I have made an educated guess that the thing that has been bothering me has irked dozens of other folks here at CSUN as well. And that something is customer treatment on campus.

Too many times, I have encountered what I consider bad customer treatment and I have to say something about it.

I have never been more dissatisfied with the customer treatment I have received here. I expect others have also received a sample of this treatment as well.

There were several times, for example, when I have been to the Sierra Center and when I reached the cash register, the attitude of some cashiers was not good, or even decent, at all.

On some occasions, while purchasing food, some cashiers did not even look at or speak to me, except when letting me know what the price of what I was buying was.

I wish I could say this was an isolated incident, but there are several other places on campus where I have been, mostly locations that sell food, where the customer service has been below par.

After several encounters, I had to wonder what the reason for this treatment was.

Could it be the culture of individualism so many of us Americans stick to? Or maybe it’s me; I could be the one at fault.

We customers do have to show decent treatment to the people who are serving us. They work hard and we should be grateful for them. It’s all about reciprocity.

Maybe there is more to the issue. When I think about how I am supposed to be treated, the least of my expectations entails acknowledgement that I am there. The best of my expectations entails someone actually being nice, but that is unrealistic in today’s world.

“So what? Big whoop,” one might say. “People treating their customers like crap has been the case for a long time.”

That shouldn’t be the case, though.

Aren’t people who deal with customers supposed to be at least conscious of how they treat the public? For those of you who have not really treated the people you serve in a pleasant way, you should think about how it affects the business you work for.

Maybe what first got you into customer care, at least I assume so, was that you wanted to serve the public. Then again, you could be doing it for the money.

This isn’t a session to just bash and condemn those who serve the public, however. I have experienced really good treatment from some people on campus. There’s one namely: at a convenient store called The Edge, the workers treat their customers well.

Heck, I’ve even gotten to know some of the people at The Edge: Dottie, Rob, Ernesto and Anne. But maybe that’s a rarity these days.

I hope I am not making a mountain out of a molehill. I just request, on behalf of customers everywhere, to those who serve us, I ask that you please at least be treat us decently.

I’ll even go out on a limb and say that I could be wrong about this. Maybe I was unfotunate enough to experience a few isolated incidents of bad customer service here at CSUN. I sincerely hope that this is the case.

Samuel Richard can be reached at editor@csun.edu.