Please stop mis-representing me. Repeating a falsehood over and over does not make it true.
And yes, you were blaming employees for the policy of their employers.
Unless you intend to pay my bills for me shut the fuck up about whether or not I should continue to work for my present employer or not.
Many years ago, before there was a sushi place on every corner my sister had some at a seafood resturant. A woman sitting at a table next to her leaned over and asked “Do you really like that stuff or are you just eating it to be gross.”
Even if that were true, you’d still be moving the goalposts here. Your original complaint back in post #43 wasn’t that you thought Broomstick was “embellishing her story” about having a store policy that required her to chat with customers. Rather, it was that you thought she should somehow be exercising her “agency” rather than “blaming [her] employer for [her] own […] behavior”.
Now that you’ve gotten some pushback from other posters pointing out, quite rightly, that many employers do have and enforce policies about employee “friendliness” to customers, and your criticism is gratuitously blaming an employee for an employer’s policy, you’ve changed your complaint to the (unsupported and evidence-free) assertion that Broomstick was somehow “embellishing” the facts of the matter. This tapdancing on your part is not improving your credibility or the persuasiveness of your claims.
That’s how D’Anconia rolls - never saw a goalpost he didn’t want moved over and over. And there’s the ongoing campaign to discredit me, which so far hasn’t worked.
Like in this thread where D’Anconia butts in around post 8 or 9 and winds up getting his ass handed to him downthread.
Same bullshit - threadshits, moves goalposts, claims I’m a liar, moves goalposts, gets told to SFTU and finally is revealed to be the gibbering distorter of other peoples’ words that he actually is.
I think he waits for me to show up in the Pit just so he can do this again.
Probably doesn’t occur him why I almost never respond to him directly. It’s gotten a lot more enjoyable around here since I made that change in my settings, although threads are a lot shorter sometimes…
OK, now that is a comment that goes beyond innocuous. The temptation to say “just to be gross because I knew you were watching and wanted to upset you” would be high.
Well, see that’s when she should have said, “yes, I AM just eating it to be gross”.
Years ago I stopped off at Safeway before going to work and decided to treat myself to a slice of red velvet cake. The cashier said “is that red velvet cake?” I said “yes”, a little surprised, and he said" red velvet cake is so good". To my everlasting astonishment I heard a whole host of agreement. I turned my head and there was 4 or so people behind me nodding and eyeing my slice of cake.
Another time my sister was over and we did a snack run. I got the strawberries, she got the whipped cream, then remembered she was bringing food for a party the next day. The cashier just stared at her tortillas, shredded cheddar and whipped cream, looked at us and said “I know I shouldn’t ask but are you eating them all together?!” We laughed and assured her no. I think she was probably at the end of a long shift.
I don’t mind friendly comments, or the Trader Joe’s employees saying, “oh, have you tried [similar product]?” because I often do buy it the next time if I haven’t tried it and mostly I’ve enjoyed the stuff.
People chat me up about my choices on the regular, frankly.
An older gent was taken aback at me packing a box of frozen Jamaican patties. (Frankly, they’re kind of rubbish but I like 'em as a quick snack.) He didn’t know the store carried them and they made him wistful. He wouldn’t take my box of them, though I offered. I could easily get more.
At a Vietnamese grocery, I bought some bì as well as a few other sundry. They were agog that I’d want this. Now, their English was better than my Vietnamese, but that’s saying precious little. Still, we could agree that yes, I did like it, and it was required for a proper Bánh mì.
I have had individuals in the lineup asking how I might, say, use the whatever-it-is in cooking. I’m happy to tell them.
All that said, I have only ever engaged a person in conversation once. She kept banging the back of my legs with her shopping cart, over and over, because I was leaving space between myself and the next customer. I made eye contact, and we had the friendliest chat about inconsequential nonsense I don’t even recall, and my legs were spared further annoyance. Apart from that, I have never struck up a conversation with another customer. I don’t even look at what’s in the cart. I have my own purchases to contemplate (as I often shop on a whim and make up dishes to suit).
I have sympathy for the clerks. I know they have to talk. I am as friendly as I possibly can be, since I can appreciate that their job is filled with a dozen tiny indignities and I really don’t want to add to it. The manager at that one store had the most cringe-worthy ideas.
It almost never bothers me when a cashier at the grocery store makes innocuous small talk. Sometimes they might ask if I’ve tried something, tell me what they like, or ask what I think of a food I’m buying. And I can’t remember the last time someone said something to me at a buffet but I can’t recall being offended. Maybe I’m just more gregarious than some others?
Said with a wide open mouth so bits of rice and chewed fish drop out.
Work up a belch if you can.
A little, yes. Many moons ago I ordered a medium rare steak, while I was enjoying my hot meal on a miserable cold day the “gentleman” sitting nearby started making comments about how his steak should not be raw, but well done as Gd intended. Continuing even after his steak arrived.
When I went to pay the manager told me my waiter has expressed concern about the tirade I put up with and comped my meal . I left my meal price and tip for the server.
Didn’t bother me much, having dealt with worse assholes.
I don’t think I am misrepresenting you. In your own words, “I realize some of the tales I tell are improbable”.
Not food, but years ago when I used to smoke I stopped into a convenience store to buy a pack of smokes. The cashier rang it up (probably $3 or something) and said, “Three dollars! For three dollars you could buy a happy meal.” I wasn’t sure if she was saying it to me or to another cashier, but I said, “Yeah, but with the cigarettes, at least you get a warning.”
I’ve been asking myself that (why I find such seemingly innocuous interactions annoying). I don’t have trouble with the so-called blather aspect of it.
I don’t mind chit-chat. I think when it’s about my food selections, it seems more personal and is therefore crossing (what only I perceive as) some sort of boundary of propriety/etiquette. You don’t ask me about what I eat, total stranger, and I won’t ask you about your sex practices. What if I’m bulimic (I’m not, but what if I were)? What if I’ve been food-shamed, or fat-shamed, during my childhood? Now I have to be triggered and/or discuss this with you?
To use example #1, to the cashier who asked “Are you having a party?”, I would either have to lie and say, “Yes, I’m having a party,” or confess “I am going to eat all of these potato chips by myself”–a fact which I did not feel like sharing.
So when she asked, “Are you having a party?”, I replied with a joke: “Yes, party of one, over the course of many weeks.” She laughed and said, “I love it!” Well, from the outside, that looked like a fun, casual social interaction–but on the inside, I felt a twinge of embarrassment and also, annoyance that I was made to discuss this when I didn’t really want to–unless I wanted to reply rudely (which I did not) or go into why I didn’t want to talk about it (which I also did not want to do). I just wanted to pay for my food, not talk about it! If we must talk, let’s talk about the weather, or that it’s another darned Monday, or golly gee, too bad our team lost yesterday, but we’ll get 'em next time, now that Kowalski’s ankle is healing!
On the other hand, on a different occasion, when I was buying a loaf of bread, another customer asked me “Is that good bread?” I replied, “Yes, it’s excellent bread!”–an interaction which I didn’t mind at all, because he was asking me about the brand/type of bread, and NOT my personal eating habits. So I didn’t take it personally. On the other hand, if he had asked, “Are you going to make ten sandwiches with that? How long does that usually last for you?”, he MIGHT be asking that because he wants to know how long a loaf would last for HIM…or he MIGHT be hinting that I’m some kind of glutton and/or a fat f*ck.
In example #3, when the skinny woman was eyeing my ice cream, she MIGHT have been envying that I could eat ice cream because she has denied herself that treat…OR, the little smirk on her face may have been less vicarious and more vindictive: “Ah-HA! I CAUGHT you buying ice cream, you sinful thing, and I’m gonna make sure everyone in this store knows it, by announcing it as loudly as possible!”
So, yes, it’s entirely possible that I’m simply reading into it (hence the purpose of this post, to get feedback). But it could also be that some people are actually being judgmental–whether they’re aware of it (and being intentionally rude) or not (and are merely oblivious).
? That doesn’t mean that the teller is saying that they “embellish” their tales. That means that the tales they choose to tell are disproportionately about the weird and unusual happenings in their lives.
“Some of my stories are improbable” doesn’t mean “Don’t believe my stories because I’m making it up”. It means “You’re getting a curated selection that emphasizes the bizarre stuff”.
You are quite right that in any of those cases, if the questioner were really trying to find out something personal about your food purchases, or trying to shame you in some way for your food purchases, that would be inexcusably nosy and rude.
Which is why treating such remarks as pointless blather that is not entitled to a truthful or relevant answer, and responding with some off-target pointless blather of your own, is often the best way out.
For example, to the “Are you having a party?” question, you could say something like “Well, I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” Does that actually answer the question you were asked? No. Does it make even a smidgen of sense in that context? No. But those aren’t bugs, those are features.
Such a response preserves the social amenities of casual chitchat, while also protecting your privacy and making it clear that the questioner has no right to expect a serious answer to a question that would be nosy and rude if asked seriously.
Basically, the guiding principle of blather mode is “Ask a silly question, get a silly answer.” If the questioner objects to getting a silly answer because they expected their question—a gratuitous personal question to a total stranger—to be taken seriously, well, that’s on them for being nosy and rude.
Why limit the pathetic git? Better he should shut the fuck up about a great deal more than just that.
And let’s not pretend the customers don’t make inane remarks. I wish I had a nickel for every “Oh, guess it must be free today, yuk yuk yuk!” when something didn’t wring up, or “Don’t worry, I just printed that,” when you’d check a larger bill for the security strip.
There were times I didn’t feel like talking and just wanted to tell them to fuck off. Yeah, that would’ve gone over really well.
^ This.
The mundane daily stuff is boring. Why would I talk about clipping my toenails dusting the coffee table?
D’Anconia is the sort that gets upset because a work of fiction is a “lie” because what’s in it didn’t actually happen, so the author is deceitful and shouldn’t be trusted in any way because all they do is lie, lie, lie. How sad he doesn’t understand the concept of “entertainment”.
That would require its own thread. And I fully support making a piss-on-D’Anconia thread, but let’s do that by starting one, not letting d’asshole hijack yet another one.