Member Reviews
This bookk made me laugh out loud. Havig worked in Customer Service for most of my adult life, it's a great take on the absurdities of customer expectations vs reality.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in excahnge for an honest review.
Here we have 200 pages of customer service rants set in various venues -- retail, call centers, the office, et cetera. It's a long form rant set of the sort of things Scott Seiss is known for (I'm not super familiar with him but his work sounds vaguely familiar) but it's really sort of 200 pages of the same thing in different packaging.
However, chapter 4 that applies to current working woes (the "no one wants to work" myth, the huge disparity between incomes now and the incomes of our parents and other stressful things) was a bit more thoughtful and hit home way more than the rest of the book.
That being said I did skim large swaths of it and it's just not for me, it tried very hard to keep being funny and that's the thing about being funny-- you can't try so hard, especially so repetitively.
Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Celebrate for the eARC in exchange for review!
Very funny book that nails everything that sucks about having a job. The perfect gift for a going-away party. Made me feel seen. Highly recommend.
THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS WRONG is a very enjoyable and entertaining read on the absurdity of the thing we call workplace, whether it's about employers/management, companies' policies or the customers themselves. From watching his videos, I could hear his voice and sarcastic tone that made the reading all the funnier. I recommend this to anyone who has or ever had a job. You know it's good, when you're reading at an airport laughing out loud, and sensing others wondering what you're laughing at.
Thank you to Harper Celebrate and NetGalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.
(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through NetGalley.)
You might know Scott Seiss as the Angry IKEA Guy on Tik Tok (@scottseiss - if not, check him out, his retail rants are legendary). I'm a fan, so when THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS WRONG popped up on NetGalley, I jumped at the chance to review it. Unfortunately, I think his well-earned critiques of customer service jobs (and the current state of the labor market in general) are better suited to 90-second sound and video bites.
Part of the mistake is mine - I saw the cover and immediately pegged this is a graphic novel. It's not. (My bad.) I also thought it'd be more similar to his videos, with short vignettes of egregious interactions with customers and managers (and hopefully some educational information about, say, the history of labor unions or the fight for a $15 federal minimum wage sprinkled in for good measure). Instead, it's more of a long-form rant about the minor and major inconveniences of work, from the hiring process to dealing with shitty bosses.
Some people might enjoy it, but it mostly wasn't for me. I didn't DNF exactly, but did mostly skim the second half of the book.
I wanted this title to be better. The laughs plateaued really early. I'm just not sure this content makes for a book anymore, in 2024. Who is the actual audience? Maybe it just wasn't for me, but the book felt forced and overlong. Sorry.
Gosh this was so funny and so relatable. I am so thankful to Harper Celebrate, Netgalley, and Scott Seiss for granting me advanced digital access to this satirical collection of essays before it hits shelves on September 10, 2024. I think every worker, whether that be via retail or corporately, should have a copy of this book on their nightstand to help get through the daily hell that is working a job. Such a job well done, and I look forward to purchasing this when it hits pub day.
As an employee of an institution, it is really tiresome to handle a lot of customers with many characteristic, especially the burdensome one. The slogan customer is always right, really make me hate it so much. This book will entertain is with another perspective, the opposite one, actually, that the customer is always wrong.
I received a free e-arc of this book through Netgalley. I didn't love the arc download format because it was hard to read on a small screen. However, I assume it had to be done that way instead of the usual Kindle option so that the graphics would display properly. This humor book was full of the triumphs and pitfalls of working in customer service. If you have a sense of humor about working in retail or wonder if you should go into retail, then you should read this book.
An amusing look at the workplace today, from resumes to interviews and office rules. The tribulations of
customer service representatives at stores and online are covered. Job applications and interview questions
were highly entertaining.
#TheCustomerisAlwaysWrong #HarperCelebrate #NetGalley
This graphic novel was so funny! There was more text than I was expecting but the behind the scenes stories were so enjoyable it was okay.
Thank you for the EARC NetGalley and Harper Celebrate. The Customer is Always Wrong is oh so right about so many things. If you’ve ever worked, at all, in any environment this book is for you. It is the ultimate catharsis for all of our daily struggles. I mean, who hasn’t wanted to tell a customer they are wrong or say something snarky during the interview process? So fun and so perfect when you need to laugh so you don’t cry.
Cute, fast, and kinda funny.
I thought this would have more stories about customers and work in general. I’d heard a lot of this online already.
But, if it’s new to you and you want to read a bunch of rants and very few actual funny stories, I’d recommend it to you. It just wasn’t for me.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.
Even the best jobs have their drawbacks, and in this hilarious romp through the lows and lowers of working for the man in the 21st century, I reflected on how fortunate to have a job that doesn't make me want to Kool-Aid Man smash through the wall to get out.
Funny, sarcastic and painfully relatable for someone who works in retail. I enjoyed this quite a bit.
The Customer is Always Wrong
By: Scott Seiss
Publication Date: September 10th 2024
"The Customer is Always Wrong" by Scott Seiss is a hilarious book on the challenges of customer service. This book had me chuckling all the way through and maybe pondering putting in that 2 week notice. Thanks for keeping up the spirts of the working class person. I'll keep watching and liking you on social.
Thank you Netgalley, Scott Seiss and Harper Celebrate for allowing me a ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Thank you to Netgalley for a copy for an honest review
I really enjoyed it and would highly recommend and I can’t wait to buy a copy for myself 🙂
Rating 4 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
first I will just say, that this book wasn't for me, I requested it, thinking it would be like in cartoon format, like the Cathy comic strips, and in reality this could have been read in my kindle in a format that the kindle supports, instead of being forced to read this on my cell phone, too small and it wasn’t enjoyable…
that being said, when you get this book in book format I believe it will be great, with a nice sense of humour and a perfect gift for your friends who work in retail, yeah, they will probably relate with more than a couple of situations and stories.
Thank you Netgalley and Harper Celebrate, for the free ARC, and this is my honest opinion.
This book was a breath of fresh air. I certainly appreciated the laughs, especially when I realized that he worked at my hometown's Ikea store. I loved the local references and definitely recognized his apt descriptions of coworkers. Thanks for making retail jobs fodder for some fabulous comedy.
This was such a hilarious and incredibly relatable read. I love that this was somewhat of a graphic novel and think it made the book so much better. I love the job interview questions and application.