This saying, is DESTROYING the United States.
I've been working in the customer service industry in one manner or another for over 10 years. You cannot fathom what I have learned from this. You do not want to hear about the lessons that have brutally taught me about the nature and pettiness of humanity. You do not want to know about the sad state of the common man.
You really don't.
The sad fact is that in a world where the customer has been told for generations that they are always right, they have learned that they are never wrong and have taken advantage of this to a such a degree that it is instilling a sense of entitlement, hostility, aggression, arrogance, and laziness within our society. This is an affront to decency, common sense, and indeed, our own children as well as our future as a whole.
Think about it.
Corporations and businesses have placed the power firmly in the hands of the consumer. So much in fact, that these companies are almost terrified of their own customer's. They will bend to almost any coupon. They will return almost any item. They will apologize for anything in the face of being yelled at over a dollar. They hand out refunds like they're candy. And not the expensive candy, the really cheap kind. So they easily hand out refunds and make them readily accessible is basically what we're saying here.
Why?
Well it's as I said above, most companies are scared to death of their customers. Scared that they won't return. They've bought into this notion that the customer always has to be right and therefore they must bend to everything and anything the customer wants or asks for in order to insure repeated business.
This is a flawed view of the relationship between consumers and the markets they frequent. It has been my observation that when it comes to relative ease and people, comfortability always wins out. Meaning that people will always go to a place to get what they want and/or need as long as it is close while staying relatively accessible and competitive.
No matter how many beef's someone has had with Wal-Mart, they're still going to go there if it's down just a few miles away and keeps lowering prices. No matter what they might say.
I've literally heard multiple people say they will never come to a restaurant again only to come a week or two later. People are creatures of habit and while they may love something 10 miles away, they'll go to the place they like because it's right around the corner - regardless of how they claim they've been treated or how many bad experiences they say they've had.
We've established the problem. Companies are building their business model on a flawed way to interact with society.
How does this effect society?
Ultimately it's very simple. It's giving power to the powerless. And what happens with power? It corrupts. So when you give the High School educated mother of four the power to belittle her waiter and complain about something in order to get it taken off the check, you shouldn't be surprised when she abuses this power. She'll yell while her kids run around the table and spill drinks. She'll get a refund and maybe a gift card so her family will come back while the manager apologizes for something that isn't their fault.
Basically we're enabling people to act like complete asses while in their own mind they deem themselves as Royalty and get to treat people like slaves. Folks, there was a reason the Colonies broke off from Britain.
No one likes the Royals.
In a prolonged format, think about the damage that this kind of mind-trip or power-trip can and will do to the world. The whole saying has built up the destruction of respect amongst our fellow humans. We can treat people like garbage and still get a full refund. This cannot be a good thing.
This continues the notion that money is the end-all-be-all and the driving force behind our lives. We should not care about love, harmony, happiness, gratitude, and manners when we have to worry about using the five dollar-off coupon that expired ten days ago. If we have to be horrible to another human being in order to ensure our savings of a few bucks, we should! We'll feel good about it later because we got the best of them and that nameless corporation!
The harm behind this sentiment is not fiction and not bias. It's real. We sacrifice honor and value for saving a quick buck and then pat ourselves on the back because the customer is always right.
When you analyze this, you'll see it's a truly horrifying notion.
We're also training constant critic's. If someone's always right, whenever are they wrong? In this ever-growing, on-line, mass-communicative and constantly updated world we are living in everyone seems to believe that their opinion matters. Or at least more so than it ever did before. In this, they are not always wrong. But when it comes to the minutiae of going out to eat and critiquing a waiter's performance via Yelp, one must ask, who the Hell are you?
You might have years of experience eating in restaurants (sad by itself), but what do you know of actually working in them and dealing with a waiter's workload? Oh but would the waiter love to come in to your place of work and critique your job.
Too many people value what they consider to be a good tip (usually under the necessary requirements that define a good tip) by the value of so-called service that they get. Again, my mind turns to the thoughts of Royalty and the air of entitlement. There is a certain notion here that cannot be ignored.
It's like a King demanding of his slave, do well or feel the whip. Give me service or no tip.
It's detestable and pathetic.
Humanity is better than this.
We can be better than this. At least, I'd like to hope so. It's the eternal dilemma, really. Choose to do what is right or what is easy. Aren't we all taught at a very young age not to give in to temptation? To be virtuous and good? Are we not told moral lessons and taught the stories of heroes come and gone in order to teach us about strength and hospitality? Goodness and kindness?
Don't be petty, snide, and most importantly, cheap. Life is too short to be any one of those things, least of all cheap.
Sure it's easy to be overcome by power, but isn't easier to treat people nicely?
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