I pit bitchy customers with superiority complexes.

The BBQ Pit
1

I work at a large university where my customers are generally pretty pleasant. But I am downright sick of a certain kind of customer I get. I can describe them to a T. Tall, painfully thin (probably wears some unrealistic size like a “0”), wearing low-rise jeans and a flimsy halter top, with or without a pierced navel, overpriced, ugly Gucci or Louis Vuitton (sp?) handbag with matching wallet. Overall appearance screams “Mommy-and-daddy-paid-out-the-nose-for-me-to-come-here-and-take-some-course-I’ll-fail-because-I’ll-be-out-drinking-and-partying-instead-of-studying”.

Before I get misunderstood, it’s not just the look of them I have a problem with. It’s the attitude that comes with the look most of the time. Granted, not all the girls who conform to this look have a bad attitude. I get some regular customers like this who are very kind and polite, and they are excluded from this rant.

Here’s the problem. I’m 5’3", with a stocky muscular build that makes me look fat, but I’m solid. I mountain bike 40 mins. a day and walk 30 mins. a day. I’m in real good shape, but unfortunately I don’t look it from first glance. I also have a large chest which adds to the appearance of being fat. I also have a plain-jane kinda face. I can look good with makeup, but when I’m at work I can’t look like I’m going out clubbing.

Whenever I have to serve one of these customers, I’m always friendly, as is my obligation. They stand there with a snooty “I’m better than you” look on their face, not smiling, barely responding to anything I say. I’m pretty good at reading people by body language, and I know they’re thinking, “Look at this fat, short, ugly girl, how disgusting, she’s nothing compared to me.” One even sneered at me once when she came up to the counter and saw me, and delicately handed her money over making sure not to touch me, as if I was diseased. I would have loved to have socked her right in her smarmy little mouth.

To these bitches I say: Listen, cunt, your supermodel looks aren’t going to last forever. Someday you’ll be a nasty, old hag. Just because you look like you walked off a fashion runway doesn’t make you superior to me. Keep in mind that I could knock you down with no problem. Your anorexic little limbs are pretty useless for fighting with. It’s not too hard to be nice to someone who’s already being nice to you.

2

Don’t worry. Mean people like that usually get cancer and die.

[sub]What? It’s what you wanted to hear, right?[/sub]

3

Naw. They don’t need to get cancer. Just some respect for those who don’t look like the image of perfection that they so obviously are.

4

Sounds like it’s your problem, not theirs. You are defensive about your looks, indicating that you don’t think yourself attractive, and you project that on people who have the look you want by attributing mean sentiments on them.

Nonsense, you have no way of knowing what people are thinking by looking at them.

That’s a lot of negativity you’re carrying. If you learn to embrace your looks, you won’t need to carry around all that resentment for others. who have, by your won admission, never said anything mean to you.

5

So, the bottom line is that you’re allowed to be pissed off at a certain type of person because of the way they look (and how you think that they think), but those people can’t hold the prejudices against people who look or act differently than themselves?

Mean people suck.

6

Go back and fully read my first post. I said it’s not their looks per se. It’s the fact that their looks usually come with a nasty attitude.

And it’s not just the way they look at me. When they come up and I say, “hi, how are you, thank you” with a smile, and they don’t say a word back or even regard me as a human, and they obviously avoid letting their immaculate fingers touch my hand, that’s when I get angry. And I have every right to be angry when I’m courteous and I get treated like less than nothing in return.

I’ve had to deal with three of these people today alone. Am I not allowed to come on here and vent without getting blasted by people who I didn’t even attack?

7

gobear, I was waiting for someone to come in and post that crap. It’s so typical of the SDMB.

This is not to say that Amazon (or I) doesn’t have issues (it’s hard to prove a negative anyway), but this attitude does exist.

I experience the exact same thing at my work. I work at a fast-food restaurant that markets itself as being “healthy”, so it’s like Mecca for all the girls who go on shopping sprees downtown and take their eating disorders with them. The fact that your food is 100% customizable doesn’t help, either. The ones with osbessive-compulsive elements to their bulimia make you put two of everything on their sandwich, no more, no less. They involve you in their craziness. I don’t get paid enough for that.

And while they are making you their veggie, scoop-out-the-inside-of-the-bread, no-cheese, no-sauce bitch, they blab on their cellphones in between ordering, as if you aren’t even worth all of their attention, as if you’re a little slave. They won’t even make eye contact. No one intelligent really believes that people can only be mean with words. Body language speaks volumes.

In the World Of Girls, thinness, beauty and status fashion equal power. Power corrupts.

8

Wow, you appear to be a an angry, bitter, and hostile person. I totally agree with
Ravenman and gobear on what they’ve said.

I’ll also add that I believe you probably have an inferiority complex, and IMHO you should find a therapist to talk to so you can work through it instead of taking out your nastiness on others.

I have a lot of clothes in a size zero and some Coach and Gucci handbags, want to hate on me for a bit? Sorry to disappoint you though, I put myself through college so I can’t help your “mommy and daddy’s money” feelings, but I do have my belly button pierced so there’s some more for your theory.

Is this really how your mind works? You actually size people up and think about how you could knock them down and fight them? Also, do you realize how hypocritical you are for ASSuming they are making fun of you for your weight while cutting them to pieces mentally for theirs? Eating disorders are serious health issues and how dare you take your poor self esteem out on others who don’t look the same as you.

I’ll end this before I say something horrible that I’ll feel bad for later.

9

You’re taking things personally when you shouldn’t. You work in retail. So people don’t touch your hand? Maybe they are just fastidious. So they don’t chat with you. You are there to make sales, not be friends with the customers. It’s a business, so get a business attitude.

You’re not being blasted, you are being given a rational response. If you just want people to hold your hand, you posted to the wrong forum.

So what? Again, you take this personally. There is no reason why the customer should give you “all of their attention,” not because you’re a “little slave” but because you are there to make their sandwiches and they assume that your concentration is on your job, not on making unfounded bitchy assumptions about the customers.

10

I think you’re projecting.

My own experience-when I was in high school, people I had never even HEARD of were telling my friends they were going to beat me up, because I gave them “dirty looks.” Huh?

Or at work, people would ask me, “Why are you so miserable? Smile!”

I guess I just have “one of those faces” that always looks angry, or depressed. And I’m NOT either one of those things. But people just ASSUMED that I was snotty, or mental, because I don’t go around smiling all the time.

Or the first time I met the girl who would go on to become my best friend in high school, I thought she was sneering at me. She wasn’t-it was just her average facial expression, or whatever you’d call it.
Maybe they just have, I don’t know, “prissy mannerisms?” After all, you know what they say about those who “assume”, right?

You’re doing EXACTLY what you accuse them of-judging them by their looks. Now my mother and my sister are both naturally thin. In my mother’s case, she’s pretty much underweight and is VERY self-conscious about this.

So maybe those “cunts” are just as insecure as you are.

If you don’t like people commenting on your weight, (if they even ARE, which I doubt), then don’t make cracks about eating disorders. Simple as that.

Otherwise, then you have no fucking room to complain.

If the worst thing you can say about your customers is that they’re thin and delicate, then you’re in retail heaven, is all I can say.

11

I know someone who always thinks tall skinny girls are giving her ugly looks. I was at a conference with her, and all she kept talking about was this chick who she had quickly pegged as a “bitch”. Why was she a bitch? Because my friend said hello to her in the restroom and the girl didn’t say squat.

My friend (who is overweight) is conscientious about anti-fat prejudice and discrimination. If someone gives her an attitude, she attributes their rudeness to anti-fat bias.

I don’t see it. I don’t discount the possibility that people are mean towards fat people, but I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to think she may be projecting her own insecurities about herself. It’s like if I, as a black person, always had my “blackness” on the forefront of my mind whenever I interacted with white people. It would be enough to make me go crazy.

All you can do is ignore the haters and don’t let them slow you down.

12

Yes, it is reasonable to assume that the OP who is descended from a social animal that has spent millions of years of evolution perfecting reading non-verbal social signals is just projecting. I am sure that the poor misunderstood women that she is talking about are nothing like what she describes. Naturally, judging people on their appearance is wrong 100%v of the time and she deserves our derision and bile.

13

So they’re taking violations of common courtesy personally? So what? When you are transacting business with someone, you look them in the eye and focus on your transaction. It is rude to yap into your phone while someone is standing there trying to transact business with you, as it implies that the phone conversation is vastly more important than the business transaction. It’s rude to transact business with someone and never look them in the eye, as though they were abnormally tall vending machines, because it doesn’t acknowledge the basic humanity of the person on the other end of the transaction. Yes, sales clerks are there to do a job, but they’re still people and deserve to be treated with a little basic courtesy and respect.

I’ve had customers of the ilk being pitted curl their lips at the sight of me, as though I were horrifically repulsive or smelled like 5-day-old fish. I’m clean, I’m neat, I’m reasonably attractive, and I’m doing my best to help them with whatever they came in for, so whatever their problem is it’s clearly their problem. IMO, their problem is that they’re snotty bitches with bad attitudes and they’d be Pitworthy if they were only worth the effort to get upset over.

14

Ah yes, the “hipper/cooler/more supermodel than thous”. Can’t stand 'em. If it makes you feel any better, I remember running across one of those from my High School.

Frumpy and overweight, and no longer the glorious cheerleader, I saw her out in her driveway with curlers in her hair, just before she ran shrieking from my tiny little poodle muttley dog.

Don’t worry, they’ll get theirs. Karma is real, what goes around does come around.

15

And as another poster said, there ARE these types of princesses out there. And they make their attitudes quite obvious, i don’t think it’s all in the OP’s head.

16

As much as I would like to say “oh, those poor little thin girls are just fastidious and don’t want to chat,” I must agree with you here. There is a certain type of person – not just thin, monied girls – who will treat you with distain if you are unlike them. There are the men who wear flattering suits and turn their back on you when you try to talk to them, and there are boys who will sneer at you for even trying to talk to them.

This attitude is REAL, people.

Hey, if you went to my high school and heard “pretty” girls talk behind your back about every piece of clothes you are wearing, and then not even look at you because you are beneath their notice, then you can talk about this. It’s really truly out there, and yelling at Amazon Goddess for pointing out this truth is just hurting her more.

However, Amazon, you might be correct about the first girl but then saw the same attitude in all the others because it soured you on that type on person on that day. All I can tell you is try to be overly nice to them. It’s very funny to be very nice to mean people, because you can laugh at their idiocy later.

p.s. You never know, one of those pretty thin girls could be a lonely, sweet girl – I’ve met that type too.

17

Are these people of approximately the same age as you? If so, I feel your pain. It is hard when you’re waiting on a “peer”, only, they’re out shopping, you’re standing behind a cash register and wearing a stupid apron or something. A lot of people do treat retail workers and fast food employees as if they are robots. Add in rich and beautiful, that doesn’t make it any easier. But I doubt many of them are thinking how despicable you are. If it helps, most of them probably don’t really even see you! :wink:

18

Disdain, grr.

19

There are always divas out there who think they’re better than everyone else, or that they don’t have time to be polite unless it’s going to get them somewhere. My guess is that most of the time it has nothing to do with you or how you look; you’re outside their intimate circle, and so you automatically don’t rate. Don’t take it personally. They often treat each other with almost the same disrespect that they treat strangers, though it that case it’s typically masked with false smiles and passing friendliness. They have a social disorder that may or may not hinder them in life, but, as I said, it probably has nothing to do with you (likewise for kung fu lola.

20

I’ve got to stand in support of Amazon Floozy Goddess too. I think she’s using a bit of rhetorical license, which is fine for exaggerating things, so long as the reader understands the point. I’ve been on both ends of these people’s attitudes and it bugs me either way. It’s the “I’m the best, be jealous of me” attitude that fosters their general disdain for others, particularly service people.

I think it comes from the fact that they are in fact often quite beautiful, and get attention and privilege that they would otherwise have to work for. I won’t cite any hard data, because I doubt one can truly test for this, but I really think it is the reason really attractive people can often (not always) be assholes - because they don’t have to work as hard to get attention and privilege and thus don’t develop a whole personality. I had a female friend who was very attractive - large breasts, great body, long blonde hair, nice face. We were good friends but I got very tired of her boyfriend problems. She always went for pretty-boy types with attitude. The thing is, they would constantly jerk her around, and she never understood why, until I had to eventually explain to her that they weren’t well-developed, personality-wise, because they were attractive enough to attract girls without making any effort. I think she finally clued in, but she always wondered why I was so stable and good-hearted, to which I explained to her that it’s because I am, facial appearance and height-wise anyway, painfully average, and thus had to do something like have a nice personality to get noticed.

And people who talk on their cellphones while dealing with a salesperson should be beaten into a coma.