I work in a mildly-popular European clothing store and half the customers I work with are awfully rude. I got called a bitch the other day because an empty bag I handed back to a woman floated and she thought I threw it (I hadn't even spoken a word to her either, and I didn't serve her, my coworker did). Customers try to get our attention by marching up to the registers and shouting "HELLLLOOOOO?" if nobody appears in 0.2 seconds. We also deal with a lot of thieves so we put up with verbal abuse every now and then. For example, I was called "racist" three months ago because I was tailing some thieves around my store on a busy Sunday afternoon. I didn't see them steal anything because they do the diversion trick, but we called security on them and after they left I told security what they all looked like. Then one of them threw something back into the store right in front of a security guard and then they all marched back into my store calling me racist because I told my manager to call security on them. I quote: "That girl, she's racist!" and "It's all them white people who steal, not us." (For the record, I'm white and they were black). I wanted to be like, "Yeah, and you just think I'm racist because I'm not black." My store manager is black and I work with a few other people of different backgrounds and ethnicities, so damn, if I'm working for a black woman you can bet I'm NOT racist. We've also been instructed to actively watch anyone engaging in suspicious activity regardless of skin color...it just so happens that this time the people were black. And, a few days ago we followed around a bunch of rich white teenagers, so yeah, it's not "just" black people who steal--it's everyone!
and really, once I get personally attacked or called malicious names, it becomes a personal insult and yes I will call security on your ass! The people calling me racist were all "Don't make retail your life sweetie, I work two jobs and go to school!" to which I replied, "If you work two jobs why are you stealing?! I go to college full-time, thank you." and then they got all nasty with me and security escorted them out. They demanded MY name and my manager's name and said they were going to call customer service on us but they never did...we called the head of our store's security on them and let him know how malicious these people were. Any time a 'customer' gets verbally abusive with any of our employees we call CS and Security before they can to give them a heads-up on the situation.
Luckily the mall I work at also has a zero-tolerance policy for disorderly conduct and verbal abuse, which basically means any store can call mall security the moment a customer does something or says anything that can be considered abusive or violent. So, the next time someone calls me a bitch or starts insulting me/threatening me/etc. all I have to do is speed-dial security and the offending 'customer' will be escorted out of the store.
Working in CS for 5 years I can tell you that the best way to combat really rude people is to act like their attitude didn't get to you. The lady I referred to above who shouted "HELLOOOOOO" was so embarrassed and ashamed when I came to ring her out and said "Excuse me, are you all set?" She acted like, "Oh, crap, I just made a fool out of myself."
And I always love to refer the Livejournal.com community "customers_suck."
