How about I break your tiny little fingers, gas station boy?

The BBQ Pit
#1

So I run down to the local gas station for a couple things. It’s a gas station. Sure there are a few people out there getting gas. I’m the only one in the store portion. I grab a couple things. The total is $13 something. Yes, I do have a couple $20 in my wallet. I also have a $5 and a bunch of $1’s. So I take out the $5 and start taking out the $1’s.

You did not just put your hand on the counter and start drumming your fingers in impatience. Fuck. You. Gas station boy. You don’t like taking 1$ bills from me as payment? How about you go fuck yourself, and the girlfriend you’ve got on the cellphone fuckwad. What? Suddenly you’re special because you work at the gas station that happens to stay open a bit later then the rest? Listen kiddo, you need to re-think what it is you’re doing for a living. Get off the fucking cell phone and do your fucking job! I don’t care if you’re only making $8/hour you privileged little fuck. Get a degree and make more, shit-for-brains. Until then, do your fucking job and tell girlfriend to keep her little problems until you get home. What? You fucked up the register which is designed for monkeys to run it and now I’m passively aggressively drumming my fingers on the counter and you’re giving me a dirty look? Too fucking bad, ass-wipe.

#2

He started impatiently drumming his fingers as you pulled out your money? Did you call him on it - something like, “You got somewhere you need to be?” I always pay with exact change if I can, to prevent it building up in my change purse - he’d have a stroke while I fish it all out.

#3

Yes, he started impatiently drumming his fingers as I pulled out my money. Apparently, if my money doesn’t come in twenties fresh out of the ATM machine, I’m an asshole.

#4

You know, whenever I find myself getting that angry over something that inconsequential, it’s usually because I’m dealing badly (or not at all) with some much more important problem that I don’t want to acknowledge as the source of my distress. It might help you to explore the possiblility that this is true for you as well.

Violent revenge fantasies, especially when applied to disproportionately minor slights, are a particularly poisonous kind of pornography we create for ourselves. Personally, I think they increase stress rather than relieve it. Worse, if indulged in repetitively and in detail, I believe they constitute a mental rehearsal for actual violent acts, creating a sort of synaptic bobsled run that makes it less likely that we will stop ourselves in the middle of giving in to our worst impulses, which can lead to more trouble.

It’s astonishing how fast the brain works. An instant of perfectly justifiable irritation, and a host of arguments, conclusions and attitudes is formed: That guy is rude/mean/stupid/lazy/evil/dishonest/my enemy. The thing is, even vivid emotions usually pass away fairly quickly. The ideas and attitudes they engender, however, can last forever if they’re not examined and discarded if found to lack merit. Years after I get over my anger at the woman who insulted me at the town meeting, I can still have lots of negative ideas about her, which are pretty much all false, completely useless, and based entirely on a flash of emotion that I no longer even feel. This is not a thoughtful or healthy way to conduct my mental affairs, but I just haven’t evolved to the point where my brain cleans up its own messes.

Best wishes, levdrakon. I hope you feel better soon.

#5

Some people drum fingers out of nervous habit, not necessarily to be rude or imply impatience.

Talking on a cell phone is unprofessional, though.

#6

Dude, you are beautiful man. You really are. I need more people like you in my life. You really are beautiful.

I just wanted to be an ass for a moment.

Bless your heart, you’re what most of us want to be.

Seriously. Not kidding.

I just wanted to be a jerk for a bit.

#7

[devil’s advocate]

What’s worse, this “privileged little fuck” who should “Get a degree and make more” getting annoyed at you for sorting out 9 or ten bills, or you (the supposedly superior person), feeling so enraged that you feel the need to relive the experience on the web?

[/devil’s advocate]

Seriously though, you go to the only gas station that stays open later than the rest and expect superior customer service? I’m sure the manager does too, except it seems that few competent people with even basic communication/customer service skills want jobs at gas stations. Must be the $8/hr, or maybe the lowered responsibility levels. Maybe that’s the only place a felon can get employed.

If you’re the type of person that freaks the fuck out when there’s a tomato on your burger when you asked for it to be left off, get ready for a lifetime of dissapointment. I would just pick the tomato off, and maybe mumble something under my breath when I opened it. Then I get over it, instantly.

Granted, rudeness can get to an extreme level that may require further actions, but it can usually be dealt with using a retort, and is best dealt with by ignoring the rudeness.

If you were as enraged as your OP would imply, either get used to expecting shit service from shit-earning workers, or continue venting here (especially if it keeps you from killing the guy).

#8

Or, what The King of Soup said.

Damn my typing speed!

#9

i dunno. What can I say? I’ve worked in the service industry since I was like fourteen. Dish washer. Busboy. Waiter. Bartender. I feel like I can talk shit about my fellow shit workers.

Some jack-ass working at a gas station thinks he’s all that, I’m thinking, “you ain’t shit, fuck-wad.”

I don’t care if you don’t like your job. I really don’t. 'Cause I know what not caring about your job is all about. Too bad. Get off the fucking cell phone, learn how to use the cash register and don’t treat me like shit because you happen to be the gas station that is open right now.

#10

I’m torn between empathy for levdrakon and sympathy for the guy behind the counter. I really don’t know who to side with here. On the one hand, I’ve dealt with many an incompentent fuckwad.

On the other hand, I’ve had those jobs where I’m so poorly paid, or so badly treated, that I really don’t give a flying fucking rat’s ass.

There’s the argument that you deserve the job you have.

There’s the argument that bills must be paid one way or another.

We don’t know if this particular fuckwad is angling for a college degree or just getting used to his minumum wage status quo.

I’ve been on both sides and I’m not sure who gets my vote.

I would like to sway in favor of the defendant, merely because of the OP’s inflammatory “get a degree and make more, shit-for-brains,” which is generally easier said than done…and also smacks of a certain elitism, i.e., we all have the same opportunities to succeed and what we do with them is solely up to us. I don’t agree with that. Life’s a bitch for everyone. More so for some than others.

And yet I have always done the best I can, regardless of the job, merely out of my own sense of self-worth. Regardless of my future plans, I have amounted to Job X at this point. I am no better than Job X, so I should do my best at Job X because that is where I am at. At this point in my life. Dangling participles aside.

Either way, I’ve never felt so strongly about something this minor (tapping fingertips) that I must post about it in an online forum; I encounter incompentence at every turn and most of the time I’m okay with it, because I wouldn’t care any more than they do, if I were them. Regardless of how they got there, life’s gotta suck if you’re the guy working the late shift at the local gas station. Even if it’s your fault (and most of peoples’ problems are) it’s still got to suck. As a consumer, one could hope for better, but then one would have to wonder why somebody with a fabulous work ethic would remain there.

On the whole, I have to chalk the whole OP up to minor irritable hysteria.

#11

Wise words indeed. I have a tendency to do this, and can sit for hours plotting a perfect massacre.

The upside to this rather dark character flaw is that I’m starting to put it to good use. When I feel myself going down that “bobsled run”, I’m learning, with practice, to slow down, stop, back up and look at other options. And then I can explore those other options in the same fantastic detail, compare them all, and when faced with a realtime event, I have the advantage of having rehearsed at least a number of probable avenues, and the outcome of those avenues.

I still haven’t mastered this little technique, but I’m getting there…slowly but surely, I’m getting there.

Fucking taxi drivers…

#12

Life would be much better for all if gas station boy and this guy switched places.

#13

That’s what I thought, too. Some folks just gotta move, have lots of little nervous tics through which they bleed off excess energy. He may not have been aware that he was drumming his fingers at all if he’s one of those types.

Daniel

#14

I don’t think it smacks of a certain elitism; it’s flat-out elitist. I have a relative who never went to college and he’s making six figures. I have a relative who graduated from William & Mary and she’s a housewife. Assuming that a person who works at a cash register does so because s/he is uneducated and/or lazy is asinine.

#15

Though all of my friends who work at gas stations do sort of go along with the stereotype…

#16

You outdid yourself. You produced a near-Dennis-Miller-quality RANT, which if read aloud (aLOUD) and purged of the occasional lapses toward social constructiveness (“get a degree”?!), would not sound out of place coming from R. Lee Ermey.

#17

Yep. Most of the time, I’m not even aware I’m doing it.

#18

Syrupy feelgood posts, especially when applied to disproportionately minor rants, are a particularly irritating kinds of pseudopsychiatrics you create constantly. Personally, I think they increase stress rather than relieve it. Worse, if posted repetitively and in excrutiating detail, I believe they constitute board-wide rehearsals for actual long ass posts, creating a sort of electronic bobsled run that makes it less likely that you will stop yourself in the middle of giving in to your worst impulse, namely coming in to the Pit and derailing perfectly entertaining posts.

Seriously, how much Valium do you take in a day?

#19

levdrakon, just out of curiosity, I’d like to ask you if the register drawer was open while you were pulling out the money. Some register jockeys are somewhat pre-programmed to an anxiety level up one notch from default whenever the drawer isn’t closed.

The cellphone, though? No excuse, with a customer in the store.

#20

THANK YOU. The King of Soup really needs to quit with the therapizing.

I’m one of those people who constantly drums their fingers or taps on tables or whatever. But the difference is, I don’t have a pissed-off expression on my face when I’m doing it, which I assume the register jockey in the OP did. And I really, really hate people who talk on their cellphone when they’re supposed to be working. OTOH, those kinds of jobs do suck and I don’t blame the cashier for not being all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. So I guess I support the right of the cashier to be a dick and the right of the OP to be pissed off and come here and post about it. Because hey, life sucks.