Lucky. I already took the red pill. If only I had taken the blue pill…
“Real harm?” Like, what? She’s going to flip out and clock the next Shriner who shows her a picture of his grandkids?
I agree. It seems like restaurant and service workers, computer tech support workers, and others working in the public sector have their venting receivd by a welcome crowd. If you be a civil servant, though, you’ve got to smile through the bullshit, and not share your frustration with others.
So, fellow Dopers, why do those working in the private sector have more of a right to vent about workplace issues and frustrating customers than those working for government?
Condescend much? Put down those stones, you’re living in a glass house.
My mother sometimes calls AOL tech support when she’s having problems with Microsoft Word, because all computer stuff is just the same, right?
I work as an urban planner for a local government agency. I’m not qualified to answer questions about the library, child support, conditions for parole, and other things. Becuase government workers are percieved to be in a postion of authority, I would be negligent in my duties if I did attempt to answer such questions; my answer would probably be wrong. Likewise, most folks probably wouldn’t ask a social worker about the maximum height for a fence, or a police officer if their property is in a 100 year flood plain.
There’s a misconception among many that, in local government, everybody has to know everything about all government regulations and services. If you’re asking about your water bill, do you think you’ll get a good answer from a zoning officer or the city manager’s secretary?
No, pretty much when you come to the PIT and rant about your customers, some of us will give you a ration of shit about it. No matter who your customers are. Sometimes, if we have walked a mile in those moccasins, there will be some who empathize, and a lot of DoperDudes will come to the “rescue” of DoperBabes and support them. It’s sort of the SDMB equivilant of chinning yourself 18 times to show off, I guess.
In fact, there’s a very real chance that just about any PITing will come back and bite you in the ass. Even if you rant about Telemarketers, someone will chime in and defend the “poor Telemarketer who is just doing their job.”
But look at it this way- your customers are the hand that feeds you. Ranting *too * bitterly and angrily about that hand seems a bit much, eh?
But how bitterly is too bitterly? Some amount of venting should be allowed, but you and others seem to think anything less than “Thank you sir, may I have another?” with a smile is bitter and ungrateful and it’s your job to take shit. I can get on board when someone is dumb enough to complain about doing the work they were hired to do, but babysitting retired folk with too much time on their hands is not in Sonia’s job description, just like it’s not in a server’s job description to receive abuse from a dining patron with a smile.
Further, they may even do so with a smile, but why should they truly, sincerely be happy about it behind the facade? Why do they have to abase themselves that much that they are truly happy to have someone waste their time or treat them like shit? They shouldn’t be, and if venting here helps them deal with the idiocy when it happens, then great, awesome, let them. They’re employees, not slaves, fergodsake.
Has anybody ever seen DrDeth and The King of Soup together in the same room?
Just now, I honked at an old lady who hadn’t seen the light turn green (she was also on the line between two lanes). I felt that this thread was the best place to share it. She was, incidentally, going to City Hall.
Give Sonia a break. She was probably rushing back to City Hall to deal with the old farts. 
I have applied “soup logic” to this statement and come to the conclusion that those people should not complain either. After all, it is obviously a waiter’s job to deal with assholes, or his boss would have provided some kind of asshole screening system.