I have been very public and honest with my journey this past year or so. I know that most of the people that call me "friend" know how the struggle has empowered and or injured me in a plethora of ways. Self reflection currently has me a bit angry, and here is why.....
I needed to make a decision earlier this spring about what I would do next. While the time came much sooner than I would have liked, it still forced me into making decisions. I thought at length about my family, work history, my education, and my life goals. It whirled into one easy peasy pod of enlightenment. I just simply wanted to work. Just work.
Living at the beach I decided that customer service was most prevalent, and being outgoing, I decided that yes, I could work with the public, as long as I didn't have to care about them.
Ocean Shores is a tourist town. A tourist town that is (mis) managed by an elderly generation that doesn't blend well with neither the business owner nor the tourist. It's true. Argue if you must, but if most people here had their way, there would be a dome over this village where an epic, yet pathetic, fight to the death "Octogenarian Olympiad" would ensue until the last deer went unfed, and the last bass in the lake went belly up. It's just screwed up, just like most small towns. Despite the bass ackwards politics and the pointless meetings, it's my home, and I can walk to the beach and smile....so I stay....and I work....
And there it is.....Customer Service in Ocean Shores. Of all the soul searching and self reflection and battles that I have encountered over the last year, I had no idea that taking a new career path would be so crap-hazardly sad.
I have been blessed for the lion's share of my life with affluence. And while I didn't know it in the moment, it made me blind to struggle. Money struggles anywho. I have never really wanted for anything. At a young age I learned a trade and that took me places that most people only dream of. Most people that work customer service that is.
It's a forgotten art. An under-appreciated living that is hard work. I am known for criticizing the customer service in this area. I was raised a different way I suppose. But now in the thick of it, I wonder, maybe this is why people that work customer service don't give a shit. Maybe now I know exactly why, they don't put their all into it.
I am smack in the middle of poverty folks. I work for minimum wage, and rely on tips to make ends meet. I am lucky. Many who work in customer service for minimum (minimal) wage, don't get tips. And so it goes....
Employers that rely on customer service employees assume a lot. They assume that people that work in customer service have no skills, no education, and no brain. Mostly, this is not true. Mostly, these people work so hard they don't know any other way. But, mostly, they struggle. And most have to work two jobs to pay the bills. Atrocious.
It is also true that NONE of the customer service workers get full time work. NO full time equals no insurance, and no outside chance of overtime.
You can spout all your survival of the species bullshit you want. Take inventory. How do you JUDGE customer service workers?
It is my humble assertion that no one of us is more important than the next. I have reason to shout loudly now, that I stand in a minority in this thought. I am now shit on someones shoes, and let me tell you , it sho don't feel very guud.
The honest truth is, I won't stay in this party. I have options. It's a tragedy equivalent to something Shakey might have written. Why? I frickin love my job. I love working with the public. Mostly I love working with people and walking away. I have never felt so strongly about making a difference in people's lives. And yet,.....I can't stay. I won't stay. I won't sacrifice my integrity ......like many others have to.
Legions of my colleagues don't have the option. They will stay, and they will suffer. They will work their asses off their entire lives and find that most folks, while looking down their nose at them, don't give a shit.
I give a shit. You should too.
I am a single mother. I work my ass off to barely make it. And, although this is happening to me for the first time in my life, by choice, many have no choice, and have been doing this forever. Is it fair?
Do you feel like those who work in customer service are deserving of poverty?
Check yourself. Next time you are out, and about, and someone serving you is in your circle, please remember.....Not everyone in customer service has a choice. However, they all have families and lives.
Happy Thanksgiving.
