June 13, 2005

THE Problem in America Today

I just put this up at Conservative Thinking and would like to share it with you folks here:

Yesterday I experienced a problem that is happening more and more in America today; laziness overcoming the need to provide an appropriate level of customer service. This also goes hand-in-hand with work ethic and personal responsibility.

Sunday is my typical laundry day no matter what part of the world I'm in. This past Sunday I happened to be in a hotel with coin operated washers and dryers. I didn't have the five or so dollars in quarters that I needed on me so I called the front desk of the hotel; there was no answer. This leads me to believe that whoever was working the front desk had something more important to them going on other than answering a phone call from one of their guests. So much for customer service and this lack of answering the phone (a very simple task) shows the work ethic of whoever was working the desk at that time.

Whenever I do anything I always have a Plan B. Plan B was to go to a local gas station, buy a two-liter of Coke with a $20 bill, and ask for five dollars in quarters. That seemed like a fool-proof plan and if the cashier didn't have it in the register they could easily get a roll out of their safe and split it with me.

That didn't go as planned. Why? Because the cashier was lazy and had a poor work ethic.

I walked up to the register, paid for the two-liter, and asked for $5 in quarters as part of my change. The cashier informed that she didn't have it. I was about to chime in with, "Get a roll out of your safe," when a manager of some sort went ahead and took care of that for me. She told a manager of the store she was working in that she didn't want to do that because she was getting off in fifteen minutes and didn't want to count the money.

If you could have seen me at that moment there was a big, red exclamation point over my head as I stared at the manager.

The manager informed the cashier that she couldn't read a clock because she wasn't getting off in fifteen minutes but an hour and fifteen minutes. The lady chuckled and proceeded to get a roll of quarters out of the safe. As she put the roll of quarters on the counter she asked me if I wanted to buy the whole roll. I'm sure I looked completely disgusted at this point and my blood pressure was rising due to her total lack of customer service. I tossed a $10 bill on the counter, took the roll of quarters, and popped smoked.

I was totally baffled. The lady is a cashier at a gas station and doesn't show an energy level that indicated to me that she wasn't content with her job and trying to move up in the world. She was totally satisfied with doing whatever it took just to slide by at work and move on to the next day of her existence.

This is an increasingly apparent problem in America and truly shows why there are jobs that have to be filled by illegal immigrants. Americans don't have the work ethic they used to have. Whether it be answering a phone, making requested change, or taking care of problems Americans have become to lazy and honestly don't care enough about the customers they server, themselves, and their future. Americans don't take enough responsibility for themselves to even make a run at the "American dream". That, in my opinion, is going to truly become a big problem in America in the very near future.

Cross-posted at Conservative Thinking