Cranky Tenants: Part I

Face it, everyone who has ever worked customer service will agree, “The customer is NOT always right.”

Outwardly we smile, placate and apply our best people skills, but we bite our tongues and remind ourselves that this is a business and customer satisfaction = customer retention = $$: Or in my case, tenant retention. And right now, we have 100% occupancy, which = $$ = Owner Satisfaction.

So the other day, as I was passing out notes to all the tenants, the usual stuff of safety, BBQs and parking restrictions (only one car per apartment may park in the lot).

• Rude Dude: Calls to me from the flight above and demands to know what the notes say.
• Me: “The usual, landlord notices.”
• Rude Dude, is glaring at me, he wants to know, now!
• Me thinking: I am not shouting across the decks, nor am I running upstairs and giving you special delivery, you can wait while I finish posting the notices on this deck.
• Finally, I worked my way to his apartment, then handed him the notices and walked to the next apartment door.
• Rude Dude, reads the parking restrictions and states: “This does NOT apply to me!” then ripped the notices.
• Me, firmly: “Sorry, it applies to every tenant.” And I kept moving onto the next row of apartment doors.
• Rude Dude: “We’ll see!”
• Me, knowing that this guy likes to complain about me to the owners, I simply moved on.
• Rude Dude had more to say, but I wasn’t taking the bait.
• Next Tenant, came out, caught the end of his act, smiled and said: “Don’t worry, I got your back.”
• Me: “Awwhh thanks.”

Rude Dude had all three cars parked right under my door, even made show of jockeying them around.

He just shot himself in the foot. His neighbors will want to know why he gets three spaces and they get none, and why they must park on the street, sometimes a block away. He needs to read Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People."

Yep, don’t ya just love customer service!