1. You've just begun your new job in customer service at a fast food restaurant. Your job is to answer the phone and assist customers with their orders. The phone rings. You should:
a. Answer the phone on the first ring.
b. Wait until the second ring when something pops up on the caller ID.
c. Hesitate and glance around expectantly in hopes that someone else will answer the phone.
d. Let the phone ring and ring to no apparent end until you 'feel like' answering it.

2. When necessary, your job also requires you to assist customers in person at the store. You are chatting away with your coworker about last weekend's monster truck rally. When someone enters the store, you should:
a. Greet the customer within three seconds and ask how you can help him.
b. Continue talking with your coworker until the customer asks for assistance.
c. Stare blankly at the customer and wait for her to speak first.
d. Continue your conversation at length. Be sure to discuss your personal life in extreme and loud detail, fielding questions and providing physical demonstrations when necessary. If the customer is still waiting around for some reason, ask him gruffly what the hell he wants.

3. The nature of your employment is food service. You deliver a mistaken order to a customer. The customer returns and requests that the situation be corrected. She also suggests that you throw away the food she opened. You should:
a. Apologize sincerely and correct the mistake as soon as possible.
b. Sigh pointedly to convey your irritation with the customer's request.
c. Tell the customer you'll remake her order but that she should speak more clearly next time.
d. Glare at the customer as you haphazardly throw her order together. Get her out of your sight as soon as possible.

4. The customer from question 3 returned her incorrect order to you. She has already opened and touched the food. You should:
a. Be sure to throw the food away. If she's already taken it out of the store, it can't be served to someone else.
b. Leave the mistaken order sitting out and hope someone else will deal with it.
c. Eat the order yourself. It may not be good enough for her, but it's good enough for you.
d. Rebag the order and serve it to another customer. It's a sin to waste food and you don't want to have to make anything else anyway.

5. Due to some bizarre clerical oversight, you have been promoted to assistant manager of a fast food delivery establishment. You should:
a. Do your best work with a smile on your face. Be sure to follow company standards and policies. Remember, you set the tone.
b. Make the best of a bad situation. Follow the rules when you can. No one's perfect all the time.
c. Ignore your employees and the customers. You're the boss. Why should you have to do any work?
d. Whine loudly and incessantly to anyone and everyone who will listen. You are so put upon. How dare people expect you to do your job and supervise others at the same time. You're not God.

6. A customer ordered an additional serving of sauce for which she was charged a nominal fee. This customer later called back to complain that she did not receive her extra sauce. You should:
a. Do whatever it takes to satisfy the customer. Refund a portion of her money or send out a free side order with her extra sauce. Honor your company's satisfaction guarantee.
b. Apologize and promise to include the extra sauce next time she orders.
c. Tell the customer that she should not complain over such a trivial thing and tell her to get a life.
d. Be a spiteful bitch and send out her extra sauce an hour after her order. She won't be able to use the sauce with her meal, but at least she's gotten what she paid for. That'll teach her to complain.

7. Finish this sentence: "The customer is always __________."
a. Right, especially when the customer is wrong. This is the number one rule of customer service.
b. There. It doesn't matter what your attitude is. There will always be more work to due.
c. Irritating. Sure, the customers contribute to the bottom line, but man are they annoying.
d. Wrong. The customers are so stupid. We only get calls from morons here. They're lucky we bother helping them at all.

8. The oft-touted golden rule of life is:
a. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
b. I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.
c. Look out for number one. If you don't take care of yourself, no one else will.
d. Life's a bitch and then you die. Fuck you.

If you answered 'a' to most of the questions above, give yourself a pat on the back. You have a good attitude about customer service and you're probably delightful to work with. If you answered 'b' or 'c,' you could be doing better. Remember that the whole point of customer service is to serve the customers.

If you answered 'd' to any or all of the questions above, you are a scourge upon humanity. You may think I hate you, but my hatred is nothing compared to the loathing the customers have for you and your ilk. Get over yourself and quit being such a spiteful bitch already. I'll see you at work.

Someone got here by searching for: "Books are better than movies because" And: fake coin for laundry Reading: Recent back issues of Entertainment Weekly. Listening to: Weezer. Watching: Pieces of April, which was a decent enough movie that I may just have to add it to the Thanksgiving rotation. Sean Hayes sure was intolerable, though.