Refreshing

In this job with these managers there’s a certain amount of flexibility and discretion in how you deal with customers. For example, it was far from a sackable offence when I responded to a guy’s “what should I do if I’ve dropped my only car keys in the snow” with “put your head in your hands and cry?!”. Our supervisor Mairi specialises in wit and sarcasm. Confronted by bolshy punters demanding a refund on their lesson package (an already heavily discounted combination of lift pass, rentals and lesson), she offered to put them down for the bits they had used (lift pass and rentals) and refund the difference. She happily told them they now owed us $15 each.

Don’t get me wrong, we don’t take the piss out of customers (too much) and we’re actually a damn good Customer Services department. But it is just so refreshing to be allowed and even expected to be ourselves when dealing with members of the public, and to treat them like human beings as opposed to statistics and walking wallets.