[Cin]

I don't know anything about Market Place. This was the first time I've ever watched the show and it did clear up something for me. I always wondered if the rather rude treatment I would receive from many store clerks was a uniquely Quebec thing, or even a Montreal thing, or perhaps a French thing, which I doubted since many store employees were not French, although it might be cultural, an unconscious mindset that seeped into the psyche of all customer service employees. What watching the show last night did for me was make it clear that the 'I'm blind to your existence' thing that I experience from most employees in most stores appears to be Canada wide. I've never made a racist, sexist or homophobic comment about anyone, let alone a store employee that I was trying to get help from. I was certainly never rude from the get go. But I've been treated so poorly, so often, that I've learned not to bother asking for help.

However, there are other aspects that would fall under the umbrella of poor service that I've never experienced outside of Quebec, although having only shopped in Ontario and Nova Scotia, I don't know if i have enough data to make that claim as reality. It's just been my experience.

In Montreal I've learned to jump out of the way when employees are walking down the aisles with stock that they are replenishing the shelves with. I've been hit on three separate occasions and never received as much as an "I'm sorry." As a matter of fact I was screamed at and followed around a grocery store by an employee who was angry because I complained that he hit me with a pallet of groceries.

I've also given up trying to look at anything where an employee is putting up stock. In the Dollarama I was trying to reach something just behind two employees with a cart who were reticketing some items. I explained I needed to get something and asked if they could move the cart just a tad. They were talking to each other and just ignored me. I reached over the cart to grab the article I wanted to purchase and one of the clerks pushed the cart into my arm and scrapped the skin on my forearm. I complained but they continued to ignore me. I told the woman she had scraped my arm and it was bleeding. She just started to talk to the other women and continued to ignored me. I couldn't understand the language they were speaking so I don't know if they were talking about me or about the weather. I kept on pointing to my arm and saying that she had hurt me. Finally she said and I quote, "Well, you shouldn't have tried to reach around the cart." I went to find a manager. When I did find the manager, I explained what happened. She looked blankly at me and my arm, didn't offer any advice, any sympathy for my experience, or even a band-aid. However, when it was clear I wasn't going anywhere until somebody addressed my issue, she asked if I had told the clerk I needed her to move. I said I did but she ignored me, just like she did when I complained about how she scraped my arm with the cart. And then she blamed me for reaching over her cart even though I had no way of knowing she would choose that exact moment to move the cart. I explained that a simple "oh, I'm sorry." would have ended it right there, I didn't even need a band-aid as I have some in my car. So the manager dutifully apologized in the most uninterested monotone one could imagine. Still since it was the first one I had ever received since coming to Montreal, it would do. Now I just walk on by if an employee is stocking or working around something I need. It just isn't worth it. Whatever I wanted to buy can wait or I can try to buy it some place else.

When I first moved to Montreal from Boston, other than the fact that people actually use their directionals, drive even faster than we do in Boston, and that Montreal is the only place in Quebec (maybe even in Canada) that you are not allowed to turn right on red because we can't be trusted, this rude thing from store clerks was the most different experience. And also the most jarring and difficult to get used to.

I get that people are overworked, that companies need to save money and put more work on their employees as a way to do it. I am always mindful of this. I am a working class stiff myself. I cut my teeth on dead end customer service type jobs and if I had not stumbled into human services and fallen in love with the population I work for, I would still be doing them. However, I have never treated anyone the way a large number of employees seem to feel comfortable treating me. I don't get it. And I don't deserve it.

And as far as not having the right not to serve customers, I certainly don't think that is the case here in Montreal. Everywhere I go, from grocery stores to hospitals, there are signs hung clearly explaining the kind of behavior they will not tolerate and can refuse service for. I was rather surprised when I came here and first saw these signs. I wondered to myself why would people have to tell other people not to swear, or be verbally or physically assaultive. Then I experienced how customers are treated, how frustrated you can get and I immediately understood the need for the signs everywhere. Although I believe simply treating people better might also work.