Can I Talk to Your Supervisor?

I was once fired from a job for providing superior customer service. It’s true, in the world of retail, there is such a thing as providing too much customer service. Don’t believe me? Check this out. When you’re young, dumb, and not qualified to do much of anything, your job selections can be limiting. I was lucky enough to work for a nonprofit museum during most of my college days, but it didn’t cover all my bills and the tough part of those early jobs is that they were always seasonal, grant funded, or temporary in nature. I strung enough of those assignments together to more or less keep myself employed full time while going to school. But during one of those “less” periods, I had to supplement my employment and pick up a second, and sometimes a third job to pay the rent and my tuition. It was what my father referred to as character building.

As is the case of so many young people in America, when push came to shove and I was running out of employment options, I turned my attention to the mall. It was that or roofing in late summer and I had already done that one summer in high school. I had had my fill of roofing thank you very much. Canvassing the mall with my ¾ page resume opened few doors, so the few that did I had no choice but to walk through. One of those options was a national clothing retailer. I can’t say their name because I think I signed something 30 years ago that said something about not disparaging the company. So, I won’t say their name, I’ll just tell you that for “every generation there’s a…”. If you know how to fill in the gap, then you know the retailer I’m talking about.

After a two-hour orientation to the company, I was deemed qualified to sell their merchandise and get to work. One of the store policies was that you had to wear their clothing. If for some reason your new minimum wage salary was not sufficient to purchase their overpriced denim and crisp t-shirts, etc., then you were allowed to wear other brands so long as they looked like the overpriced crap we were selling AND did not have the brand or markings of any other brand. This was my first day of working for corporate America and I already hated it so nowhere to go but up right?

My first assignment was learning how to fold the company way. Yes, there was a particular way that we folded our clothes in order to maximize its full retail potential. As it happened, I was (and am to this day) a bit of a type “A” personality and I rather enjoy a nice, folded t-shirt so I found this assignment not only easy, but enjoyable. The not so dirty little secret of the American consumer is that we love to unfold things. We take stuff off a shelf, flip it open, hold it against our body while looking in the mirror, and only when we’ve decided we’re not going to buy this item, we discard it in heap on top of all the nicely folded inventory. We pay no attention to the artesian who folded the item in the first place or who was lurking nearby to redo the work you just so callously undid. This is how I spent my first few hours following my two hour on-boarding. Maybe the roofing company still needed a guy.

While I was deep in contemplation about my career choices and mindlessly (though expertly) folding item after item, a woman approached me who was doing some back-to-school shopping with her son. The young man was about as excited to be back to school clothes shopping as I was to be folding clothes for a living. His mother asked me where she could find the shirt that I was wearing. Even with the company discount, I could not afford the overpriced version of my shirt that we sold in the store, so I had elected for the company’s alternative which was to source a cheaper version that could pass for one of ours. I found mine at another national retailer that was right on the mark, hit the bull’s eye if you know what I mean?

I looked up at the woman as if she had just asked me where she could score some illicit drugs. My head on a swivel I looked around the store. I caught a glance of my supervisor who was working the register, but she was out of ear shot and working with a customer. So I did what the company had trained me to do just a few hours earlier, I gave her superior customer service. I explained my life hack and told her she could find the nearly identical product on the far side of the mall at the retailer I had purchased mine. Better yet, she could get four or maybe even five shirts there for the same price as one of our stupidly overpriced ones. She thanked me and quickly policed up her son who was admiring some overpriced colored jeans and made for the exit.

My supervisor witnessed what had happened and came over to investigate. I proudly explained what I had done and that she could go ahead and call the front office to report the effectiveness of their training. I asked where the “employee of the month” parking spot was located, but instead was met by a slack jawed face looking at me in disgust. “Like, I don’t think this is working,” was her response to me once her brain was able to compute what I had said to her. She was maybe two years older than I was, but that left her the senior officer on deck and the one who would decide my fate. What I failed to understand was “like, I don’t think this is working” was her way of telling me I was fired. Instead, I took her feedback for what it was, agreed, and went about finding another task to complete.

This cycle of broken communication repeated itself three more times before she gained the courage to tell me I was fired. Total time on the clock was five hours and 32 minutes of working for corporate America. When I inquired as to the grounds for my termination, the supervisor explained to me that I had lost the sale. Not only that, but I made a sale for a competitor. I once again explained what had actually happened and that I had simply followed company policy to provide superior customer service. Apparently, the company and I had different definitions of what this meant, and mine resulted in unemployment. For my current and any future employers, this accounts for the two-day gap in my work history on my resume. Also, this company is not listed in my work history and for that I am ashamed.

That experience was a defining moment in my career. First, anytime I think of cashing it in and running for the private sector to make some quick dough, I am reminded of the moral dilemma and the compromise of character that awaits me should I follow that path. Second, and more importantly, I learned that treating your customer well and like a real person instead of a financial transaction is the hallmark of truly great companies and superior customer service. A lesson I would learn again and again throughout my career.

Fortunately for me, the years of piecing various job assignments together at the museum had finally paid off and I was offered my first full time regular position. This was a salaried exempt job with benefits! I was moving up in the world. Better yet, it was a manager position and the one overseeing the program where I had spent the bulk of my journeyman days; I was promoted as our camps manager. The museum I worked at was a large science center with a very large summer day camp program. It was one of the largest programs in the city, and most expensive. This later point would be made clear to me many times over in this position. I had a seasonal staff mostly comprised of schoolteachers looking to make some extra money during their summer break and college students. I had taught nearly every camp we offered and played every camp game ever created with our students when I was moved into my new role.

The museum was very proud that we offered financial assistance to families that could not otherwise afford our very expensive camps. Unfortunately, it was more of a talking point than an actual point to be proud of, with only about 10% of our students coming through with financial assistance. As a parent and nonprofit educator, I would not be able to afford the camps I was running had it not been for a very steep discount for employees. Also, as a parent, and heavily biased camp manager, I assumed that parents footed this bill and signed up for our camps because of the incredible experience their kids would have. Future scientists and world leaders were being hatched in our program. Who wouldn’t want their kid to have this experience.

What I discovered is that some parents with means have slightly different and arguably unrealistic expectations for what their return on their investment will look like. Will their kids be safe? Yes, absolutely you have my guarantee. Will they learn something new? But of course, we’re a hands-on science learning institution. Will they have fun? Duh, it’s camp run by a guy who has been going to camp since he was seven. Will they get a full ride at university? Ok, first off, your one semester abroad in Europe does not entitle you to call it university? Second, what? Are you seriously asking me if your third grader who is taking a class called 3-2-1 Blast Off is going to parlay this into a full ride scholarship? I guess it’s possible she could use this camp as an anecdote in a college essay. Maybe we spark a curiosity for aerospace that leads her to further study. But no, I don’t think this camp has a direct line of site to a full ride.

With the brief exception of my folding days at the clothing store, I had largely avoided jobs where customer service was a real and significant part of my work. Sure, I worked with the public a lot in the museum, and lots and lots of kids, but that was different. Now there were “power parents” who had paid hundreds of dollars for a product (that’s what one dad called camp, a “product” that we sold) and they had some expectations. Sadly, a lot of the training you receive in nonprofits, even big ones like the one I was working at, is on the job training (or OJT for short). The other form of training is trial by error or self-taught. It’s very much a sink or swim Darwinian approach to training, and it is not optimal. I share this because to this point, the sum total of my customer service training had resulted in me getting fired. And I did not want to get fired. I needed this job badly because I was not made to work for a living.

My first summer managing the camp program was really just responding to one parent complaint after another. The call volume alone was enough to make you think we were running a dangerous and ineffective program. But that was not the case. Here’s a sample of the issues I got to deal with: it’s too hot outside when the kids take lunch, can you please do something about the temperature? Kaley, Keli, and Cora aren’t really into all the science stuff so can you change the curriculum? The teacher of this camp doesn’t look old enough, put an older teacher in there by tomorrow. Reggie is allergic to…basically everything…you need to keep him away from…basically everything. One of the counselors used a sports analogy today in camp and we’re not really sports people so will you remove him from your program? My daughter didn’t see any fish during her trip to the tidepools today on the last day of camp, I would like a full refund.

These are all REAL customer service issues I had to contend with, and they are but just a sample. There are many more that are much worse. However, I learned through trial and error that summer how to deal with high maintenance parents. By my second summer I was a pro, and by the third I was a customer service Jedi redirecting parent ire into glowing reviews on our surveys. So, imagine everyone’s surprise when I became that parent. It happened almost by accident, but it happened nonetheless.

My eldest child had reached the age where she could finally attend the camp offered at our local zoo. She had been waiting for this opportunity and when given the option of the science museum camp that I ran or the zoo, she of course chose the zoo. Thanks kid. In the nonprofit community we don’t have competitors, we have “partners.” The zoo was one of our largest “partners” and I held my nose when my wife signed her up for camp. Right away I received verification that we were running a superior program as she struggled with their registration system. Ha! Never had those issues at the museum did you? Still, my child who I was contemplating renaming Benedict, was signed up for zoo camp.

Despite the fact that my wife had signed our daughter up to attend one of my “partners” camps at the exact same time that I was neck deep in my own program, I was informed that I would have to pick up Ms. Benedict at the end of the camp day as my wife was consumed with taking care of the heir to our fortune, our son who was three years behind the traitor and as such could not go to “partner” camp. Ugh, I did not have time for this, but I was committed to that year’s father of the year competition so I made it work. After securing my own team for afternoon pick up from our far superior program, I got in the car and headed off to pick up my ungrateful offspring.

Upon arrival at the zoo parking lot, which was a zoo in and of itself, I entered the “pick-up” lane. Zoo camp offered a rather elaborate service that they sold as “curb side pick up and drop off.” Drop off sure, that makes sense. A parent rolls in the morning before the zoo is open to public, easily navigating the parking lot and slowing their vehicle down just long enough to kick their kid out of the car. Brilliant, and they had us on this one. But pick up? That was a whole other deal. At 3:00 in the afternoon, at the height of general visitation at the zoo with an over-crowded parking lot, the parent has to slide into a slip stream of cars that are just there to pick up campers. First, who ends camp at 3:00? That is stupidly inconvenient. Second, when I said slip stream what I meant to write was gridlock. This was an intentional traffic jam! All of this made no sense. It wasn’t even controlled chaos, it was just chaos.

The idea is that the assembled masses of parents in their idling vehicles (ironic for a camp who’s teaching about sustainability and preserving natural habitats) follow a designated route where we enter a section of the parking lot where all the campers are waiting. Distressed camp councilors run to waiting cars, find out which camper you’re there to pick up, run back to the mass of campers to pluck one out that resembles your child and escorts them back to your vehicle. On a good day everyone involved confirms that the child matches the parent and vehicle, but that’s more of a bonus than a requirement. Great idea on paper, but in practical application, an absolute horror show. The reason camp ends at 3:00 is so that hopefully by 4:30 the whole pick-up procedure is complete and the staff can go home.

I participated in this disaster for three days straight, each time holding myself back from correcting their system. On the fourth day it happened, a child was brought to my car and the councilor opened the door and ushered them into the back seat. Fortunately, I was still in work mode and checked to make sure said kiddo was mine. It was not. Not only was this the wrong child, but it was also the wrong make and model. My daughter was 8 years old, a girl, and dangerously pale. The child sitting in my back seat was a 10-year-old boy from India. A perfectly nice young man, but we both agreed that we should probably correct the situation before things got out of hand. It took several attempts to get the head usher’s attention, but soon enough the stranger in my back seat was removed and replaced with…another stranger. This time a girl, but she was 11 and her family was from Mexico. I wondered how long this game of catch and release was going to last.

Finally, after a third attempt I was reunited with the traitor, only to learn that she too experienced at least one stranger’s backseat that afternoon. By the time I got home I could contain my rage no longer and I picked up the phone. Dialing while angry should be one of the first signs that you ought not be doing what you’re about to do. I ignored that sign and proceeded through several more check points on Reasonable Avenue until I reached my destination, my peer and colleague who ran the zoo camp program. This poor unsuspecting woman had no idea who I was or what I did for a living as I launched into my complaints about the utterly irresponsible staff and system they were using for pick up. All my points were valid, but that’s not what we’re discussing here. It was the manner in which I was delivering my valid points that my peer took issue with.

And then it happened. I said those six magic words…”do you know who I am?” It was the first, and what I hope will be the last time those words fell from my mouth. But I didn’t stop there. I proceeded to lay out my professional credentials and delivered the death blow statement that “this could never happen at my camp.” I slammed the phone in dramatic fashion as I hung up on the woman, convinced that tomorrow things would be different, that I had made a difference, and let’s be honest, I probably stopped some low-level child abductions from occurring. One could argue I was a hero.

Almost immediately the adrenalin began to drain from my system and was replaced with a new sensation. Guilt. Shame. Embarrassment. Oh no, what did I just do? I tried to sleep it off, but the next morning at work as I was dealing with another parent who wanted us to change the carpet in their camper’s classroom because it was too dull and therefore not conducive to learning, I realized what I had to do next. The first moment I got I snuck away to my office, closed the door, and dialed the zoo camp number. After an exceedingly long wait, my peer picked up the phone and the tone in her “hello” told me everything I needed to know. She knew who was on the other end. She had taken 10 seconds before picking up the phone to do a breathing exercise. She was prepared and ready to tell me what changes had been made and why, and what was staying the same. I knew this because it’s the same thing I was doing when my phone rang.

Before she had a chance to say anything I launched into an apology. I told her how I understood what she was dealing with daily and shared some of the issues I was contending with at our camp. I confessed my embarrassment and apologized profusely. I told her they could send my kid home with anyone they wanted because I really didn’t care for her that much ever since she picked their program over mine. And then we had a serious and professional discussion where she confessed her challenges with their system and asked for some advice and input. I gave her some notes, and that very afternoon I was witnessing those changes in action. It was a good recovery for both of us and a very important lesson for me.

Ever since that day I have kept that experience in the back of my mind whenever dealing with a customer service issue. I have tried to remember that when people are frustrated, confused, hurt or angry they sometimes forget how to behave. I know every time I get yelled at by a customer, they will walk away from that interaction and almost immediately start to feel ashamed of how they behaved along with some level of embarrassment. All the experiences I had with high maintenance parents, museum visitors, and members of the general public who provide unsolicited feedback on our work led to the development of a new customer service model we deployed at the museum.

It came about a few years and promotions later for me when I was serving as the museum’s Vice President. I was chairing an internal committee that was rethinking our approach to how we treated and interacted with our visitors. We wanted to take a holistic approach and think about the entire spectrum of touch points and experiences that our visitors have with us. From the first time a visitor sees us or thinks of us (maybe in an advertisement or website) to the time they’re in the car driving home after their visit, we wanted to consider how to frame their experience and how to enrich the relationship.

Eventually we landed on something we called the “Total Guest Experience,” and it was comprised of three basic tenants: treat each individual as a guest in your home; welcome them, make them feel comfortable, help them explore; invite them back. We trained our whole organization on this approach and saw immediate results. There’s nothing particularly unique about our model and there are plenty of similar ones out there that people-centered companies use. We just found this approach to be fitting to the museum experience and it’s a philosophy that I have carried forward into the other museums and even teach a class to hospitality and tourism students using the same technique.

Fast forward to July of 2020. The United States and the rest of the globe were months into the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the first pandemic that most of the world’s living population had experienced, and it was terrifying. The horror of the rapid spread of the virus cost millions their lives around the world while our best researchers and scientists worked at light speed to develop a vaccine. Because this was a highly infectious airborne disease, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and countless other public health agencies all came to the same conclusion. To slow (and dare we to dream stop) the spread of the virus every man, woman and child on the planet just needed to isolate themselves for two weeks. The science was simple, hunker down and don’t give the virus any way or where to spread and we could save the lives of millions. A little sacrifice by everyone would save the ultimate sacrifice of countless others.

Unfortunately, we’re human beings. Even in the most socialist and liberal countries this was a tough sell. A few got very close. New Zealand, the Nordic nations, some small and remote island countries. And sure enough, it worked. When someone got sick after that initial shut down, they were quickly quarantined, contact tracing was done immediately, and further runaway outbreaks were contained. In other nations, not so much. I love my country and I am very proud to be an American. I think there are some really good reasons so many others around the world look to our nation for stability, security, and the possibility to call this place their home. It’s just too bad we love our freedom a bit too much and the notion of making a small sacrifice for the greater good was lost on too many of my fellow countrymen.

Governors shut down non-essential businesses while the CDC developed protocols for people to resume some form of normal life. This is when we were introduced to terms like “social distancing” and “N95 masks.” We had bubbles that we traveled in, home tests in every cupboard. About the only thing we were willing to give up on was going to work. A lot of us worked “remotely” for as long as we could in order to avoid going into the office.

After a period of several months, our museum was allowed to reopen to the public. We had to limit the number of guests, maintain six feet of distance from one another, and we cleaned everything all the time. Even then it was a long road back to normal. In fact, as I write this story, we’re three years from the date of the onset of the pandemic and I’m not sure I would call things normal. The pandemic tested our health, our economic systems, and our customer service models.

The deal we struck with a deadly virus causing a global pandemic was that we agreed to stay a certain distance from one another and wear a facemask when around people outside our immediate household. Again, a small sacrifice to make all things considered. A significant portion of Americans were cautious at first, not wanting to risk exposure and not wanting to get others sick in the process. A very civic minded thing to do. However, an alarming amount of people were “over it.” They either had gotten sick and lived to tell the tale (and failed to realize they could be reinfected by a variant), or they failed seventh grade life science and decided that the public health guidelines were politically motivated and not scientific and therefore infringed on their rights.

This later group were the first ones back in movie theaters, fast food restaurants, and the mall. These were the folks who needed reminding that facemasks were a requirement, not a suggestion. They also needed to be reminded that their nose was part of their face and respiratory system, and thus, needed covering. And these were some of the first visitors back in our museum. They had been couped up for far too long and were ready to live their lives, science be damned! Welcome to our home.

You know that friend or family member that comes to your home that you didn’t invite? You don’t slam the door in their face, but you do start counting the seconds until they leave. Welcome them, make them feel comfortable, help them explore, this was our way and our mantra. We had developed a rather elaborate script early in our reopening that explained all our protocols and requirements that would ensure a safe and healthy visit to the museum. Most people really appreciated the lengths we had gone to and all the details. Others were immune to these talking points and treated it the same way they treat the pre-flight safety presentation when flying on a commercial flight. Invite them back. Let’s be honest, we didn’t want everyone to come back. If we had to tell you eleven times during your two-hour visit to put your face mask on we weren’t necessarily in a hurry to see you return. But the show must go on so “ya’ll come back now hear?”

I cannot state enough the seriousness of the pandemic and the unbelievable and completely avoidable loss of life we experienced as a result. I make no light of any of what we collectively experienced. In addition to testing our mental and physical limits, the pandemic tested our customer service. Some businesses had taken to posting hired security officers because customer service positions had experienced threats of violence. People were beyond rude, they had turned dangerous and violent acts were committed while trying to get customers to comply with simple and small sacrifices. I am grateful we did not experience any violent acts at our museum, but we had several scary moments along the way. However, I might be going to federal prison.

While most visitors complied with the rules, some did not and those that didn’t tended to escalate quickly. It was reasonable to ask our front-line staff to deal with eye rolls and educating people that noses are part of a visitor’s face, but after that they needed to kick things up to a manager, and in several cases it landed on my desk, or in my ear. One of these interactions came on a Sunday afternoon. It was one of the first days I had been able to take off for several weeks. My staff had instructions that they should give any visitor my direct cell number if they could not disarm the situation. My phone rang and when I answered, a woman started screaming at me. It appeared that she was already well into her opening arguments when I answered, and it took several minutes before I could interject. It was no use, there would be no recovery of this situation.

After 27 minutes the call reached its climax. The woman on the other end of the call informed me that she had secured legal counsel. It was a local lawyer who had one of those terrible late night TV commercials where he proclaims that he’ll fight for you. This man is the butt of countless jokes, but he was her legal representation. The woman let me know that I was violating her civil liberties and constitutional rights by requiring her to wear a mask and that she would be taking me to federal court. This was convenient for me given that the federal courthouse was right across the street from the museum and thus a short commute. I may have slipped a bit from the total guest experience when I informed her of this fact.

Sure enough a few hours later I received an email from said legal counsel letting me know that he had been retained and that I should “buckle up” for the ride ahead. This guy was a real class act. It left me chuckling, but my wife was a bit more concerned, so I reached out to my legal representative, and he confirmed what I suspected. These cases were popping off all over the country. The US Attorney’s office was overwhelmed and NOT prosecuting these ridiculous claims. Still, being the target of a high-profile lawyer and the prospect of spending time at a federal correctional facility was not a great way to go about my days.

As it happened, this would be just the first of what would become several more attempts to sue me and the museum for following the law. More importantly it would test my customer service model to its breaking point. Just play this out in your mind for a second. These customers woke up in the morning and decided, voluntarily mind you, to go visit their SCIENCE museum. Upon arriving they discover that the same rules that apply to the grocery store, the doctor’s office, and their own place of employment also apply at the SCIENCE museum. And now, learning this astonishing fact, they want to argue with you about the SCIENCE! And when that argument fails, the only reasonable response is to ruin your life and send you to federal prison.

And to that individual, according to my own training and philosophy, my only options is to: treat each individual as a guest in my home; welcome them, make them feel comfortable, help them explore; invite them back. And that’s just what I did.