Every day, it seems, I learn a little bit more about the oppression of men. Recently, for example, I learned that men who are working customer service jobs are oppressed because they are prohibited from punching their customers, even when these customers are really, really annoying, and possibly even ladies. At least that’s the lesson I took from a recent Facebook posting by MRA and frequent Spearhead contributor Jack Donovan. Here’s Jack:
Men want to carry their own weight, but to do so, they may have to take a job which requires them to choose “flight” over “fight” as part of their regular duties. All customer service oriented jobs, for instance, require men to take abuse from … someone who is angrily issuing insults and challenge cues … and reply submissively.
Even worse is when some of these poor men, like Jack, are natural “alphas” forced to take these beta-ass jobs because for some reason the people in charge of hiring haven’t recognized their awesome alphaness:
It would be interesting to see someone do a study tracking the testosterone levels of “alpha” type men who would not choose a customer service job, but who were forced to take a position where they had to apologize and beg forgiveness from abusive women and “betas” all day.
It’s almost like you have to act as if the customer is always right!
As a man who had blood in his face for *several hours* after having to hold my tongue while I was screamed at by a neurotic old female customer this week, the physical effects were pretty noticeable in the short term. I was murderously furious for hours and then emotionally exhausted and kind of depressed through the next day.
Wouldn’t it have been better for everyone – with the possible exception of the old lady, of course, and the rest of the customers, and maybe the firm employing Mr. Donovan – if he could have chosen “fight” instead of “flight,” and just popped that old bat in the nose? Problem fucking solved!
Let’s just shut down the economy and the judicial system for a day or two while we work out a way that Mr. Donovan can just punch people without any consequences. Because he’s an alpha, damn it, and he really shouldn’t be hemmed in by petty “laws” and “social conventions” and “moral codes” clearly meant for betas and ladies and other losers.
EDITED TO ADD: Donovan has responded to this post in the comments here. He says he’s not an MRA, so I’ve edited out that part. (I did find his Facebook post through a link on the MR subreddit, FWIW.)
I should clarify that Donovan did not talk directly about punching people; he talked about the “fight or flight” instinct.
Kind of makes you question the whole “alpha” thing, right?
I work customer service and I have a vagina and I sometimes want to punch people… am I oppressed too?
I worked for some time in customer service.
Believe me, the ammount of idiotic stuff I have encountered would be sufficent for a lifetime.
And even worse, I was supporting people who were having troubles with their computers. The picture was surely not pretty.
Punching people rarely resolves issues… actually, scratch that, I think it never works, not really in the long run.
If one is such a smuck that can’t convince an old lady (truly the stuff of noghtmares… what an alpha ladies and gentleman) maybe they should change their job to something that is not customer service?
Clients are rude, entitled, boring and do not listen and water is wet.
It sounds to me that this dude has issues with a culture which approves of customer abuse and the whole alpha stuff is just for him not feeling like a complete loser for not being able to work anything better than custommer support.
Abusive customers really do tear you up emotionally, and the stress on customer service workers stuck in an “all the responsibility and none of the power” position can be obscene. So I sympathize with that.
But boo fucking hoo that you’re an Alpha getting abused by Betas and–gasp–women. (How do you even know that someone is a Beta on brief interaction? Do you sniff his ass? Check for a silverback? Mount him and see if he submits?) It’s yet another case where MRAs have the seeds of a legitimate grievance, but choose to take that legitimacy to Asshole Town with “I should be treated like a powerful dominant creature because I have two balls and no manners!”
Customer service workers shouldn’t be put in a position where they’re continuously faced with problems they have no power to solve, and they should be empowered to hang up on or kick out truly abusive customers. Whether they’re a big important Alpha who won’t deign to deal with lesser beings is not part of this equation.
Other Girlfriend works the ticket counter for an airline.
Oh, the stories she tells…
And OF COURSE the abusive customer is a woman. Why am I not at all shocked.
I worked as a grocery store cashier for three years. I had countless men demand that I smile for them. I had an old man physically pick up and throw the next customer’s groceries off the belt because he couldn’t understand that if he just let his items come to the front, the mechanical eye would make it stop. I had men refuse to believe my answer to their questions about prices or sales until I got a male manager to tell them the exact same thing.
I had one abusive female customer. She threw a bag of groceries at my head because the check-printing machine ate her check and I had to get a manager’s key to open the register and retrieve it.
Jack’s right that service workers get abused by customers. His framing of the issue as part of some bullshit “battle of the sexes” is a load of crap, though.
Also, be nice to your service workers. We’re people, too.
Uhm… I… I’m trying to think of something snarky to say about this, but I’m just taken aback. Who can actually support this sort of thing?
Isn’t he the gay guy who calls himself an androphile and detests other queer ppl and is transphobic? xD
He’s the one who said if Michaelangelo was born in this time, he’d be forced to make signs for gay pride parade and to become a hairdresser… >_> (and apparently would then have a deep seated desire to inflict violence on his customers)
I heard a Wal-Mart employee crying in the bathroom a few weeks ago. Some other employees were consoling her and giving her tissues. She described how an irate customer cussed her out and called her some names I can’t repeat. I don’t think verbal abuse should be part of a job. Some customers are on a power trip, and love how they are allowed to bully people in low paying jobs. However, that doesn’t mean an employee needs to respond to the idiocy with physical assault. They should be allowed to complain to their bosses, and have make customers leave when they throw violent temper tantrums. In high school, I waited tables at a restaurant, and our boss was very protective of his employees. If customers verbally abused us or sexually harassed us, they were kicked out. More businesses need to do that.
The trick, I think, would be to not let your work consume you and to find outlets for your stress. What I think is interesting is that they romanticize an imaginary era when jobs didn’t involve taking shit from people. Jobs have always involved taking shit from people for all but a small portion of the population, and not being able to retaliate physically.
He turns an issue that many of us can relate to into some nonsensical asshole rant. I don’t get it. Can’t you just vent about your sucky job like a normal person?
See, at first I read “blood on his face for *several hours*” and I was wondering if the story ended with him punching the old lady and then leaving the blood there (on his face) for several hours afterwards, as a warning to the others.
That would have been a better story. Just sayin’.
I think you’ve really hit the nail on the head, Holly Pervocracy. It’s not that there aren’t legitimate grievances about service positions buried in there. It’s that he thinks that’s fine for other, lesser people, but he’s entitled to just. so. much. more. On account of his magnificent penis! All worship the penis!
Off-topic, I’m new here 🙂 seems like a fun place!
Maybe the phrase “The customer is always right” needs to have a disclaimer of *within reason added to it.
…and then a bunch of other people hit the same nail on the same head, and I didn’t give any of you credit because apparently I hadn’t refreshed the page in a long time! Commenting is so hard 🙁
I have had a few customer support and help desk support jobs. Dealing with annoying and irate customers is part of the job. If you don’t like the treatment you are getting, the solution is to find a job where you don’t have to do customer service or deals less with the public directly. Punching people isn’t going to fix anything.
Why limit it to just alphas? I am sure there are a bunch of betas that would like to punch an irate customer but don’t.
Hey, Jack, welcome to the working world. You’re always gonna have to eat shit, be it in an office or a CS position. Other than that, this is standard MRA “wah! Life’s not faaaaaair” whining.
There’s just no need to be a dick to anyone.
At the court I work at, if you are rude to the clerks you get to talk to the judge. If you are still rude, you get to an all expenses paid trip to the Arpaio Hilton.
Well not really all expenses paid, the judge can order you to pay your incarceration costs.
The judge used to work in customer service and backs up any clerk 100%.
I don’t think we should just say customer abuse should be an acceptable part of a job, though. It’s one thing to deal with an irate customer, but if they make threatening comments then they cross the line. I also don’t think customers should be allowed to make lewd comments and grope employees either. Not enough businesses define what kind of behavior is or isn’t allowed, and it’s wrong that workers sometimes endure abuse and harassment and believe it’s just a normal part of having a job. A workplace that refuses to protect its employees might be setting itself up for a lawsuit.
A lot of posters have already mentioned that the abuse of customer service workers is NOT OKAY, and it’s pretty hard to disagree with that. Jack Donovan is displaying a shocking amount of blindness when he says that abuse of customer service workers is okay just as long as it’s not against him. It’s even less okay if women do it.
This reminds me of One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest — anyone read this story lately? The first time I read it, I thought it was awesome. It was a terrible story about someone who is being mistreated by an unfeeling system. Then I reread it as an adult. It turns out that it’s (kind of) a story about a straight white man who is being subjugated by blacks and women instead of being given his proper respect.
It’s still a great story, mind you. And in the same way, I would say that Jack Donovan’s complaint is a very legitimate one. But we need to remember that a poor woman who spends forty years in customer service, bottling up more rage than Jack Donovan will ever have to face, has an even more legitimate complaint than he does. And there are millions of women like that.
The physical effects that he describes, depression and exhaustion, these are real. And they have measurable impacts on population-wide health outcomes. Not just for alphas, but for everyone.
I’ve certainly taken my fair share of abuse from women in customer service – even though I’m a good tipper, and spend money in a friend of mine’s pub, his female staff are totally bitter, and let’s face it, most people aren’t cut out for customer service. In their case, they are usually single, pushing 30, and are still working in a pub, waiting for someone to discover them and make them a model/actress/singer, because they are oooooh sooooo talented.
No real alpha male would work in customer service, and most certainly wouldn’t let anyone get to him so much that he felt his only recourse was to punch someone in the face.
Viscaria:
Welcome 😀 And don’t worry, I think many of the posters here experienced the situation that the discussion has long moved on since they last refreshed.
And I agree: Donovan brought up a legitimate point, but swiftly turned it into this weird alpha-bullshit.
Ami:
Oh, it’s that guy?
Wasn’t he also super obsessed with manliness and masculinity, while hating everything remotely “feminine”?
One would think that a customer service job would be too “girly” for him in itself. I guess that doubles the frustration of being treated unfairly and not being able to punch things and people.
… Seriously… he… says he should be allowed to attack obnoxious customers… I… what? No, seriously, what?
I work customer service and I have a vagina and I sometimes want to punch people… am I oppressed too?
Of course not. Taking shit from people is women’s (and possibly lesser men’s) work.
I have a rather strange thing I say when dealing with clients who are irrational. I pause and then say in different words depending on the situation “why are being so mean to me”.
If I phased it as ” you’re coming across as very aggressive can we step back from that” the response will be “I’m not”. It works wonders, if the voice raises again it’s easy to say that your stepping into unacceptable behavior.
I have a policy at my job, some people are not meant to be our clients.
I had a employee who had a dashboard thrown at her where the thrower wanted it replaced immediately because there was a scuff mark. She was a sales person and on commission. I still love her answer: “Dude I will pay you out of pocket what I have in my wallet to go away and expect an assault charge ”
There are a lot of companies that let customer service workers take abuse. I’ve heard MRA’s say that women are the abusive clients. I work in trucking, the boating industry etc. Next to no women in either, I do plastic forming for toys for boys. Can be very abusive.
The good thing is there are no MRA’s except for the few maybe 300 out of a population of a billion. Never met one in real life so I would guess it’s not a popular movement.