On Retail, Food Service, And Speshul Snowflakes
Note: I am cranky today. Read with care.
It’s been sunny since Saturday morning. I am not quite sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, it’s a change from the gray and rainy, but I like gray and rainy. (It’s why I live in this part of the country, after all.) On the other, it’s bright and weird. And too hot.
I’m always amazed at people who move here from sunnier locales and then complain about the rain, or who seem almost psychopathically grateful when we have sunny days. It’s the Pacific Northwest, for crying out loud. Mushroom is our flower. Rain is our milieu. A lack of umbrellas or hats are our badges of honor–along with socks and sandals worn together. *shudder* I don’t understand it, but I see it all the time.
What I do understand: The weather is going to be rainy here. Deal with it.
So today is for the stuff I didn’t get done on the weekend–putting together toy bins, hoovering, cleaning loos, folding clothes. Yes, the glamorous life of a writer. After I get all that done I’m going to say to hell with it and work on the Sekrit Project a little. The Selkie is right–the other book will come out and play if I ignore it, and the best way to ignore it is to work on something else.
This last weekend I got a lot of running around done, and I’m feeling it. I hate days when I can’t run on the treadmill. I’ve got the bug bigtime and want to run every day. Waaaah. Complaint, thy name is Lili.
The thing I noticed while out in public this weekend was the absolute entitlement of some people when dealing with retail or food service. Yes, you’re paying for a product–but no, it doesn’t give you the right to be a complete self-absorbed jackass. I know that the proportion of jackassery has been constant all through history, ad that people haven’t gotten ruder since I was young. Intellectually, I know that. Emotionally, I’m beginning to understand cranky older people complaining about the Rudeness of People Nowadays.
I just watch in wonder at the way some people act. Apparently I was wrong in thinking the center of our galaxy was the appropriately-named Galactic Central Point. Apparently (and I just found this out this weekend) there are several centers to the galaxy, and they are over-entitled consumers who find meaning in their vapid little lives by abusing retail and food service workers.
This weekend I didn’t see a single instance of bad service. I saw several instances of the abuse of service workers by icky, selfish little jerks both male and female.
It’s one thing to politely bring attention to subpar product/service and ask for a replacement or ask a question. It is quite another to take out one’s frustration on a helpless employee, or someone who is doing their best to help you and cannot because of the corporation s/he works for. Plus, when you mess around with the employees and throw tantrums in, say, Ikea or Learning Palace or a nice Indian restaurant, you impact my schedule and/or my enjoyment of my meal. And while employees cannot tell you what a twit you are being, I can remark that you’re a tacky SOB and that such behavior isn’t fit for a three-year-old, let alone a purported adult. With other choice comments thrown in about how self-centred and silly you look to everyone else waiting patiently in line.
I do not have endless patience, after all. I have an agenda–getting what I need and getting home–and while I am flexible and understand that sometimes there is a valid problem, most times there is just a self-centred gob wanting Speshul Treatment for a Speshul Snowflake. And my tolerance for Speshul Snowflakes has so gone down in the years since I’ve hit thirty.
Like, to zero.
I don’t enjoy publicly shaming twits, but I do think that a lot of nasty behavior gets tacitly rewarded by other people just being patient/ignoring the rudeness. (On balance, the majority of people/customers are reasonable people who just can’t believe the jackassery of the person holding up the line.) It just seems like the sunshine brought out a huge proportion of over-entitled jerkwads this past weekend. It makes me remember working in retail and food service…and it makes me glad I’m not working in those industries to the same degree. As a fellow customer I can ameliorate the situation by using the power of social shaming. Of course, over-entitled jerkwads are so self-absorbed that the shaming doesn’t work as well as it could, but at least it lets them know that they’re not Getting Away With It Completely.
Lord, listen to me. I’ll be sitting on my front porch shaking my cane and yelling “you kids get off my lawn!” in no time.
So to all of you out in retail and food service: Getting rid of all the over-entitled dipwaddery in the world is too monumental a task for li’l old moi. But I’m doing my part. Thanks for being patient.
Working retail and food service is NOT for the weak. And it’ll teach you more about human nature than just about anything.
Over and out.
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Tags: not worth chewing through the leather straps, Oh Holy No..., pennyworth advice, shooting from the hip, we are not amused
April 6th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Can I thank you for your January post about zero drafts? Your comments (about needing to be gentle with a zero draft and protect it from criticism) really clicked with me at a time when I was struggling with my confidence and productivity. In the three months since then I’ve written 60k and completed my 3rd novel and I attribute that to your advice. Thank you.
April 6th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Having worked in situations where I was expected to cave for those Speshul Snowflakes (mostly because our managers were too cowardly to stand up and say “No, we’re not dumping out the entire espresso machine and replacing the beans with ‘Yukon’ just so you can get the smallest latte we offer with the flavor you just discovered with that free sample you got five seconds ago”), I can’t agree with you more. That’s why I tip (and, when they don’t have a tip jar, hand over a $5 and say “Well, ya do NOW!” with a big grin), that’s why I ask the folks on the other side of the counter how they’re doing, and why I’m not afraid to verbally smack the rude twits in the back of the head. Around home, I just look at the tantrum-throwing brats and ask “SMU or Baylor?”
They always stop. “Whuh?”
“Well, when I see someone with this level of entitlement, arrogance, and stupidity, it’s always either a business or marketing major from SMU or a management major from Baylor.”
In all of the times I’ve asked this, I’ve actually only had one person who wasn’t from either SMU or Baylor. Sadly, he was a Portlander who was throwing a tantrum because he was being expected to pay sales tax for a purchase in Texas, and he kept honking “But in Portland, we don’t have sales tax.” That was about the point where a fellow customer brought in a Dallas roadmap and asked the twit “What does that read on the front?”, and the Cat Piss Man retreated when he realized that he had to render unto Caesar.
As for the weather, I understand all too well. The funny thing is that the rainy weather was one of the things I liked the most about Portland, considering that we get as many rainy or cloudy days in Dallas as you get sunny days there. I adored being able to go outside without bursting into flame.
No, what always gets me are the twerps who figure if they complain enough, the weather will magically change for them. Right about the end of June, that’s when you can’t walk into a grocery store or buy gas without listening to the mating call of the Clueless Dingbat: “It’s hot.” Over and over, with every sentence starting and ending with those two words, with the last stretched out so it gets at least three syllables. When Portland gets Dallas-type weather, the way you did four years ago, I understand: that’s unnatural. However, when Dallas gets Dallas-type weather, the gimps start their mantra, as if it’s a perpetual surprise that we get hot in the summer and cold in the winter, and that Dallas has never had a hot, sunny day in its entire existence. I deadpan complain with them: “Yeah, what’s up with this? We’re supposed to have at least four feet of snow on the ground by July.”
(My wife is a professional jeweler, and she and I used to show jewelry at a jazz event in Fort Worth. The last one we attended was at the end of September 2005, where we could still expect triple-digit weather for a few days. I could ignore the three generations of TCU sorority entitlement brats, between the sixtysomethings who figured that hitting on me would get them discounts and the twentysomethings who literally belched in my face, but I got desperately sick and tired of the constant cawings of “It’s HOT” as if I could do something about it. Get four or more of them together, and the scene looked and sounded like a pterosaur rookery. At that point, we cut our losses and figured that it made more sense to stay home in subsequent years, because they’d be back again to kvetch every year afterwards.)
April 6th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Well, you know from my response on Twitter last night that I heartily concur. As a waitress, I get treated to just about EVERY form of bad behavior on the planet. As I often refuse to bite my tongue, it’s a wonder I still have a job. But seriously, someone who gets themselves all bent out of shape because the cost of a side of potatoes went up ten cents since last time they visited the restaurant (and feels this is justification for yelling at me and calling me names) deserves whatever reply springs to mind, yes?
April 6th, 2009 at 11:41 am
“Working retail and food service is NOT for the weak. And it’ll teach you more about human nature than just about anything.”
Boy that is the truth. *sighs* Never have I hated the human race as much as when I worked retail.
Course it helped we had an awesome boss who put up a sign that said “if you are rude, nasty, or just plain mean there will be a $10 charge for putting up with you.” and we got to point to it when customers were rude.
*grins* It shut a lot of people up really quickly.
April 6th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
As someone who works in food service, I can attest to the fact that some people are just beyond rude.
I tell myself that no matter what happens with this particular table that in the morning I will wake up again. I will be loved, will love and have a wonderful life ahead of me.
For the rude guest at the table, he or she will still be rude the next morning and someday someone bigger and nastier than they are will make their life miserable.
April 6th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Oh gawd do I get the weather thing.
I live in Manchester, which is northern England. This means it’s cold, wet and gloomy all year round and summer lasts for two weeks IF it’s a good year — and I’m usually home in Singapore during that time.
I get so annoyed with my friends (who are all university students, and therefore chose to move to Manchester) complain that it’s dark and gloomy and than London/somewhere down south is nice and sunny.
April 6th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I am an office worker, clerk, receptionist, whichever suits that day. I do answer the phone, a lot. Let me tell you, people are no less rude or entitled when they are calling on the phone. It turns out I can’t magically make people appear in the office just because THEY have called. And no, if one of the higher ups is in a meeting, I can’t psychically know exactly when the meeting will be done so I can tell them THEY have called . . .
I have developed an excruciatingly polite, civil phone manner with those folks. They still don’t get what they want and I can’t help them and I enjoy being ever so unhelpful to them.
I do so enjoy helping the friendly, kind people who call, who know what they want, understand if it can’t be provided immediately.
I also like living on the Wet Coast. I own 5 umbrellas but no rain boots. It is extremely sunny today, just seems weird.
April 6th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Can I just say three words? I. Love. You.
Like those who have previously stated, I’ve seen some behavior that really is just… horrid. When I go out and be the little consumer, I do my best to make sure I’ve got my bases covered so I’m not some idiot in the long line of idiots that retail and food service people have to contend with and make sure that I’m polite and easy-going (to a point). But, thank you so much for ranting about this. It’s nice to know that even a consumer feels this way about people who work in retail and food service.
April 6th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
I have always said that it should be a federal requirement that every person should be required to work a minimum of six months in retail or six months in food & beverage (specifically as an employee that depends on tips as a portion on the wages) Or a full year. And this should be before they reach 21. That *should* be enough to beat some humility and patience into the most of the rude, obnoxious twits. Hopefully.
April 7th, 2009 at 9:44 am
You can be the old lady with the cane and I’ll be the old lady with the 12-gauge. I just know the ka-shink sound of pumping the shell into the chamber will be far too satisfying for future-me to resist. And it’s a better defense from both children AND zombies, so there’s that too.
I also wish the rain would come back because the sun is harshing my writing mellow. I was just getting to the darkest most miserable part of my novel (which takes place in the SNOW) when the sun started shining and it’s pretty damn impossible to write personal tragedy when you find yourself dancing along to Hannah Montana in your sunny kitchen. Stupid sun.
Not to mention how it always brings out the flesh parade. I think there must be some kind of scientific formula to explain it – a pasty white skin to self-entitlement ratio, or something. I blame SHORTS. We should start a petition.
PS – I’m the mommy blogger from last month’s writer’s mixer at Cover to Cover. I’ve been uncharacteristically shy about commenting here, but it was nice to meet you!
April 7th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
I work in the grocery business, and rude and lazy-assed people are there, also. Nothing pisses me off more than having to carry out 1 or 2 sacks for someone who is too lazy to do it themselves. When they say “I guess this is your job”, my reply is “Yes, along with unloading trucks, stocking shelves, and working dairy and frozen. These same lazy-asses are also too lazy to help you put them in the vehicle, so when they say “Just put them in anywhere”, I answer”You bet!” , and I just start tossing them in the car. They can’t complain because they said just put them anywhere. I know it kinda childish, but it makes me feel better!!
April 9th, 2009 at 9:05 am
I learned a long time ago that if you’re nice about a problem or mistake, it usually gets fixed faster and you can often make a friend in the process.
I don’t know if I agree with the fact that people aren’t worse now than they were when “we” were young. I work in a university and I have seen the behaviour worsen over the years. The attitude of self-entitlement is outrageous as is the lack of respect for those around them.
Most egregious is the complete dismissal of the maintenance and support staff, to a lot of the student body, these people don’t even exist and they treat them like I imagine serfs were treated in the middle ages. OTOH, I believe firmly in the saying that “there but for the grace of ghod go I”. They’re humans also and should be treated with respect until they prove they are not deserving of it.
I know that I will walk the extra mile to help people if they treat me with kindness and respect. Why shouldn’t I think that other people feel the same way too?