Stephanie Martin is a journalism and history senior.Send comments to: dacity@mail.sdsu.edu

In the spirit of giving this holiday season, why not give a littlerespect to the hard working people in the customer service industry?Let me remind everyone that the person working behind the counter orserving your food is doing the best job he can. There is never a goodreason to take your crappy day out on them.

Do you remember “The Golden Rule”? You know the saying “Do untoothers as you would have others do unto you.” So why don’t you?

I work retail, and I’m all for the slogan “The customer is alwaysright”; after all, I’m a paying customer at retail establishments,including my own. I want to be treated with consideration when I’mgiving these places my hard-earned money. But this slogan does nothold true in all instances.

In the following scenarios, you can see what is expected of yourcustomer service representative, but I’m going to tell you how wereally feel.

I’m not going to smile and say, “Thank you for shopping with usand come again, Mrs. Jones,” and mean it, after she just yelled at mebecause her credit card was declined and had to pay with a check.When what I really should’ve said is “Look, lady, your card won’t gothrough because you haven’t paid your damn bill, so quit yourbitching and don’t come back.”

Have you ever wondered if you had a spit-wad, booger or worse inyour burger? Well, if you sent the order back more than twice,repeatedly requested items not on the menu or angered your server inany way, don’t be surprised.

Here are some helpful tips for the consumer to get excellentcustomer service this season.

If you’re trying to find something special to wear for theholidays, after you try on half of the items in the store, hang themup; we’ll put them away.

If there is a long line anywhere, it’s not our fault; just bepatient, smile and look us in the eye when it’s your turn. It willmake the line go faster and make everyone a little less stressed out.

If you didn’t want onions on your sandwich, we are sorry. Mistakeshappen and if you ask us nicely, we’ll fix it.

If you ask for a size 10 in those new leather boots, and we tellyou that we only have a size six left, don’t ask to try it on anywaybecause your shoe size fluctuates.

Oh and when we say, “Hi, how are you?” the correct response is:”I’m fine,” “OK” or something of that nature, not “Oh, I’m justlooking.” That’s not what we asked. The holidays are a stressful timefor everyone, so the next time you feel a little bit upset, whetheryou’re serving or being served, take a deep breath and give a smileinstead of the finger.

This column is the opinion of the columnist and not The DailyAztec. Stephanie Martin is the Assistant City Editor of The DailyAztec.