As I read through many of the complaints here, I notice many concern bad customer service. Yet, some people are content with just saying something was just a customer service issue, instead it has to do with discrimination due to race, gender, etc. Now I know such discrimination occurs, but sometimes the problem is an employee who's just a jerk in general.

I think it's almost human to try to figure out 'why' when something happens. You just received horrible treatment in this store, so you try to figure out why. However, that's not really important. The employee's motives aren't really an issue in the complaint itself. Besides, unless a person just said something discriminatory or out and out admitted why they were treating another person a certain way, no one really can know their motives.

In letters to companies, the moment that someone tries to 'assign' a motive, the complaint really loses some validity. It's amazing how many letters I see that I'm in agreement with, until they get the final paragraph where they say that this event occurred because of their race, gender, etc. Let's face it - many jerks are non-discriminating and provide equally bad service to all.

Now, there are people who do discriminate and sometimes that may be the heart of the issue. When it's used as the reasoning every time though, it begins to look like perhaps the writer is the one with the issue. We shouldn't guess or assume. Bad things happen to all of us. If we issue a complaint, stating just the known facts is enough.