I've been finding that it's not so much that New York customers are rude (though there has been some of that - you know who you are Mr. Chinese-Man-With-The-Thick-Accent-I-Tried-To-Help-And-When-You-Got-Frustrated-With-Me-You-Threatened-To-Strike-Me-With-A-Cup-Carrier.) ), it's that they're self-involved to the point of a) not noticing how what they say may sounds to you, and b) not caring what you have to say to them. With a population of 8 million - and close to double that during business hours - the city as a whole is geared towards the individual because everyone is too busy to think of anyone else.
I suppose it's odd to me that this has caried over into the world of customer service, a job which by definition is about serving the needs of the customer. I've found, however, that when someone orders, say, a tall (small, 12 oz.) coffee, and I ask, "do you need room for cream?", I get one of the following responses:
a) Silence - ...save for the sound of the customer rejoining their cell phone conversation, or perhaps not that, but doing whatever it was they were doing with their PDA before they ordered. Either way, my attention to their needs is ignored.
b) "What?" - The customer does not understand what I'm asking. In this situation I generally have to repeat myself in a slower than usual voice at least twice before getting either a "yes" or "no."
c) Surprise - In this situation, the customer hears me, answers my question and then tells me that no one ever asks them this question.
One customer and I even had a quick discussion about this where I told her I had just moved here and she said, "Oh, so that's why you're so nice."
It turns out she was from Canada, so she was quite nice as well. It will be interesting to see if this is purely an out of towner thing, or if there are some genuinely nice New Yorkers as well. The real problem will be that being in a city where the focus is on the individual, it may be hard to ever find out.
