I think your title is a little inaccurate, it should read, "if you work in customer service, you will deal with stupid people on an hourly basis"

I work as a technician in an auto dealership, a Lincoln/Mercury dealership none-the-less. This means that we deal mainly with stupid angry dolts who shouldn't even be behind the wheel of a two ton peice of steel.

The most common misconception is most customers think that they are the sole supporter of our service department. I suppose part of this has to do with the Lincoln thing. Then there's always the other end, the people who think we discriminate against them because they drive Fords instead of Lincolns.

For example: Our courtesy shuttle driver was taking four people home one morning after they dropped of their cars. Three of them had to go to one side of town, and the fourth to another part. Once the three had been dropped off, the fourth inquired as to why he was last. The driver calmly explained the reasoning, to which he replied, "I suppose if I drove a Lincoln, you would have taken me home first." My God! we don't care what kind of car it is, all work pays the same, the only difference is warranty or customer pay.

One of the funniest things to see is the reaction of people who have pissed us off enough to the point where we not only reccomend that they go to another Ford dealer, but ban them from returning to ours.

Now, I'm not trying to be biased against all customers, we actually have a few really good customers, they cooperate with us, do not lie, and respect us. Some even bring us donuts whenever they bring a car in for major work. (This will earn you major brownie points with technicians, a happy tech will do a better job because they want you to return).

Believe it or not, we have people who complain about the noise in the service drive (right next to the shop). Jesus fuck, what do you expect.

Another person called in complaining that their daughter was intimidated by all the people around and the service writer trying to scare her. I was rolling on the ground laughing for several minutes after hearing that. The work was all warranty and wouldn't cost anything, but it needed to be done, as soon as possible, and the service writer explained this. As for the people....what do you expect, in a place of business, people will be walking around to get things done.

One last thing, for God's sake people, talk to the technicians about what kind of car to buy before you spend that much money on a car, they know what they're talking about. Below are my recommendations for FMC products.

Good: F-Series Pickups/Bronco/Expedition/Navigator, Town car/Grand Marquis/Crown vic, Windstar, Taurus/Sable/Continental, Lincoln LS and Mark series, Ranger pick-ups, Explorer/Mountaineer, Excursion-if you like big, pre-'97 Thunderbird/Couger, Econoline Vans, Mustang

Junk: Escort/ZX2/Tracer, Contour/Mystic/post '99 couger, Villager, Escape, pre '95 Taurus/Sable/Continental

At the risk of bursting anyones' bubbles, the ones with the forward slashes are the same platform, deal with it