allow me to introduce myself

Hello my name is Michael "Max Ham" Gatti....Max Ham being my pen and production name. I am 23 years old with a full time job at wal mart my ambitions are to make a film that will get me somewhere into the industry. Currently I am working on a documentary about retail and horrors of customer service.
 
How are you going about that documentary? Taking cameras to work? Or just telling the tale of it?

Remember the old slogan 'The customer is always right!'

I assume that has long since gone out the back window...or has it? I always thought that if I the customer were always right and I told you the employee that the 64 inch hd tv set was free -
 
I think the tenets of what is called Direct Cinema would be key to making a doc about the horrors of retail. Check out the Maysles Bros. movie "Salesman" to see what I'm talking about.
 
If you need someone to interview, give me a buzz. I worked in Customer Service for 15 years, and I've gotten a really neat theory as to how it's gone from "The Customer is Always Right" to "The customer wants everything now, and wants it free and make sure you meet your stats"

It is sad what has become of it.
 
Welcome Grasshopper!

I'm one of the audio guys here.

Keep in mind that the search function is your friend. Everyone here is always very glad to help you out, but a lot of the "basics" questions have been asked and answered many times.

And always remember:


"Sound is half of the experience"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/WCyJRXvPNRo&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/WCyJRXvPNRo&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

"Old man, how is it that you hear these things?"

"Young man, how is it that you do not?"
 
I am going about it in about five different segments that are sides to being a customer. The first segment focuses on just the surface of customers, their behavior, how managers tend to help create horrible monsters by bending store rules and regulations for them. The second segment is more about the psychology of customers. How we grow up thinking if I'm the customer I can get whatever I want no matter what. And maybe the fact that we are creating monsters by our kids seeing us act that way. The third segment focuses on marketing on a corporate scale. The advertisements places tend to focus on is "you the customer is the most important role to us." And i focus on how maybe on the corporate level they have standards that are impossible to meet down on a customer service level. The last segment is one of more irony than anything else and I will be interviewing customers and asking for their horrible customer service stories....because part of the problem can be the cashier...not all of us in customer service are innocent from incompetence and I see that.

Anyone who wants to help is welcome especially for interviews even if it kind of has to be virtual interview from a webcam or something. Thank you all for your replies
 
I had a flashback here, black Friday 2008 - scene - WalMart in Long Island somewhere. Remember that day? A security guard was stampeded to death by crazed shoppers in search of a good sale. They ran over the guy and killed him all in the name of a cheap deal.

Are people no different than the wild kingdom when it comes down to it? Instead of scavengers in search of food, its scavengers in search of the laptop.
People are reptilian sometimes.

The other day I was in line at the supermarket and a lady was exiting via the electronic doors. The alarm went off and she froze. One of the young cashiers told her it was okay, she could leave. He explained that the alarms go off sometimes. She said she wasn't going to leave and shouted for a manager. The manager went over - meanwhile the lady was blocking the door and prohibiting anyone else from exiting that particular door. She screamed that the alarms should not have gone off on her and demanded to know what the store was going to do about it. The manager explained that alarms go off sometimes...this was not acceptable to the woman who screamed louder that the store had better get their act together because someday an 85 year old woman will walk through the door and panic at the sound of the alarm. The manager informed her it probably already happened but most people don't freak out...the woman said something that I couldn't hear and scoffed out the doors. Everyone, both staff and customers began laughing.
Maybe she went to her lawyers office.
 
Out of curiosity(and I'm not trying to change your idea), but will there be stuff about how the front line grunts in customer service are treated(or is that part of the first part about creating the problem?)

IE: I used to work for call center that handled calls for a certain cell phone company. On more than one occassion, I would talk and explain to a customer why we couldn't do it(and the Supervisors were adamant we couldn't do this thing). So anyway, after arguing, customer wants to talk to supervisor. I hand it over after saying(and we are told to say) that they will just tell them what we told them. Supervisor then does a 180 and gives the customer the thing we told them they couldn't get, totally undermining my authority and feeling like my supervisor didn't have my back at all.

At the end of my career I was a wreck mentally and emotionally. I don't do it anymore, and it still has contributed to difficulties I have now. Awful, awful stuff.


I don't have a webcam, but if you want I can shoot you an email, you can email me questions, or hey, I'll video them for you (I'll even be disguised incognito :)).

Let me know.
 
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