The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Can someone who has worked in customer service please explain to me how to be less irritating to service workers? I am socially anxious and awkward and am repeatedly finding myself in situations where I feel like I'm making service workers uneasy and it makes me feel terrible. I have never worked a public facing job before so I don't know what to do or avoid doing to help make their jobs easier and I can tell that they get irritated with me when I do things that I have no idea are going to be irritating to them. It seems to be getting worse the older I am as well, when I was in my teens and 20s people were much more patient with me but now in my 30s I seem to be more intimidating to people and they're less forgiving toward me. Growing up I always admired my dad and grandfather for being able to talk to anyone and make them feel comfortable but this is a skill I never learned. Does anyone have advice on how to develop this skill?
Alternately, can someone give advice on how to stop ruminating about recent socially awkward situations? I can try to improve my behaviors but at the same time I can't change how other people perceive me so even if I did everything 100% right there would probably still be times where I was seen as irritating to people. I'd like to just forget these situations once they happen, if I can't stop them from happening altogether.
This might not be the solution you are looking for.
But, I suggest you try not to care what service workers feel. Like, genuinely don't give a damn if you are the worst customer ever. Don't go out of your way to be a bad client, but don't go out of your way to be a good one either. The weight off your shoulders will partially help with the other problem.
Why do you recommend I try not to care what service workers feel? Is that to help them feel better, because it puts less pressure on them, or is it to make me feel better so that I can stop ruminating on awkward situations? Or both?
I am a people pleaser and obsessed with how others feel and perceive me so this is really unintuitive to me and I don't know how to not care about how the person I'm interacting with is feeling or what that would even look like or how it would play out. I imagine they would get mad at me and then I would feel guilty that I didn't try my best to be a better customer.
I understand why it's unintuitive, but I have to second the advice given the fact that you're a "people pleaser".
I have worked plenty in front-facing customer roles. Saccharine, submissive encounters from customers aren't more pleasant. I say this as someone who really was trying to an excellent service worker all the time. The only thing that pisses people off is being unreasonable, entitled, or dismissive.
Others suggested being slow. I wouldn't say this directly, but I'd say "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast". Speak clearly and have a plan.
Have your request or demand lined up. Know what you're ordering and how it works where you are. Don't ask what milks are available at starbucks, know. Don't point at a sandwich on the board at Subway, understand you're starting with a meat template and customizing it the whole way through. If it's your first time at a place, don't wait to look at the menu till you get to the front.
If you have questions, organize them in a logical order. If you have special requests, be sure to say them before someone types it into the POS (and make sure it's reasonable - people don't mind helping).
And this is just life advice - if a service worker is a dick, be a dick back. Take the rep on practicing standing up for yourself. There's no reason to be treated like shit by anyone. My friends have told me stories like being at a coffee shop where the barista refused to make them a Red Eye because it "wasn't respectful to the coffee" or some shit. Fuck that. People who demand tips or refuse reasonable requests are assholes and deserve to be challenged.
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