July 31st, 2019:

	It's my last day in Inside Sales.  Tomorrow, I start my new 
position as head of IT and Efficiencies within the company.  I'm looking 
forward to taking on this new challenge.

When I arrived this morning, I grabbed a coffee and sat at my desk.  I 
routinely arrive a half-hour before I start work, just to relax a bit, 
check my email, and plot out my day.  We never know what fresh Hell the 
next customer phone call or email will bring, so my Inside Sales cohorts 
and I make sure we're prepared once business hours start.

Our warehouse manager arrived a minute after I did, and neglected to lock 
the front door behind him.  Five minutes later, a customer walked in and 
started banging on the front counter.  As we didn't open for another 
half-hour, we had no staff at the counter.  The customer proceeded to 
yell, "CAN I GET SOME FUCKING SERVICE HERE?".

The warehouse manager came out and explained to the customer that we don't 
open for another half hour, and that we had no available staff.  The shop 
lights weren't even on yet!  This did not sit well with the customer.

"I'VE GOT A JOB TO DO HERE," he screamed, "NOW GET OVER HERE AND DO 
YOURS!"

Our warehouse manager grudgingly complied, afterwards explaining 
(politely) that we don't open until 8 am, and that in the future he won't 
be served until then.  Again, this did not sit well with the customer, who 
screamed "IF YOU WANT MY BUSINESS, YOU'LL SERVE ME WHENEVER I NEED."

To his credit, our warehouse manager kept his cool.  He pointed out our 
hours of operation, and told the customer we'd gladly help him out outside 
of business hours for the usual after-hours fee of $50/hour or portion 
thereof, and, if he was not satisfied by that, he could talk to the 
Outside Sales Rep for his territory.  The guy grunted and left.

Afterwards, I went over to talk to the warehouse manager.  After agreeing 
that the guy was an asshole, we thought about the percentage of our 
customer base who are like this guy.  We estimate 20 to 25 percent, at 
which point we began to question WHY we put up with such behaviour.  We 
put together an impromptu list of whom we considered the worst offenders, 
and I generated a report:  this annoying, vocal, demanding batch of 
assholes account for a tiny, tiny amount of our annual sales (we're 
talking in the hundredths of a percent).

Armed with that information, we FURTHER questioned WHY we put up with this 
behaviour...

Looking back at my thirteen years in Inside Sales (and a further five 
years as Warehouse Manager, Logistics, and customer service), we certainly 
put up with a lot, and I wondered how I kept from beating the living crap 
out of some of these people.

Ah well, tomorrow it'll all be behind me.  After that, I only have one 
person to deal with: my frenemy, the VP of Operations.