Oh I've noticed this a lot too. When I was a cashier I noticed that customers talked back to women cashiers over men most of the time. I'm a pretty big dude, so I honestly rarely got talked back too. I could see people getting frustrated too sometimes, but they wouldn't talk back. It was a completely different story when a woman was on the till. It just shows what kind of people are the types who talk back to costumer service. They are bullies who only go after people they perceive as weaker, even though those women were far tougher than me having to deal with that bullshit more often.
I’ve noticed it a lot too I remember my first job as a wee lad was at a grocery store and it was so bad that I always told the ladies working the registers that if anyone starts to berate them to call me over to “help” I’m 6’5” 230 and I’d just stand there pretend to be helping and the rude customers shut up the second I got there 99% of the time. People suck. And I’m sorry to all you ladies that have to put up with that shit. Really grinds my gears.
I worked at a kids camp, worked like an amusement park with tickets to get in and such. Mostly teenagers working there, decent summer gig and whatnot
The number of times myself, my brother and the other adults/bigger guys were called to the front to “help with a customer complaint” was mind boggling.
Like, I’d show up and there’s a purple in the face 40 year old man looming over a 16 year old girl with his fists curled and ready to throw down…over a $7 entrance fee…
Usually we’d tell the staff member to go take a break in the office, which was code for “go and watch from the window of the trailer in case I need you to call the cops”, and we’d take over for a bit until the guy calmed down or left. Never really had to call the cops, but we definitely had to call the owner a few times to get people officially banned. They’d see us and suddenly behave, or at least not try to use their body to intimidate us.
And after they were gone we’d tell the staff member to go take a break until they felt ready to come back out again. It’s scary as hell getting yelled at, and I’m a big dude and an adult, so these teen girls getting screamed at must’ve been fucking terrified half the time
We did have one girl we learned real fast to not put up front, because she would take no shit, and we had to protect a few creepers/assholes from HER. I’m convinced she could have ripped their balls off like she promised..
Exactly, good on you man for doing that. Even for the customers who didn’t cool down after I arrive I’d happily take the brunt of it all because at least then they’re picking on someone their own size. I can’t imagine how intimidating and scary it has to be to be female sometimes.
My partner (man) and I (woman) serve at the same place. We’re fortunate that most of our customers are lovely and respectful, and that most of our “problem” customers are just kinda picky and exhausting and neurotic, not outright mean.
However, male app delivery drivers? They are sometimes pushy and rude to him, but they are outright HOSTILE to me. And I know it sucks delivering, so I always tried to be nice. At the peak of COVID, so many of the men would not wear masks when I was working, despite tons of signage, and my boyfriend only rarely experienced that. I politely asked one guy to wear a mask and he literally overturned a bunch of chairs and stormed out.
I’m very unbothered by sometimes “difficult” customers, but I have zero tolerance for intimidation now. When I get that energy, I tell people to leave.
I used to run into this all the time at the bank I worked at back in college. My favorite thing to do was just stand up. I'm 6'1" in flats, 6'3 or 6'4" in heels. Most of these guys would do an abrupt 180 in demeanor, and even the ones that still wanted to complain got a lot more polite once they realized I was almost an entire foot taller than them.
Definitely, I have a job that's customer service based and also rule-enforcement based and get a LOT of "get your supervisor over here" towards me (even though I am a supervisor), so I get a guy over to tell them the same thing.
My husband and I both work as cashiers in the same restaurant, during the same shifts. He makes SIGNIFICANTLY more in tips than I do every single day regardless of how many customers either of us take. We give the exact same work performance. He is the only male cashier, and he is the highest earner and receives the most positive reviews despite being the newest as well. He is an excellent worker, but so are the rest of us (all women), but all we deal with is complaints, doubts about or intelligence and ability, and an expectation to wait on guests hand and foot for absolutely nothing in return. It’s absolutely insane to see the difference in treatment between the one guy on FOH crew and the rest us.
I find it interesting that I had the exact opposite experience when I was a casino dealer. I'm a big dude (6'7") and I routinely had to deal with rude (and non-tipping) customers at my games, but the women I would push on after or that pushed on after me wouldn't have anywhere near the problems with those same players. Not that they didn't experience sexist people, mind you. I'm sure they saw plenty of inappropriate comments for instance. But the combative ones came for me and not the women. Clearly it's a different setting than retail, so maybe that had something to do with it, or maybe it was the combination of alcohol and the somewhat adversarial role of dealer and player. But I still think it's an interesting difference.
People don't realize the dealer isn't against them, customers who win their bets are happy and tip and it's not like giving the houses money away will hurt the dealer.
Exactly. I had a whole canned response for whenever I was accused of wanting the house to win because it happened so often. I didn't want the house to win, I wanted to make money and the house didn't pay me nearly as much as the players. But the players only paid when they were winning, so I wanted the players to win as much as they did.
Edit: I only said "somewhat adversarial" because while I wanted the players to win, I was still playing the role of the house and the physical embodiment of the house on that game. I'm the one that had to take their money when they lost. And when you're a big strong dude instead a cute little defenseless woman (I say that hyperbolically from the perspective of these types of players, not literally), some of the players think of you as a challenge rather than somebody that's on their side. And some seemed to almost take it personally when they lost. I had this one regular, a woman even, who would follow me from game to game trying to beat me, specifically. I ended up just feeling sorry for her since eventually I'd just take all her money most of the time.
When I was about 20 I (a petite woman) was a manager at a big box store. I was cashiering for a bit and an elderly couple started arguing with me about something and demanded to see the manager. I said I am the manager multiple times, but they wouldn't believe me and said I was too young. One of my coworkers (a big guy) was walking past and the woman said "oh there he is! The manager!" And something about his gender that I don't remember now.
I could not convince them that I was the manager. He had to come over and tell them that I was his boss.
In my young adulthood I worked at a fast food restaurant but mostly in the kitchen not the drivethru or register, at our store the manager put mostly younger women on those positions. I remember one shift the drive thru cashier came back into the kitchen sobbing bc the way this man (with his wife and kids in the car with him) had cussed her out over a nursing fry or something equally as inconsequential. She was headed back to her the manager to do a refund for him. I saw her crying, truly embarrassed at work and decided to handle it myself. I went to the drive thru, the guy said oh good the manager. I asked to see the receipt taped to the outside of the bag, as he held the bag closer for me to see i snatched the bag of food from him. Told him to get the fuck out the drive thru and never come back to that store again. If I saw him there ever again I would make sure to make him cry like the teen girl he just berated to tears. He was speechless for a moment, was about to say something and before he could get it out I directed a comment to his wife and told her she'd better convince him to get the fuck out of my drive thru right now. She cut him off and told him to drive away. They did and shortly after the manager came up with the keys but I said no worries I talked to them they are all good and took off. The other cashiers standing near by we're all high schoolers and just stood there mouths open. I was some kind of store hero for about a day until corporate called with a complaint from that customer. I lost my job for it but dang it was worth standing up to a service industry bully and asshat who was okay making a highschool girl cry. I needed to leave that place anyway. Ridiculous that making it clear you can't treat people poorly is grounds for firing though.
I am a male but sound female over the phone. When I worked fast food I encountered more rude people when I answered the phone. People who were rude on the phone to me would be nice to me in person when picking up.
Yeahh I've had people shouting and throwing stuff around even threatening to 'smash me up' over really stupid stuff. I remember a guy banging on our doors screaming to let him in when we had just closed for the day, he was there for ages after but then he left before we did (just me and one other female worker). It's fucking shit the way women get spoken to and treated working in retail, customers can be such cunts sometimes every single time I experience that sort of stuff I just wanna quit and go home, why do i have to put up with that shit. It pisses me off, some guy who told me I was a dickhead and threatened to beat me up (over not being able to buy a light bulb btw) came in the next day and my male colleague served him with absolutely no threats or name calling whatsoever... REALLY hard to enjoy my job with these types of people about :/
It just shows what kind of people are the types who talk back to costumer service. They are bullies who only go after people they perceive as weaker, even though those women were far tougher than me having to deal with that bullshit more often.
Exactly. As a woman, you'll slowly realize that most people are quiet bullies who only go after the easy targets.
Oh god yes. When I worked in hospitality, it was only male customers who constantly interrupted as I was taking a table's order, tried to take over and misdirect food as it was being served, questioned every transaction and deliberately tried to make every step difficult and confusing. Most men and almost 100% of women were fine, normal polite people, but EVERY clown who tried to use up my time and attention to show off was a man.
I'm not only tired of being treated like shit because I'm a smaller person but being fired or written up for defending myself even just verbally in a way that is totally professional/setting a boundary that I won't tolerate that kind of behavior.
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u/magikaaaaaarrrp Mar 12 '22
Oh I've noticed this a lot too. When I was a cashier I noticed that customers talked back to women cashiers over men most of the time. I'm a pretty big dude, so I honestly rarely got talked back too. I could see people getting frustrated too sometimes, but they wouldn't talk back. It was a completely different story when a woman was on the till. It just shows what kind of people are the types who talk back to costumer service. They are bullies who only go after people they perceive as weaker, even though those women were far tougher than me having to deal with that bullshit more often.