I know this is asking for it. And I know I’ll be called a troll. And I know tomorrow I’ll regret this, and I know at the end of the day I don’t really feel this way. But I’ve had a really bad day of annoying oldsters and I must vent.
[ul]
[li]What is it with old people and exact change?[/li][li]But, like, almost a contrary thing, what is it with old people and being surprised they’re gonna hafta pay? They wait in line, for the bus or a video, or whatever, but only AFTER it’s time to pay do they start digging for their coin purse?[/li][li]“Do you have a Bette Davis section?” --* “Uh, no. Are you looking for any movie in particular?”* – “Well, no. You should have a Bette Davis section.” – "There are lots of Bette Davis movies in the Classic Drama section, and look in the Directors’ section under William Wyler, he was her favorite director and they did lots of movies together. " – “Which ones? Can’t you look them up or something?” – “Ma’am, Bette Davis had . . . 122 acting credits.” – “And you can’t give me one of them?” [/li][li]“What’s blurry?” – “Huh?” – “What’s blurry? [points]” – “Uh, that’s Blu-Ray.”[/li][li]“Do you have a Blu-Ray machine?” – “What?” – “You have a Blu-Ray rental disc there. Do you have a Blu-Ray player?” – [exasperated] “I don’t know. What’s a Blu-Ray player?” – “You’d know if you had one. I’ll get you the DVD.” – “Isn’t this a DVD?” . . .[/li][li]"Do you have Made of Honor on video?" – “Yes, here you go.” – “Is this video?” – “Uh, it’s a Digital Video Disc.” -- [like I’m stupid:] “I asked for it on video.” – “You mean VHS? Cassette tape? They don’t make those anymore.” – [accusational:] “What are those?” – “Those are I Love Lucy videotapes.” – "I thought you said . . . "[/li][li]“Why do you need my phone number?” – *“It’s how we find your account.” – “What if I didn’t have a phone number?” – “Then you can buy a video from our bargain bin. To rent a video, we need your phone number. Now, sign here.” *-- “What if I don’t want to sign?” – *“Then you can buy video from the bargain bin. If you want to rent a video, you have to sign the rental agreement on the receipt, so we have a record of who rented the video.” *[/li][li]“Why do you need my phone number?” – *“Sir, you ask me that every single time you rent a video.” *-- “It’s just a simple question.” – *“I have a line, sir.” *-- “You have a short fuse.” – *“Get the fuck out.” *-- “I killed hella Japs in the war, young man.” – “I SAID GET THE FUCK OUT BEFORE YOU DIE OF OLD AGE AND I HAVE TO DRAG YOU OUT BY YOUR FEET!”[/li][/ul]
OK. Off my chest. Now I can go back to being polite to them.
Of course you’ll never grow old and start to become unfamiliar with new technology. If you’re talking about someone in their 80s then when he was my age it was the 1960s. We were still two decades away from affordable home video of any kind. When I’m in my 80s I’m sure there will be plenty of inventions and concepts that I won’t be able to grasp 100%.
I plan to keep up with technology precisely so I don’t become one of those doddering old farts who can’t understand the concept behind DVDs or Computers.
At any rate, no-one wants to hear your war stories of fond reminisces of the old days in a shop, OK?
Yeah, I know. It’s just after the first 5 customers today had a combined age of 2,973 years, and I was late for work because my connecting bus has a window of like two minutes, and an old lady had to engage the busdriver in like 6 minutes of tourist advice, and consultation with her old girlfriends, from the sidewalk through the open door, before they decided NOT to get on the bus!
I know, it’s an unworthy pitting, and I take it all back. But still, it felt good to vent. At least I was polite to them IRL.
We came over the hill and the National Guard was all around the Student Union …well … we didn’t call it the Student Union in those days, the facist admistration had named it after Glenn Davis, so we called it the Jim Morrison Center … except for Lia, she called it the Jack Kerouac Building because she didn’t like the Doors, she liked Hot Tuna … except she didn’t like grilled tuna sandwiches … god, Lia, she was built … snore
Those young whippersnappers, always bitching about every little thing. Why, when I was your age I couldn’t afford to take the bus, I had to walk 89 miles each way to work and it snowed all year round where I lived and the corn fields gave my feet blisters until they eventually fell off! But you wouldn’t hear me complaining, no sir…
Wanna bet? At some point you’ll realize that a lot of the new technology is for purposes that don’t interest you. And you’ll also realize that, if you only have x number of years left on this planet, you have more important things to do than keeping up with technology.
We’ll see. If it pans out that way, I’ll be sure not to harangue younger people because of my own problems dealing with the new technology.
(That was one of my pet hates in my previous job: Angry old people yelling at me because they were too lazy/senile/crotchety to understand any of the new technology. I’m not forcing them to keep up with it, but don’t yell at me because you don’t understand it.)
It doesn’t have to be that way, it is possible to keep up with and incorporate new technology, even at advanced age. What keeps me hopeful is a cousin of mine (okay, like a 3rd cousin 5 times removed, or something, but whatever), who is in his early 90’s. Delightful man, and we coorespond regularly by email, on which he sends me pictures of his frequent travels to Europe. I plan to be just like him at his age.
Maybe they were just pissed off that you wouldn’t make any attempt to explain something they didn’t understand? Even angry lazy/senile/crotchety old people deserve a little consideration, especially if they are giving you their money in exchange for your goods and/or services.
The rest of your rant aside, this was just a stupid asshole thing to do. If someone asks if something is “on video” in a movie store, it’s pretty obvious to everybody who isn’t a self-important prick that they’re asking if this particular title is available on VHS. If you really and truly didn’t know that, you’re retarded. A simple “No, that one is not available on VHS” would have been fine.
And these old people grew up in a dpression where money was extremely difficult to come buy, hence the correct change to ensure there is no short changing. As has been mentioned these behaviours can be observed in people of any age group. My aunties are all into their 80’s and on the Internet so technology doesn’t frighten all elderly people.
I dunno. I would have assumed that if they were asking for it on video they were asking if it was available to be rented. Video doesn’t mean VHS it just means ‘video’.
I work in Liquor now, where I have the legal power to tell customers to fuck off because they’re irritating me.
I’m going back to University next semester for a third-time’s-the-charm go at getting a degree; from there it’s into a job without customer contact, with any luck.
The yelling was usually after I’d tried to explain it in ways they could understand. And no, I don’t feel lazy/senile/crotchety old people deserve a little consideration, but I’m comfortable with my ageism and made peace with it a long time ago.
That’s what I thought too. I’d take “On Video” to mean “Available for Rent”, not “In the VHS format”.
