John Turner wrote:
"Ross" replied to

John Turner who wrote

Self-employment where you survive or fail by your own efforts.

That would be like, for example, plumbers and jobbing builders,
neither group being people exactly famed for their customer service
abilities? Yet both groups seem to live pretty well, going by the
anecdotal evidence.

Yes but I wasn't including *criminal activity* in my argument. ;-)

My wife and I run a small model shop where we are totally reliant on
the good will of our customers. We've been doing that for almost
twenty years, but not many customers come back if you treat them with
contempt, so we have to treat them well.


But there again, running a model shop you're meeting only those people who
*want* to be there and are induging in their hobby (unless they're buying a
prezzie or somesuch). On that basis I would suggest that you will almost
always be dealing with people who are pleasant and polite. The only time
that someone is likely to be upset about anything is if something they've
bought is defective in some way, but even then most people realise thet you
didn't do it deliberately and are happy to accept your efforts to put things
right.

Does such a situation prevail between railway passengers and station staff?