Monday, November 29, 2010

Poor Attitude=Poor Service?

So, I've been told stories by people who work at restaurants, and how they will do stuff to customers food when the customers have a poor attitude (read: rude, obnoxious jerks). I've also seen shows on TV about this and read about it online. I also read stories of how maids at Hotels will clean hotel rooms in a lazy manner if the people staying there have a poor attitude.

At first when I heard stories like that, my initial thought was "Good. That's what the people get for having bad attitudes." But then I thought about it, and I realized that is a horrible attitude for employees to have.

I worked at a daycare for two years, and my job was to watch after little children (obviously) ranging from the ages of 1-year-old to 5-years-old. Parents were generally nice people, but there was always that one parent every now and again that would have a bad attitude. Now, according to restaurant and hotel employees, my response should have been to give the patron poor service in return. One has to wonder, how would you give poor service at a daycare? Well, I imagine abuse would be the most obvious way. "You wanna talk bad to me? Well, I'll just slap your baby when you leave." ... Obviously, I never abused the children I watched. That is absolutely abhorrent, and I loved the children too much to ever even think about abusing them. But poor attitude equals poor service, right?

How about when you go in to get your car fixed. Maybe you had a bad day, and so you snap at the man at the counter. When you get your car back, you find out your tires have been slashed. You can't prove the mechanics did it, but you deserved it. Poor attitude= poor service.

Maybe you need to go to the dentist (oh yes, I'm going there. Cringe). You are again having a bad day, and so you snap at the dentist when he comes in to drill that cavity out of your tooth. He "accidentally" drills into your gums. Oh well. Poor attitude=poor service. Deal with it.

Obviously, I am being entirely facetious with these examples just to prove a point. My point is that no person should think they are entitled to give poor service just because the customer has a bad attitude. If a person chooses to take a job where they are working with customers, they need to realize they will encounter people of all walks of life. Nice people, oblivious people, rude people, psychotic people (well, one would hope they don't meet psychotic people, but you never know). Whatever the countenance of the person, as a mature, responsible employee, people are expected to give decent service to everyone (barring any extreme cases, such as psychotics that get out of hand, or angry drunks, or something of the sort).

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Haters

Sometimes things are worth "hating" (Hitler's reign in Germany, the Packers, black licorice), but other times when people hate on things it is simply annoying and juvenile. In this case, I am referring to the arts. Art is very subjective, and no one is required to like or dislike any particular artist. I'm not a fan of VC Andrews. However, my dislike for VC Andrews does not turn into juvenile hate where I criticize all of her works without ever having read it. I actually have read some of her books, and after a decent sampling I came to the conclusion that she was not my type. Regardless, I do not exert energy logging onto every VC Andrews fan site saying "VC ANDREWS IS GAY!" "VC ANDREWS' WRITINGS SUCK!"

Two very popular examples of artist hate that come to mind that bug me beyond reason are the Stephanie Meyers and Justin Bieber haters. These are two artists who are not hated for any wicked or cruel acts they have done. They have never broken the law (at least, not as far as I know), they do not go around punching puppies in face, they like animals and probably have a certain level of care for the government, they have no aspirations to rule the world and be evil dictators. Their forms of art are not even controversial. They are not writing about abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, George W, Obama, racism. They have never done anything to warrant hate, yet they are hated by vast amounts of people. And for what? For writing music and stories that some people don't like? What's not to like exactly? One writes juvenile love songs for pre-teens and teens, and the other writes juvenile love stories for pre-teens and teens. Thousands of other people do that, yet they are never hated on. So why all the hate?

I have a theory, and my theory is that people just like jumping onto the band wagon of being haters. Before Bieber was famous, he was just a kid on youtube that people enjoyed listening to well enough. Before Meyer became famous, she was just a wife and a mother who had a dream and wrote about that dream (an actual dream. not an "I have a dream" dream). When her books first came out, people were willing to read them before hating them. Before Bieber became famous, people were willing to listen to his youtube videos before expressing dislike.

Nowadays, I run into people who express extreme dislike for Bieber and Meyer, yet these people have never actually taken the time to examine the artwork of the two. Or if they have examined the artwork, they have done so with a biased opinion, looking for every flaw they might be able to find so they can triumphantly exclaim "Aha! Another reason to dislike Bieber/Meyer!" For example, people like to point out Bieber's voice and say "he sings like a girl." Well, so did Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake, yet vast amounts of people did not seem to think that was a problem. People say "Meyer ruined vampires by making them sparkly!" Well, CS Lewis blended together mythical creatures that were not even from the same era (like JRR Tolkien pointed out), yet no one dislikes CS Lewis for messing with the stereotypes of those mythical creatures. People say "Justin Bieber writes love songs, and he's too young to understand love." Well, tell that to every pre-teen and teen out there that thinks they are in love. Of course adults think juveniles don't understand love, but that does not mean juveniles think that. People say Stephanie Meyer writes like a 12-year-old. She's writing for pre-teens and teens. She is writing like a teen might talk. That is how many teen-oriented books are written, yet people are not criticizing all those books.

So, I say all of that to display how ridiculous it is for people to spend the time to find every little issue with artists they dislike just to join a "Hate Artist X" bandwagon. If you dislike an artist for reasons that are not controversial, there is absolutely no reason to adamantly spread those views around. If you don't like Stephanie Meyer's works all you need say is "I dislike the Twilight Saga/Host." If you dislike Bieber just say "He's not my taste."

I'm not a fan of Bieber. I'm not a fan of most pop music (or R&B, whatever he is). But I recognize the kid is not going to be affected by my personal opinion, so there is no point for me to comment on every indie youtube music video that "It makes no sense that Imogean Heap only has 300,000 views yet gay Justin Bieber has 60 million! People have no taste in music!" Just get over it, and listen to/watch/read what you like. People liking a different artist will not change the fact that you like the artist that you do.



*okay, so people don't actually need to "hate" the Packers... that was my attempt at humor*