The Customer is Always Wrong by CC Standish

Genre: Fiction, Dark Humor Format: eBook Publication Date: 01/15/2016
Source: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Summary

Conrad Jacoby (known as "C.J.") is close to graduating high school and has already developed a plan that will enable him to move out of his parents' house within a few months. The problem is that high school has not prepared him for the harsh realities of the "real world," and he discovers that the only jobs he can get are dead-end, mind-numbing, and menial at best.

Narrated by the protagonist, The Customer is Always Wrong follows C.J. as he pursues his goals of saving up money to move out of his parents' home and trying to find interesting work in the food service and retail industries. In order to achieve his goals, C.J. has to deal with different personalities ranging from managers on power trips, shady co-workers, and dissatisfied customers. While each personality that C.J. encounters evoke different responses from him; each response is witty, sarcastic, often humorous, and characteristic of a cocky and too-intelligent-for-his-own-good young adult.

Review

I really was not sure what I was getting myself into when I agreed to review this book. I suppose I was expecting something like the movie "Clerks," but discovered that the book was reminiscent of my days as a young adult working in the customer service industry. While I was not nearly as expressive as C.J. is, I completely understood many of his reactions and had contemplated taking similar actions against managers and customers when I was younger.

On a side note: I nearly spit coffee all over my Kindle when C.J. mentioned his interest in becoming a video store clerk because he thought that all they did was watch videos all day. My first job was in a video store, and I imagined C.J. dealing with irate customers who had late charges on their accounts. I am pretty sure that he would have relished the opportunity to tell a "pillar of the community" that the extra charge on his account was for a BDSM video that he had returned over a month late.

Back to the review...

While I found myself laughing at some of C.J.'s exploits, I empathized with his situation; wanting to leave home, hoping that another employer will be better than the previous one, searching for a less mind-numbing position, working his butt off so that he can get into a better situation overall. When I first started reading the book, I did not think that I would like C.J.; however, the more I read, the more I wanted the kid to catch a break.

Standish gets high marks for realism and using a combination of humor and sarcasm to convey the different levels of frustration that customer service workers deal with almost daily.

CC Standish, Author.
Courtesy of Facebook.com

If you have worked in customer service and enjoy dark humor, The Customer is Always Wrong is a great read that will have you laughing at times while sometimes groaning over C.J.'s mistakes.

More Information

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Enjoy!