How a difficult customer met is match!!

Many years ago I was employed in a certain financial institution in Nairobi.

One of the clients that I served was a sour puss and a particularly difficult person who wore a permanent scowl on his face. His soul(pun intended)purpose in life semed to be to make everyone's life miserable and his mantra whenever he came to the office was that someone would shed tears that day and many (ladies particularly) had indeed shed tears when he was in one of his fantastically foul moods and complaining bitterly about none issues and making up stories and reporting to the superiors completely out of context. Consequently, no one wanted to serve him and many were completely scared by him unable to construct a single coherent statement or even utter a feeble good morning to him lest he spews his verbiage on you..........except for yours truly that is!

He was one of the larger depositors of the institution and was therefore well respected mostly by the seniors who seem to take his word for the gospel truth. He was hated by everyone else that had the misfortune to serve him. After all wasn't the customer always right? Mr. Sour Puss had no grace and would barge into an office oblivious of the fact that one could be serving another customer and insist that he be served first as he was always in a perpetual hurry over every one else upsetting clients and staff alike. No one seemed to have the guts to tell him off lest he takes his money away and you lost you job in the process. We weren't even sure if he loved his wife at all because so nasty and loutish was his behaviour he was probably the same at home!

Now I was another thing all together, blame it on the innocence of youth or the foolhardiness of inexperience, I will never really know. On my first encounter with Mr. Sour Puss he barged into my office when I was serving someone and I gave him the one minute finger to show that I would be with him shortly and that he should close the door on his way out thank you! He stood there looking confused and not knowing what to do, "didn't this young whipper snapper know who the f*** he was dealing with" probably writ large across his face. I was too busy then to notice his face turn an unhealthy shade of red in anger but he stepped out nonetheless!

As fate would have it, Mr. Sour Puss had gone to God knows where (probably to report me to my boss for gross insubordination I suspect) when I opened my door to let out the client I had been serving. Naturally I took on the next client who was waiting to be served. A few minutes later he poked his now decidedly annoyed face through the door to indicate his presence but by now I was well ensconsed with my client and I was having none of his bullying so another one minute finger went up.

The next thing I heard was a tirade of unprintable words and explectives from the other side of the door because as I came to learn, Mr. Sour Puss could curse with the best of them, then my door was flung open and Mr. Sour Puss now accompanied by one of the Managers strode in almost at the point of a fit and shaking in uncontrollable rage glaring at me with his red eyes and his moustache shaking on his top lip like a frightened mouse!

It was a sight to behold and that ladies and gentlemen was my first encounter with a difficult customer! I shall not go into the details of that shambolic maiden visit with Mr. Sour Puss but I shall mention that he was rude and abusive and a real war monger but somehow I survived that encounter pretty much unscathed.

I am not sure Mr. Sour Puss had ever met someone like me younger than his youngest child as he told me later but completely nonplussed by his scowly face and irrascible behavior. I was the opposite of all my colleagues calling out a cheery "Good Morning" whenever he stepped into my office (after waiting for the person I was serving to conclude his business by the way) even if his only response was a grunt and concluding with a "see you next time" as we ended our meeting. I was determined to ensure that his famously belligerent behavior would never make me have a bad day and if anything a cheery, positive and right attitude would eventually win the day and from then on my mission in life was to make him break into a smile however pained it looked when he came to the office.

Over the next few months, my strategy seemed to work because eventually he started coming to the office in a better mood and even took to greeting the staff members he met as he made his way to my office and even began staying a little longer to share stories and his experiences of life this time with a smiling face, a real contrast to the haughty and arrogant man I had encountered a few short months ago that was ready to eat me for lunch on our first encounter for not recognising the important man that he was.

Over the years,experience has taught me that a positive attitude is everything. It does not matter how difficult a person is, they all have a spot that you can touch and change them to a more pleasant human being in time!!