It’s near the end of the day. It’s already been a long one, and I don’t think I had lunch that day, so admittedly I wasn’t at my highest energy. I’ve also been sleeping terribly, hate my job, and have no clear exit strategy except “the” “exit strategy”, so I’m not at my most animated. I’ve also never had a particularly expressive face, but I do my best to ensure that I’m showing interest and paying attention.

Guy comes in. One of my coworkers, who greets him and asks his name, is with another client already and I can estimate they’ll probably still be at least 5-10 minutes before they’re done (nothing complicated, just dotting the t’s and crossing the i’s), and our other team member is handling phone calls. All I do is turn round to face him and ask “and what brings you in today?” The same question I ask virtually everyone who walks through that door, in the exact same tone and manner I always have for years with no issue.

Guy looks me dead in the eyes, and within two seconds starts chewing me out. “I don’t like your attitude, man. You’re not treating me right. No smile, no nothing, this isn’t how you should be treating customers, this is terrible customer service, and I know I’m not the first person to say that.”

He, in fact, was. If anything, my results and reviews (when I’m mentioned in them) across multiple jobs are very positive because I while I hate working in customer service, I do still try my best to do it well and ensure our clients have a positive and enjoyable experience.

I offer a confused “I’m sorry?”, and genuinely confused if he was doing a bit, like he was winding me up and busting my chops before going “nah, just kidding,” but he kept going. Also, on a philosophical/principle level, I don’t do the OTT smile/put-on facetious enthusiasm “repeat name X times to let you know I’m listening” customer service act because that feels disingenuous and phony as hell, and I feel like most people can tell when they’re being “sold to” and not “helped”. But apparently that’s what he’s looking for, so the guy keeps going.

“I can tell right away when something’s off, and I leave when that happens, you need to work on your attitude.” Gives us a sarcastic salute, and leaves with a “you just lost thousands of dollars, Buster”. Guy had maybe been in the room 120 seconds before leaving. My coworkers, the other clients who were there, and I all looked at each other with a “what the hell was that?” confusion. I’m still rattled, and this happened two days ago.

Basically, long story short, TLDR I got chewed out for apparently not smiling widely enough, and if that somehow works its way up to corporate I guarantee they’ll make us do some bullshit appeasement, and that’s reminded me how much I fucking hate my job, and has also given me something else to be self conscious about, but I have no way out of it because I only have experience in this industry and can’t find a way out other than that way out.