January 2009 Archives

I was told not too long ago by someone that the year 2007 brought about a rather large change to the working masses. That change was that the number of service-based jobs out numbered that of production jobs. Now whether this is due to robots from the Robotic Uprising of the Late 90's, or that the majority of the population is too busy or too rich to worry about learning how to do things themselves isn't quite known. But no matter how you answer that question, an even larger one comes up, "Is the customer always right?" I'm sure everyone's heard that expression before — probably from working in retail or for some older gentleman when they were young — "The customer is always right, even when he's not." But in today's society of extreme specialization, can we still opperate productively by that same principle? Can we trust that the consumer (or client) isn't out to just get a superior service for an inferior price? And once we do believe the consumer/client isn't out to just get a deal, do we push for their education through our experience and expertise or simply give them that for which they are asking?