Rosalie: Customer Service

It will surprise nobody to learn many of the annoying customer quirks that happen in Rosalie come from my own experience. Especially my experience in Wetherspoons. The line that begins the book, in fact, comes directly from my experience with an extremely fucking annoying customer. This came directly from his mouth:

"Mistakes happen every day! I don't make them, but some people do!"

What you have to understand is that someone who works in customer service has exactly no power. You are the bottom of the rung. Your manager knows this -- that's why, most of the time, they walk all over you. It must be said I didn't know this when I wrote Rosalie. That's why Axl is a bastard but he's presented at least somewhat sympathetically. When I wrote Rosalie Returns, I was beginning to figure it out and, by the time I wrote Rosalie's Revenge; by god, I hated the manager.

I could still see the manager's side. That's why in Rosalie's Revenge The Politician makes some good points; his journey from customer to supervillain is his role in my nightmare changing from customer to manager.

I never had to work as hard as Rosalie, nor did I have a coffee appliance as good as Monschborg. I never threw up over the floor working at Wetherspoons nor did I get hit by a car, but I definitely heard some horror stories from colleagues.