Nothing pisses me off more than rude, impatient people towards wait staff or retail employees. I have never worked in food service simply because I know I could never put up with it but I have worked in retail before and I said I would live on the streets before I ever did it again. I know what these employees go through and have to put up with, all for minimum wage, so I am more than understanding.
Today I was at one of our local grocery stores. One nice feature is their postal counter. I have quite a few packages to mail on a weekly basis so it's nice to stop at the grocery store on my way home and mail packages and pick up the groceries I need. Well, I had put off a PO trip all week, so I had probably a dozen or so packages to mail when I got there tonight. The girl was going as fast as she could, I know my packages are annoying, so I'm more than patient. This woman comes up behind me about halfway through. I would estimate she maybe waited for 5 minutes, MAYBE. Well, the girl helping me moved to the cash register to finish my transaction and in the meantime, another customer service girl came over to ask the woman behind me what she needed. (While the woman was waiting, I had noticed the girl help a man with his dry cleaning and she had a call that she was trying to track down the person they were calling for, so she certainly wasn't standing picking her ass) this old wench starts bitching at this girl with things like, "I wondered if you were ever going to help me! I was standing here FOREVER while you were walking around doing NOTHING. I JUST want STAMPS!" etc etc The girl was like, "Ummm okay. Well, you can only help one person at a time at the postal counter so..." (Which, technically I know isn't completely true. I've had a few packages before where someone came up in the middle wanting stamps, and another worker interrupted my 'weighing' process to ring up the stamps, I was internally annoyed as I was in line first and they can certainly wait, but I've never vocalized my annoyance as it's not a huge deal.) As my girl finished up with me and I paid her, I leaned in and said, "Wow, good luck with this impatient bitch." The old hag looked at me and said, "Excuuuuuse me?!" I simply grabbed my receipt, shared a smile with the clerk, said, "You heard me." and walked away. I hope that leaves a bad taste in the bitch's mouth for a week.
Now that I'm FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY released from the HELL of working with the public, I feel some sort of obligation to stand up for employees. When I had to deal with the public, I would've killed for someone to stand up for me when I was treated poorly. I'd be dealing with some asshole, finally get them to leave and the next person in line would be like, "Wow...they were a piece of work." Really? Then SAY something because I'm not allowed to! So if anyone were to ever speak up on my behalf, I would have to control myself to not run and hug them. In my recent situation, the woman was a liar. She wasn't even standing there for 5 minutes and even if she had, she's old and retired and probably has nowhere important to be. Even if she does, these employees aren't making a ton of dough to deal with the likes of her on an hourly basis. Not only do they have to take it, they can't dish it out. If you were to say one negative word to a customer you run the risk of getting fired. I think that's a crock, if people are rude bitches it should be allowed to call them on it. So since the employees can't, I'm certainly not going to let the assholes get away with it.
A 'favorite' of mine, when I worked retail, was someone not getting what they wanted and declaring, "I am NEVER shopping here again." Point out one person who gives a shit. The employees pay doesn't increase or decrease depending on what customers come to the store. A grocery store clerk isn't going to make a little bonus due to you returning to their store next week. Nobody cares. Whenever someone told me that, I wanted to respond, "Is that a promise or a threat?!" As a matter of fact, they would probably prefer you keep your ugly ass out of the store.
Another annoyance, while I'm thinking of it, is this whole, "Respect your elders" bullshit. The woman I lipped off to today was old and by old I mean retired, late 60s probably. I'm not going to respect anyone unless they deserve it. This whole mentality that old people should be treated nice no matter what is ludicrous. Doesn't matter if they're 12, 30, 76 or 109. If you're a 109-year-old impatient asshole, you're not getting any sympathy from me.
Think of this way, you could be having a terrible day. Your dog died, you're getting a divorce or maybe you just didn't have enough milk to have a bowl of cereal this morning. You get to a store and you don't think they are moving fast enough for you or aren't coming to your beck 'n call the minute you snap your fingers. Maybe they could work faster, the thing is, it doesn't matter. You don't know squat about them or their lives. Perhaps they just lost a close friend, they broke up with their boyfriend they (stupidly) thought they'd be with forever the night before, or maybe they just woke up and dreaded going to work that day. Either way, your yelling and cursing isn't going to make either of you feel better and it certainly isn't going to make them want to help you any more or work any faster. Whenever I had to deal with assholes, I did as little as I could, as slow as I could because I wanted to make their life as miserable as they were making mine at that moment. Why would they want to give you what you want?? I know sometimes employees aren't giving 100% or could perform better, but they're doing YOU a service, that doesn't mean they're YOUR servant. If not for public employees, you'd be in your kitchen churning your own butter and sewing your own dress, show a little appreciation for the convenience of life now. You're mad that you're spending 2 extra minutes at a checkout counter but think of how much time you're saving yourself from doing so much work on your own! Plus it may be some snot-nosed teenager not performing to your expectations but you're an adult and you should know better.
There's my 84 cents.
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