Word: clerking
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...sign in the lobby of the West Los Angeles city hall says the planning department opens at 8 a.m. On a recent morning a clerk finally shows up at 9, without apology. As the petitioner pays the application fee for home- improvement permits, the clerk says the process will take 75 to 120 days. It is 132 days and still counting...
...When a clerk at an appliance store does not know how to turn on the tape recorder he is trying to sell a customer, something seems terribly wrong. The mind flicks back to Tokyo again, to the electronics center called Akihabara, where every clerk is knowledgeable and unfailingly polite, eager to make a ( sale. In Japan some manufacturers even make house calls if a product breaks down...
Sometimes consumers encounter sales clerks who cannot find the "on" button on electronic equipment they are selling. A clerk handling vacuum cleaners in a department store confesses to a customer, "I don't know a damn thing about these." Over in the shoe department, clerks nowadays may simply dump boxes at customers' feet rather than helping them with the merchandise...
Consumer grief is even becoming part of the pop culture. Comedian Jay Leno says that when he chided a supermarket clerk for failing to say thank you, she snapped, "It's printed on your receipt!" The film Back to the Future cracked up its audiences with a scene in which Michael J. Fox's character, who has traveled back in time, walks past a 1950s-era filling station and is flabbergasted to see four cheery attendants in neatly pressed coveralls. Like a pit crew at the Indianapolis 500, they dash up to a car and proceed to fill...
...when U.S. consumers are enjoying a cornucopia of novel products and services. Thus the deterioration of basic, personal service is taking the fun out of the new offerings. Shoppers can now find ten kinds of mustard and a dozen varieties of vinegar in a supermarket, but where is a clerk who can give a guiding word about these products? Airlines offer a bonanza of cheap fares, but many travel agents no longer want to be bothered handling such unprofitable business. That leaves consumers on their own, so they have to grab brochures and do their homework if they hope...