What a whore-ibble thing.

That's right, kids. The word of the day today is whores.

Context, you ask? I'll give you context. Today is the last straw for me for crappy customer service. I know, I know, the economic crisis is affecting us all, and I am happy to pay a bit more than "better financial times" (or if need be, much more, hint hint nudge nudge all those companies I suck up to), but the economic crisis does not give a free pass for crap customer service. I should be getting, and I expect, the same service as I was. Morals are still up. People can still afford to go out and shit. It's not like we're in a depression kiddos.

So, I don't understand why I waited 30 minutes (yeah, no exaggeration) to be served at McDonalds on Friday. Those number paper pre-order thingies - they just slow the line down! And when I do finally get in front of the line, when I do finally get served, this whore (word of the day!) screws up the whole thing ("NO! I ASKED FOR A DELICHOICES CHICKEN ROLL! WHY DID YOU GIVE ME A McCHICKEN?!"), and I have to wait. Again.

I have a line of temperament. I'm that (pompous) guy that gets pissed off at people getting pissed off at store employees. And that line is set pretty high. But these days, customer service, anywhere you go, even up in the air (shitty service 30,000 feet is not pleasant), is just soooooooooo bad.

Many businesses undervalue what customer service can do. My parents, God love them, went car-shopping a few years ago. (I've never bought a car BTW, it's called nabbing an old car from your parents.) And they went to Toyota. They had a pretty modest budget, and they wanted something decent, not too small yet not too big, so they wanted a Kluger. Even though they don't need the space. And, mind you, they're as modest as you can get (quite the opposite of me :P). Apparently, when they asked questions, asked prices, extras, and even asked for a test drive, this son-of-a-bitch salesman was really, really snobby and did everything out of hesitation and a sigh. When you're spending $40,000, a hesitating sigh is not what you want. And, naturally, my parents took their business somewhere else - and that's the way it's supposed to be.

Now they have contempt for Toyota drivers. Now I have contempt for Toyota drivers. I also have contempt for McDonalds diners, US Airways passengers (terrrrrrible!), 3 Mobile users, Costco shoppers (long story, I'll tell you later, if I ever get bored), GoDaddy domain name owners.... you get the point.

If I could find one store that is consistent, and provides good customer service, I'll be their #1 customer. While I buy for the use of the product, a majority of my decisions also come from customer service.

Consumer Power! USE IT!

(Footnote: Parents eventally got a Subaru 4x4. They're happy with it. And, you guessed it, it was a friendly salesperson that made them bought it. Waiting to nab that one off them :) )