Opinion: Rude customers and how they behave differently

By Maddie Ethier

There’s nothing worse than having a bad day to begin with then having to go to work and deal with customers. This might depend on your job, but in my case, customer service is at the forefront. With many jobs, it is nearly impossible to avoid the displeasures that come with customer service.

From my observation, there are three different categories of rude customers: calm and collective, aggressive and assertive, and passive-aggressive. 

Let’s start with calm and collective. These types of rude customers don’t say much. They don’t say “hello” when they are approaching or “thank you” when they leave. Sometimes they don’t even say a word. All they want is to get out of the store as fast as possible. While I completely understand this, I feel it’s important to have a positive attitude towards the people serving you instead of being concerned with obtaining some sort of personal victory.

Next, we have aggressive and assertive. This is the epitome of a rude customer. Say, for instance, a customer is not satisfied with the performance of a bagger. Perhaps the customer feels the bagger was slamming the bags into the carriage. Maybe he or she felt the cashier was throwing the items down the conveyor belt as they were being scanned. The customer then starts swearing at both the bagger and the cashier, asking to speak to a manager. This type of behavior should be avoided at all costs. A lot of times, the customer’s actions and claims are over-dramatized. Yes, this happened to me one time.

Finally, we have passive-aggressive. These types of customers are rude in the most subtle ways. They attempt to find ways to degrade the employee, knowing they have the upper hand. Perhaps they will scheme to get an item for free, claiming it was priced incorrectly and stating that’s the policy when no one knows for sure. Naturally, the employee can’t argue with this, so they must give in. The customer might say things like, “I know your policy better than you do!”, or, “I’m an expert on this topic, I would know!”, in the nicest way possible, trying to come across as polite, but they know exactly what they’re doing. This kind of behavior is just passive-aggressive and demeaning.

Why do people act like this?

There’s a multitude of reasons, and they’re quite simple.

One common reason is stress or having a bad day. A lot of customers will act up and not even realize it (or they do and know they can get away with it) because they’re so stressed about what’s going on in their lives, so they take their frustration out on a random employee. While this is wrong, I can’t blame people for being stressed.

Another common reason is because customers know they can act however they want, and there’s nothing the employee can do about it. Employees aren’t encouraged to fight back against rudeness as the workplace is likely concerned with customer satisfaction. All the employee can do is stand by and continue their work as if it’s nothing. I can say from experience that this isn’t easy to do and it takes some getting used to.

Sometimes, the answer is as plain and simple as this: certain people are just naturally rude and unfriendly. I’ve seen this occur quite a lot. Often times customers are quiet and don’t know how to be polite, and others are equipped with a bad attitude. It’s not hard to simply say “hello” when approaching, or “thank you, have a nice day” when leaving. These simple words draw the line between a polite and a rude customer.

If there’s any advice I can give, it’s this: do not, whatever you do, assume you’re always right just because you’re the customer. I can attest to the fact that this is not true. Appreciate the fact that the worker is helping you out. Sure, customer service can be less than helpful at times, and the customer is sometimes right, but the plain truth is that the employee works there, not the customer!

I can also offer this: treat employees with respect. It’s understandable that you’ve had a bad day and that you’re stressed and there’s so much going on in your life. I get it. Sometimes we’re blinded to the fact that we’re being rude. However, showing respect even if you’re not feeling it in your mind makes you the bigger person.

Picture it this way: you’ve had a horrible day. Your boss yelled at you, the cafeteria at work didn’t have what you wanted for lunch so you settled for nothing, and now you have to go grocery shopping, your least favorite thing in the world. Would you want anything else to happen that would dampen your mood even further? I don’t think so. Now, imagine the worker helping you has had the same quality day that you had. Sometimes it’s important to put yourself in another person’s shoes. 

Overall, just be nice, even if you absolutely despise grocery shopping and feel like taking your frustration out on an innocent cashier who is doing their best to help you. It takes little to no effort to show kindness. You can make someone’s day and keep everything running smoothly, making for a positive experience. Who doesn’t love that?