What ever happened to good-ol-fashion customer service?

Man, things have changed over the past few years. Back when I was in customer service.... or even employed for that matter, I actually cared about the well-being of the people that came to me for service. Well, sometimes, I had to pretend to care, but at least I pretended. Now, people don't even pretend to care anymore.

I was at McDonalds the other day (devotees will know that I love my McDonalds), and it was a horrible experience, I actually left and went somewhere else. Here is how it went down. I walked in to be greeted by a girl working there that was at least 400 pounds, which is a poor marketing decision on their part. I then waited in line for 10 minutes, and during that time only 1 person got served. Someone spilled a Coke all over the floor and nobody bothered to clean it up, I had to grab a newspaper and make an island to stand on so my shoes wouldn't get wet. Eventually I just walked out and slammed the door on the way out.... I never thought I would be "that guy," but I was.

I am not going to just pick on McDonalds (my favorite place ever), there are other places that offer comparably bad service as well. One story that I am particularly entertained by happened a couple of weeks ago when I was at the local Chapters. I was looking for a couple of books when over the intercom came a voice saying "It is 9:40 and we will be closing in twenty minutes, please take your purchases to the front checkouts." Twenty minutes???? Why would they possibly need people to take their purchases to the front twenty minutes before closing?? Do they have monkeys working the tills? Needless to say, I never purchased anything that day, and rushed out of there as fast as I could because I didn't want them to lock me in the store.

There are more, much more, but I don't want to complain....... just kidding, I love complaining.