If you're talent isn't happy, you're not gonna be able to make your customers happy.

McDonalds' customers aren't happy then? I remember I used to be happy before going, being at, and leaving McDonalds when I was a kid. I'm sure the staff had a totally different attitude before going, being at, and leaving work though.

How about now? The only reason my parents were happy taking me to McDonalds is because I was happy to be at McDonalds. I was the customer, my parents were the employees, and McDonalds was just a facilitator.

I have a kid. She loves going to McDonalds. No matter how miserable a person is at work, interacting with a happy and excited kid usually makes them feel, or at least act, a little better.

The funny thing is she doesn't even eat the food. I would complain and tell her to eat McDonalds food, then I realized what a bad idea that was. She likes the experience, playground, and the happy meal toys.

So, I guess the point is, at McDonalds, when you are a kid, the miserable employees either act or feel less miserable because you're an excited kid. It's kind of a strange exception.

Chuck E. Cheese is another example that is similar. Good God, that place is hell on Earth.

Tell that to Amazon.

Now you're just confusing the concepts because we don't have separate words for them.

This conversation is about longer-term happiness, not the brief rush you get from buying something or getting something in the mail. I think there's a strong argument that in that sense of the word "happy", Amazon actively contributes to the unhappiness of their customers.

Amazon has been making me less and less happy lately. I had a customer service interaction that left me speechlessly pissed. They were clearly not empowered to do anything but tell me to suck it.

They don't optimize for happy customers. They optimize for being the place you go to buy things online first and profit. Oddly, they bought Zappos which is orientated to customer happiness.

The customer service has drastically dropped. To the point where there customer responses have poor spelling (and don't actually solve the problem). They allow third party sellers which sell counterfeit goods - meaning you have to carefully look at who is actually selling the item you are about to buy. If you buy shoes its clear Amazon isn't getting the same quality as the bigger box stores despite selling the same brands.

Amazon is quickly becoming the walmart of the internet for me. I'll buy from them because its easy but I don't expect them to sell me a quality product.

I've more or less stopped buying things from Amazon, basically because the horror stories about their warehouses.

Also, I doubt that product quality is a factor at all when they put something is a store. I would like to think that I buy things from people that care just a little bit about me and the things I buy.

Two day free shipping, at essentially the same prices as anywhere else on the web, makes me a happy customer. I would rather buy shit through Prime than go to WalMart. At least searching is optimized.

That's actually exactly the opposite of Amazon's business model. I would report your customer service rep. You can tell Amazon you didn't receive your order and they'll typically send you a replacement.

Amazon usually gives you a refund and free month of Prime for pretty much any complaint. They won't even make you send the items back!