those, too. It was another case of not knowing the plot. Stock prices had to have gone up at Kimberly-Clark after those viewings.

I’ve been warned about two movies that I will probably never watch, however—“The Perfect Storm” and “The Notebook”. I heard about the ending on “Storm” before I ever had a chance to see it.

Regarding “The Notebook”…they discussed that one at work fairly extensively. I knew it didn’t sound like one I wanted to watch. Then I talked with Stink. She and her husband had watched it—in spurts. She said it got so bad that she had to stop it every so often so Bambi could go out on the porch for a few minutes. She said they were both sitting there blubbering through it. She said it got so bad it got to the hiccup stage. What you don’t understand is that Bambi is one of those “all man” kind of men. I’m not talking macho for that’s a whole different category. For him to be this effected by watching a movie, there was NO way I would ever watch it! Hey, do I look stupid?? …don’t answer that!

Those are more modern-day films. There’s an older, classic film that I watched a number of years ago just because I love period films and I also love the stories by the Bronte sisters. I’m referring to “Wuthering Heights” with Laurence Olivier. That movie falls into the ‘Never Again’ category.

Now, when I’m really sad and feel like crying—just to get the endorphins moving—then there ARE movies that I will watch. “Jane Eyre”—the old Orson Welles version—is one of them. The newer versions of the story are all good, in their own way, but my favorite version is still the Welles version.

Another in that group is “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” with Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison. No matter how many times I watch that movie, it always calls for plenty of Kleenex.

I’ve never been a particular Bette Davis fan. Yes, I know that goes against the norm but it’s a fact. She did do one movie, however, that I absolutely love. “Now, Voyager” is a wonderful film and falls on my list of all-time favorites. Perhaps it’s because I identify with her character in the film, Charlotte Vale. I still cry at that movie, but I’ll never stop watching it. Wonderful film!


CHEESY MOVIES

I mentioned that the girls make fun of my taste in some movies. Well, the ones they have reference to are the cheesy movies that are shown every weekend on the SciFi channel. I refer, of course, to such treasures as “Python”, “Python 2”, “Frogs”, “Boa”, “Boa 2”, “Dark Waters”, “Deep Blue Sea”, “The Beast”, et al. It’s not that I don’t know that they’re cheesy, for I do. That’s part of their appeal. They’re like old friends, somehow. Oh, I forgot about the spider movies…like “Eight-Legged Freaks”, “Arachnophobia”, and those wonderful spider and ant movies from the 50’s.

Cheesy movies are very entertaining. You always know who’s going to get it. They have a sense of morality all their own. The movies from the 50’s are especially entertaining with their low-tech special effects. My grandkids could even watch those and laugh. What they’ll never realize is that when those movies were made, they WERE scary. Times were a lot different back then, low-tech or not.

There are some cheesefest movies that fall into their own Hall of Fame. People really laugh when I tell them that the “Tremors” series are probably my favorite SciFi movies. I first watched the original “Tremors” film after seeing a commentary about how it’s a spoof of the B-movies from the 50’s. It also has Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward in it—two of my favorites. What I didn’t realize when I first watched it is how much it would become a part of my life. Nor did I realize that I would come to appreciate the work of Michael Gross…an actor I knew very little of before watching the movie. I’ve never been a big sitcom fan so wasn’t familiar with his work.

On a side note, he makes an exquisite villain—to which his numerous roles on the Law & Order family can attest. My favorite role for him, however, is as Bert Gummer.

There have been four “Tremors” films. Hubby’s favorite is the last one that takes place in the old West. He likes the original, too, but is not a big fan of the other two. Personally, I like them all. I think if I had to pick a favorite from them, though, I’d have to go with the third one where Bert returns to Perfection only to be confronted with a new form of the Graboid…the Ass Blaster.

My eleven year-old granddaughter appreciates the “Tremors” series, too. In fact, we had a Tremorsfest one weekend and watched all four of the movies. I suppose there are some that will say that this bit of information is very revealing…to which I’ll say, “Bah! Humbug!!”

Next up in line would have to be the “Jaws” servies. There’s something very appealing about getting your wits scared out of you every time that mechanical shark jumps up out of the water. No matter how many times I watch those dumb movies, there’s always at least one place where I’ve forgotten that it’s going to happen and it scares me. There’s enough of a varied cast in each of the series to make them really interesting…and, of course, Richard Dreyfuss is in the first one.

Not to be forgotten, too, are the "Jurassic Park" movies or the "X-Men". "Spiderman" is okay but not my favorite, by any stretch. There's a new one coming out that I want to see, too, "Fantastic 4". Comic book movies usually make really great cheesy movies.

All this talking about cheesy movies has made me think. It’s been quite a while since I watched the “Men in Black” movies. I’m going to put them in and settle back in my chair.