Oh no! Your contempt is showing!

We often hear about contempt in the news - airline employees, politicians, customer service representatives (Comcast, usually). But how do you know when an employee of a company feels contempt for you? What does it look like?

 

Interacting with someone who feels contempt (a version of pity) for you is different than someone who feels anger, frustration or who lacks self-awareness (e.g., being too focused on their own lives to notice that they hurt your feelings, forgetting that you are a person too, or forgetting that you have knowledge as well). 

 

Here’s how it’s different. 

Before you realize it, someone who feels contempt towards you has already objectified you. You are not a person in the eyes of someone who feels contempt. It’s easier for someone to stay distant if you are a member of a defined group with specific traits and characteristics versus being a human with thoughts, feelings and a background story. If you have thoughts and feelings, there may be a story as to how you got into your situation - and there may be a solution (based in compassion). Keeping you distant and labelled not only makes it easier to objectify you, but it can help the individual maintain his or her belief system. You are fitting into their story of the world. They are not hearing your story to understand you and see if they can connection to your story. This is the danger of stereotypes and prejudices - someone is basing their understanding of a person on perceivable traits from a group and not on their personhood.  

 

But notice that there is a way to "fix" contempt and that's by breaking through stereotypes and getting to know and understand the person. More on this coming. 

 

Keep in mind that contempt isn’t about love and understanding; it’s about power and control. Rather than the intention of the interaction focusing on how to help the other person, it turns to be “what did you do to cause your situation?” This is the complete opposite of compassion and helping someone solve their problem. 

 

What are some signs that someone may feel contempt towards you as a customer?

The customer is never right. A customer may be participating in a discussion that isn’t just a debate or a time to share ideas, and learn new things with an employee. That employee is doing what he or she can to be right.

This is a different type of discussion than someone talking about facts or arguing a point about how to address an issue or trying to get to the best possible answer. I’m talking about being right even if the person is misguided and plain wrong. The employee keeps the conversation going, rambling across topics to get you to admit that he or she is right about a topic, even going as far as to fall to opinion only and ignore facts.  

Mansplaining is a great example. In those cases, men feel the need to explain something to a woman to be right. And they aren’t proving something to you, but to themselves. They want to be right and make you wrong because, well, to them you are a mere woman.

 

A version of mansplaining can happen to customers by company employees. The customer may make a claim about an event, or product or issue. The employee claims that the customer must be wrong, the company is never wrong. There is no acknowledgement of the customer's point or a path defined so everyone wins. It's only about the employee winning and being right.

A friend of mine shared a story of her experience in Home Depot. She was looking for a specific part. She asked the salesperson where that part was in the store. He showed her where it was but proceeded to tell her that she needed a different part. He never asked her why she needed the part or what she was doing for a project. There was a lot of back and forth between my friend and this employee, a seemingly circular conversation where he kept trying to "be right." Finally, the employee admitted that she had the right part, but then questioned why she had that situation in the first place with this employee. 

That employee's actions are a sign of contempt.

Demonstrating an underlying hostility towards a customer; "Why can't they do what they are supposed to do?" It’s understandable that someone would be annoyed at answering the same question four times in a row. But there can be a response based on being tired of answering the same question, stressed about the line of 30 people all wanting to get a fast answer "right now," and annoyed that these customers keep asking questions, thinking "sigh can’t they just figure this out on their own? "

A great example of an employee feeling contempt is the American Airlines guy who loses it. I mean, we’re not just talking anger. He obviously can’t understand why the customers are upset, and we can only assume that he believes they caused their own problems, he constantly defends his behavior (because he is right - and will be right, darn it!), and wants the customers to just do what they are supposed to do (in this case, give him the stroller and quietly sit in their seats and not speak up). 

It's dangerous for an employee to think that a customer should be able to solve a problem on his own and that they caused their own problem. The next series of thoughts after those can include "why" that customer can't solve their own problem, which can introduce negative, prejudicial sentiments like: because they just aren’t smart enough, can’t speak English well enough, are female or some other factor. The person is again, objectified, and reduced to a handful of traits. If the employee got to know him or her and the situation, most likely the response would be different. But that's not happening. 

 

Ignoring a customer. Somehow employees think ignoring customers is ok, but it isn’t. If you have been ignored by a team or an individual, you know what I’m talking about. You feel invisible and not heard. In a way, ignoring or excluding a customer is a form of passive-aggressive behavior. You are placing that person outside the group because they are somehow different from you, saying something you don't agree with, or aggravate you. Now, you may be ignoring someone because they are mean spirited. That's a different story.

 

Sometimes an employee will ignore a customer, hoping he or she will go away and solve the problem on their own. They caused it, they should solve it. That's not helpful and will only present a company in a negative light. The customer will believe the company doesn't care, which most likely, isn't true. The managers in that company would care if they heard that complaint. Only that employee doesn't care. But the employee may not realize the impact he is having on that customer - and the company's image - that's the problem! 

 

Calling a customer a name. Yes, sometimes people can be 12. This is never acceptable, but it seems to happen when contempt is present. We see this frequently in politics today with people calling others “libtards” and “snowflakes.” Name calling is a type of objectification. That person isn’t an individual with a rationale and reasoning as to why he believes as he does. And we have already covered where that goes.

 

Subtle negative comments. Has someone ever said something to you or near you that made you do a double take, but no one seemed to notice or care? No, it wasn’t a mistake and no, you didn’t hear them wrong. They said it. Most likely, if what the person said distressed you, it wasn’t a mistake, or at least a conscious mistake.

 

If the person who made such a comment was an employee saying this to a customer, depending on what was said, there could be a lawsuit. It sounds extreme, but there are many videos today of employees speaking inappropriately to customers. If you are in that situation as an employee, before you speak, pause, and ask yourself why you are saying what you are saying. There may be a personal issue driving that comment - from being jealous that the person is model-thin to her resembling your mother-in-law who you hate. 

 

 

Contempt is never acceptable, especially at work or between employees and customers. However, if you feel contempt towards someone and notice that you are exhibiting some of the traits above, pause before you act and think through what you are saying (or doing) and why. You may be overwhelmed and need a break. The customer may remind you of someone you don't like. There could be many triggers for your contempt.

 

However, the best way to break the tension and remove the contempt is to ask that person to share their story. 

• How is their day?
• Why did they buy the product?
• What is their weekend like?
• What are your plans today?

Getting personal always erases contempt, especially because it is during those moments when we realize that we are all humans with thoughts, emotions and stories trying to do our best. And we start to find common ground. Connect with each other. Find common life experience. Start to feel empathy.