I don’t know why this is such a hard concept for you to grasp. if you work retail/food service, you’re encountering dozens, possibly hundreds of people every day. simple numbers says you’re more likely to run into teh crazy than someone in a white-collar job who has to interact with maybe a handful of people on any given day. in my high school/early college days, I first worked food service and later at a garage w/ attached gas station. there were all sorts of asshole customers I had to put up with; from the princes/princesses who believed since I was there to “serve” them that meant I was required to kiss every part of their asses, to the wannabe puppet masters with extremely specific instructions on how they wanted their Coney dog made and if one molecule was out of place they wanted another one. Or the guy who rolled his ratty-ass old Lincoln into the shop for maintenance, and when told that no, customers can’t roam around on the shop floor he told me to go fuck myself. Or the guy who wanted a pack of cigarettes but expected me to walk out and tell him every single one we carried while he sat his fat ass in his truck.
working retail has done two things:
ensured that I will never shit on anyone working those jobs. Doubly so if they’re “tipped” employees making a $2.13/hr base wage
made me despise people in general. all a bunch of self-absorbed, clueless pieces of shit who don’t know or care how badly they treat others.
20+ year retail career vet here: can absolutely confirm. The asshole customer is a daily phenomenon; the pissed-off-enough-to-call-you-a-motherfucker a monthly one; the pissed-off-enough-to-raise-his-voice-and-scream comes along every couple of months or so. Annie-Xmas’s story sounds completely plausible to me.
As does “big beautiful black woman”, because that’s an identifiable type; a woman who wears bright red lipstick and skintight dresses because she doesn’t give a damn that she’s a size 20; she knows she is a beautiful, sexy goddess, and anyone who can’t see that is a blind fool. (And she’s usually right). Such women can be a hoot to know - I’ve worked with many - but they can also be histrionically obnoxious.
So when telling a story, we must include only the essential details which are absolutely necessary to understand the point? No background, no scene setting, nothing?
: raises hand : Was a cashier for a few years back in the day and then I did telephone customer service for a few years too. I have no problem believing the stories. You people (that’s right, I went there) would not believe the amount of crazies that came out on a daily basis. I could tell you stories! But the ones that stick in your head are the really crazy ones, like the one who tore me a new one because I didn’t know he needed a cart. Stupid dumb fuck, taking it out on the cashier who is barely making minimum wage.
I am of the opinion that every single person should be forced at gunpoint to work a year in retail so they can see what it’s like to deal with people. The richer you are, the more important this is.
Seriously, the crazies are among us. These threads where people who were fortunate enough to never have had to work in retail claiming “well, gosh golly gee surely these things can’t happen” are starting to get old.
I worked part-time in a grocery store: helping customers with groceries, collecting carts from the lot & handbaskets from the registers, cleaning windows, clearing ice & snow off the sidewalk, etc.
Even I encountered a few nuts during the six months I was there. One guy tried to pick a fight with me because I accidentally elbowed him while pulling a customer’s bags out of a cart. I had no clue anyone was behind me, let alone Apollo Creed!
Anyone who doesn’t believe that stores get totally whacky customers should know most are hiring now for the holiday season. It’s a real eye opener.
The absolute corker in my experience was the woman who was on her cell phone the whole time, and then found out she didn’t have her credit card. The person behind her made some nasty comment about checking for her credit card instead of gabbing on the phone. Customer stomps out and tells her boyfriend that “The cashier yelled and swore at me cause I didn’t have my credit card.”
He comes in with her trailing and begging “Just let it go.” He comes up to me and screams “HOW DARE YOU FUCKING YELL AT AND SWEAR AT MY GIRLFRIEND?”
The head cashier was at another register. There were two other cashiers working. The manager and one of the store’s owners were standing by the machines and talking. And all the aisle workers were working. And yet no one heard anyone, and certainly not me, yelling and swearing.
I looked at him and said “I did not yell and swear at the customer. And even if I did, which I did not do, you have no right to come in here and yell and swear at me.”
The left, with him muttering something about “The customer is always right.”
I often dream of winning the lottery…and starting a business…probably a resteraunt…and my hobby would be kicking assholes out…making them pay for everything that had been delivered to the table…and calling the cops on their ass if they try to leave without paying.
The instant I read the BBB part in the OP I knew where this was going to go. Not that I have a particular problem with it, I just know how it is around here. I also figured (or hoped, anyway) that the descriptor would end up somehow being germane to the story, and IMO it is. Is it the most important part? Not at all, but it illustrates the hypocrisy on the part of Crazy Entitled Customer. Did you get a mental picture of the scene? I did. I saw exactly what Annie was trying to convey, and I did not walk away thinking “stupid black bitches are always acting that way”. It simply served as an illustration of sorts for this particular story. If that makes me racist in your eyes, I really could not physically care less. I don’t even consider (erroneously) being called a bigot the biggest shame there is.
Any individual consumer is often wrong. The consumers in general, however, are exactly right for as long as you want to stay in business, because once you deem them to be wrong, you go out of business.
Huh? I think this quote of Senegoid’s is being unfairly denigrated. Just as we can acknowledge that all customers are not always right, why is it so shocking to point out that not all service givers are sainthood candidates either? He’s right – it’s an unskilled job often held by uneducated people who are doing it purely because they have no other options, and that’s not exactly a recipe for dedication and excellence.
I am in no way saying this is all of them (I did it for years too, and I was damn nice), nor is he. I am just pointing out that fair is fair – if we can allow that customers can often be ignorant, entitled assholes, we ought to be also able to admit that there are a lot of workers out there who, by virtue of being young/stupid/unmotivated/uneducated/unsupported/what have you, make shitty decisions in carrying out their duties.
Do you legitimately expect the same level of quality, attention to detail, judgement, and accuracy from a fast food worker as you do from a brain surgeon?
“Fast food workers are fast food workers because they are too dumb to handle anything else.”
and
“Sometimes fast food workers can be assholes, too.”
And just because fast food workers might be working there because they are dumb still doesn’t give Joe Customer an excuse to be an asshole. Or do you think it does?