Employees of convenience or retail shops often have to deal with the brunt of people’s dissatisfaction. After reports of harassment towards staff, one convenience shop in Hong Kong decided to impose a fee on those asking for directions to a nearby bus stop.
Apparently, people were treating staff poorly and disrupting their work.
The shop has since removed the notice, with the bus company intervening to help with the situation.
According to HK01, the shop is located at Portland Street in Yau Ma Tei, a residential district in Hong Kong.
Source: hk01
Prior to the pandemic, the same location used to house the ticket office for the China-Hong Kong cross-border bus company.
A lack of business during the pandemic caused the office to temporarily close down. The convenience shop then moved in two years ago.
Many began to approach the shop for directions, unable to find the old ticket office and pick-up point especially as the bus had started operating once again following the relaxation of pandemic restrictions.
The excessive number of enquiries resulted in the shop putting up a notice charging those who asked for directions HK$10 (S$1.71).
Source: hk01
A reporter from HK01 went down and saw that staff had already removed the notice.
Yuki, the employer in charge of the shop, said that they had posted the notice on 3 Mar with no intention to offend.
Unfortunately, the notice captured the attention of many passers-by. Some of them uploaded it to social media, causing it to go viral.
She explained that with pandemic restrictions nearly coming to an end, the number of people asking for directions daily had spiked.
In just one morning, there would be 20 to 30 people asking for directions, most wanting to know the location of the pick-up point.
A few were also impolite and wouldn’t thank them for their help, which ticked off the staff.
One of the employees, Ms Zeng, spoke to HK01 as well.
She shared that at least a hundred passengers would ask her for directions on a daily basis. Most of them were tourists, and some had a poor attitude as well.
Yuki told HKk01 that initially, the bus company sent staff to stand outside the store and guide passengers to the location.
However, they eventually stopped sending employees and their customer service station across the road from the shop remained closed as well.
It was only when the store put up the notice that the company began suspecting that the situation had grown serious. That same afternoon, they sent employees down to assist in giving directions.
The company also reopened the customer service station, changing it to a ticket office to provide services. This helped with the situation greatly, Yuki said.
Ms Zeng further pointed out that there was now a map outside the shop, to help tourists with finding their way.
Source: hk01
Addressing the criticism received for the notice, Yuki clarified that she had not actually charged anyone for the fee.
In addition, she hoped that netizens would understand the plight of her staff, after having had to attend to so many passengers.
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Featured image adapted from HK01.
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