"This is purely off the cuff, but I'd venture to guess that a sizable percentage of those who are rude/mean to service industry personnel haven't ever been employed in a service job."
I have a feeling that you know exactly how close to right you are.
"One of the problems is that management does not care if the employee is treated like crap. All they care about is returning customers and $$$."
BINGO!!
A lot of times, it's the upper management that is the problem with poor customer service.
The company I work for now is geared toward how the peons can make more money for the executives under the guise of "better customer service" and "running the business in the interest of stock holders". Is this the way it's taught in business school? That if you have a business degree and manage to get into an executive level, that everyone below you is only there to make money just for the high-level management while using, abusing, and throwing away your employees?
That would seem akin to flattening your tires and expecting to win a cross-country race. It seems like many companies do this.
Where I work, all the employees used to get a $50 Christmas bonus. That ended a few years ago, yet all the executives STILL get a huge one. At the end of our fiscal year, they stop hiring, cut hours, no overtime, just so the company's profit margin will look better so the executives can get a bigger bonus. Read: they're trying to cut my hours, and no possibility of overtime, to fatten their paychecks. And since we're short handed, that translates into working us harder which does not help customer service any. And the running the business in the interest of the stock holders? I own lots of stock in this company and it hasn't done a damn thing for me except cost me money.
I met THE main CEO of our company and he made the mistake of asking me how to help the company save money. Of course my manager and supervisor knows me all too well and were just CRINGING because I'm the type of person that will give you a warning before answering a question you really don't want to know the answer to. And I don't kiss ass to anybody. Not even my bosses and they know this.
So I asked him if he was absolutely sure if he wanted an honest answer because I had a few highly effective, easily implemented solutions to help the company immensely.
He said "sure". I said "OK" innocently.
So I tell him that everyone can survive on $30K-$40K/year and that it should apply to everyone in the company from the very top down. No bonuses for anyone. This will save the company MILLIONS in the 1st quarter alone, not to mention the entire year. Also, you run us shorthanded, and run us into the ground with everything you heap on us to do. AND by your own admission, our job is *MUCH* harder than yours. Let's see you do our job. Several of us here have several degrees between us, none of them business, yet we know we can do your job easily. I can see getting your money's worth out of your employees, but there comes a point where pinching that penny is going to make it scream. Also, running us shorthanded like you do, does nothing to help the customer service that you keep advertising to the people and drilling into us. HOW are we to give the customers good service when there is only 2 of us and we have to literally wait on 50 people, all who are wanting our attention at the same time. It stands to reason that if we have enough people to take care of the customers, they will be less likely to go to the competition to get waited on. They will leave happy customers, if nothing else, just in the fact that they were attended to in a timely, non-rushed manner, meaning they will come back when they need something else.
I stopped there because I was getting a "deer in headlights" look. He replied "You're not a company man, are you?" I just told him that "Yes, I am." If he would think about it for 2 seconds, it will make the company more money almost instantly."
He decided to leave quickly after that. Still nothing has changed as we knew it wouldn't. They're still asking the same questions while expecting different answers. Isn't that the definition of insanity?
I think my biggest question is HOW do these morons get these high-level positions? Do they lie like hell on their resumes, or what?