My Bosses Are Trying to Be Modern About How We Serve Customers. Unfortunately, I Have to Handle the Distressing Fall-Out.

Good Job Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by James Steidl/Adobe Stock. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Good Job is Slate’s advice column on work. Have a workplace problem big or small? Send it to Laura Helmuth and Doree Shafrir here. (It’s anonymous!) Dear Good Job, I work in the box office for a live performance venue. I’ve been there for the last three years, and I have worked in this kind of position since I was a teenager. A lot of my work involves customer service and booking tickets. Our client base skews older, and many have challenges navigating our website. (We aren’t able to take reservations or payments over the phone because we don’t have a secure line.) I have spent countless hours on the phone simply troubleshooting with people, walking them through the purchasing process, and engaging with customers. I pride myself on giving good service, which is why I’ve been absolutely thrown for a loop by what happened yesterday. Just as I was beginning my closing procedures, a woman came in. I asked what I could do for her, and she asked if there was someone else that could help her. There wasn’t, and I said as much. She then told me that last time I wasn’t very helpful and I was demeaning and condescending to her, and that I didn’t explain how to use her gift certificate very well. This stunned me, because I have a reputation at work (from supervisors, coworkers and customers alike) as being the most knowledgeable and helpful person on staff. I apologized for my behavior, and said I would try to explain it better…but honestly, I was really perplexed. She had a gift certificate good for a particular series of shows. The first time she came in, I tried to explain to her that in order to book the shows, I would need to know what performances she would like to attend. I directed her to our website, which is where most of our information lives (our parent organization has made the push for most things to be digital). She asked if we had a list of just the eligible shows, which we didn’t. However, I gave her the season program, which does list the shows, but also all the other shows in the season. They are color coded, and I tried to show her (admittedly briefly, because she came in as I was trying to close down and take a mandatory break before the evening shift that I was also working) which shows she could choose from. I explained this all to her again when she came in the second time. I can’t book her tickets unless she knows what performance she wants to attend. Our software doesn’t work that way. And because of the nature of the gift certificates, I really do need people to book their shows all at once (people hate to make the commitment, but I can’t guarantee there will be seats otherwise). I’m not in trouble at work or anything, but it really bothers me because I don’t know what I could have done differently so that this woman didn’t feel condescended to. I feel like I went above to help give her things that we don’t have, and I cut into my own personal time to do so. I did have another coworker there with me who said he didn’t notice anything was amiss. —Unhelpful and Condescending Apparently she/her Dear Unhelpful and Condescending Apparently, I’m sorry. Anybody who works in customer service knows that one nasty person can undermine the satisfaction of working with all the appreciative people. Please don’t take her complaints personally, even though they were directed at you, a person. There are plenty of potential reasons for her rudeness. She probably felt frustrated, incompetent, confused, or weak when she couldn’t figure out how to use the gift certificate. A lot of people translate negative emotions into anger, and anger makes them look for someone to blame. She might have been unable to understand your instructions due to hearing loss or mild cognitive impairment, making her even more frustrated. MCI can also impair people’s social filters and allow them to vent in ways they wouldn’t have before. Heck, your name might have reminded her of some old enemy and maybe she doesn’t even know why she got so mad. You are not an unhelpful or condescending person, but this unfortunate interaction is a reminder for all of us to notice when we’re rushing, because that’s when it’s easy to make mistakes or sound brusque. But please don’t blame yourself or let one unhappy customer discourage you. All that said, your venue really ought to invest in whatever technology it needs to accept reservations by phone. The theater managers need to understand their literal audience. As you have learned from countless hours talking people through a complicated system, it’s too complicated! A lot of people who enjoy live performances are unable to manage a web booking platform because they have visual limitations, arthritis, poor manual dexterity, an outdated computer, or some other obstacles, age-related or not, and they just want to pick up the phone and tell some helpful person what they want. The venue can and should fix this problem. A theater I regularly attend tried to replace printed programs with QR code cards. Imagine a theater full of people trying to get on the WiFi at the same time, then turn on their phone cameras, scan the QR code, click on the website, wait for the program to slowly load, figure out how to turn the virtual pages, start to read the play’s synopsis … and then be told to shut off their phones for the performance. Now imagine the poor actors coming out on stage to perform for a frustrated, muttering, mutinous audience, many with their phones still on. The theater hands out printed programs now. Change is possible! Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don’t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Dear Good Job, We are planning our 2027 projects at work, and one of the items on my list is getting quotes for a revamp of one of our common spaces. This is not the usual scope of my job, and I am not a designer by any means—my own apartment is nothing special. Originally my boss had seemed open to us also hiring someone to pitch designs, until the cost for just designing ended up being $10,000. Now she’s suggesting I take photos of the current space and run them through Copilot instead for inspiration. However, I’m personally not a fan of generative AI and currently don’t use it for any of my work. In addition to the terrible impact on the environment, privacy, artists, etc., I can do 99 percent of my daily tasks just fine without it. Do you have any suggestions for non-AI interior design options? Or if not, any suggestions for redirecting my boss? —AI-lments in the Office she/her Dear AI-lments in the Office, Good for you for not using AI to slop up your office! And congratulations (I guess?) for taking on a project that stretches your skills. It sounds like you need more information from your boss. Avoid telling her you don’t want to use AI, because too many bosses get more bossy when you attempt to resist their bad requests directly. Instead, ask her to schedule a meeting to brainstorm with you about her vision for the office common spaces. Try to act enthusiastic and encourage her (and your) creativity. Is your boss imagining a traditional look, like a law firm office lined with dark bookshelves? Something colorful and whimsical? Or something formal to reinforce professional decorum among staff and intimidate visitors? How would she like people to use the space? You could suggest conversation nooks, low tables where people can play games, high-tops for snacking, or cushy seats for people to relax between tasks. A lot of office furniture is designed for tall men, and I hope your boss will agree you want the redesigned common areas to have plenty of comfortable options for people of all body types. Once you understand the assignment, talk to local furnishing stores that fit your budget and carry the styles your boss and you came up with. Share your specifications and ask for their advice. It’s the job of the people who work there to help you figure out what they can sell you that will look good in your space, not just to ring you up at the cash register. Maybe you won’t end up with a break room worthy of Architectural Digest, but you’ll work with an actual human who has a lot of experience and ideas about design—and hopefully both of you will enjoy the process. Dear Good Job, I have been retired from an interesting but intense non-faculty job at a major research university for 2.5 years. I maintain a close friendship with my former boss and we have lunch every couple months. At our most recent lunch I was casually invited to stay for a presentation to several departments that was just fascinating, and I was really struck by how much I miss the intellectual stimulation of the job. I am happily retired and do some rewarding volunteer work that I really enjoy, but nothing that uses my professional skills and experience. I’m wondering about approaching my boss about getting back in the game, perhaps as a special-projects person on an as-needed basis (sort of a “utility infielder” resource for the department, because I can’t seem to avoid sports analogies). We have had one false-start on this issue already where I was going to come back part-time a few months after my retirement, but I decided against it and that was absolutely the right decision at the time. Is this just hubris and I’m just happy to know that my brain still works at this level, or should I explore this further? I’m thinking on average 3-5 days a month and a very flexible work schedule. From a financial standpoint, I am comfortably retired but the extra money would be a nice-to-have type of situation. —Still Got It (Maybe) Dear Still Got It, Do tell your former boss you’re interested in coming back on an as-needed basis. Tell him a few other things as well. If you haven’t already, apologize for backing out of the part-time plan immediately after retirement. Tell him it wasn’t the right time then, but now you have capacity to take on new projects. Tell him you are thrilled to see the department thriving (or something complimentary related to the presentation you saw). Tell him you are flexible, aren’t desperate, and would be happy to work on whatever projects would support his department, or available if he hears about a need in another department. He might not have any budget for part-time work, since university budgets are a mess right now. But if nothing else, tell him that you value the intellectual stimulation and (presumably) the mission of his department. It’s common for bosses to be mired in budget cuts, staff conflicts, scheduling issues, or other problems. Sharing your perspective as a former insider, now outsider, is a gift that could help him appreciate the pleasures of his stimulating and fascinating workplace before he retires himself. —Laura Advice Design Workplace Finance