I get it. You're a unique flower. BUT SO IS EVERYONE ELSE.

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10464679.post-77735484742049457882007-12-08T02:54:00.000-08:002007-12-08T03:27:09.094-08:00I get it. You're a unique flower. BUT SO IS EVERYONE ELSE.It's an interesting experience, working retail in a consistently, more-and-more, understaffed store. You find out what it's like running the customer service desk, answering the phones, fielding questions about the locations of products, taking a payment, finding a manager to deal with a complaint, and checking someone out. ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Which in fact should be impossible, but somehow manages to happen. Mainly while being glared at by 12 more people who are waiting in line. I honestly think I should get hazard pay. Everyone who works on the front end should, it is among the most stressful jobs I can imagine. "Could you open up another register?" yells someone halfway down the line, while staring at you as if you are an evil dumbass who is just trying to make his life harder by making him wait. Oh the humanity. If only I could ask him some questions-- "I am assuming you can see? Okay, great. Do you see anyone else behind this desk? Do you see any person working in this store who isn't dealing with massive lines or at least one customer and a constantly ringing phone? DO YOU HEAR ME, when I have a millisecond break, paging a 'Code Three' over the intercom? Do you see the other things that I am dealing with right now (answering the phone, fielding a customer who's upset because they couldn't find anyone in electrical, telling someone that I'd LOVE to take their payment, but I am taking care of this line right now)? CAN YOU SEE HOW STRESSED I LOOK RIGHT NOW? DO YOU THINK I WANT TO BE IN THIS SITUATION WITH NO HELP? DO YOU THINK I WOULD BE CALLING SOMEONE IF THERE WAS SOMEONE WHO COULD COME?" He can answer his own stupid motherfucking question, but he doesn't. He has to make me spell it out. I can't reply truthfully, so instead I say respectfully, "I'm sorry sir, I'm trying to find someone but there just isn't anyone available right now. I'll keep trying." This, of course, detracts from the time I could be spending telling someone where to get a key made (between aisle 16 and 17, ask at the desk, though they'll be busy). Then of course, there is the old woman (they come in all ages, genders, and races, but it is more likely to be an old woman than anyone else) who comes up and asks me to get her a cart. She doesn't have anything in her hand, mind. She can walk perfectly well up to the desk to make this request, while having selective blindness/ hearing loss to the point that she can somehow miss my massive line and constant direction giving/ phone answering. Listen, lady. If I could, I would go and get your lazy ass a cart. It is very difficult, I am aware, to walk the extra 50 feet (if that) to go out to the cart area and get a cart. Apparently. BUT I CAN'T. I will tell you exactly where YOU can get your own cart. I can try and find someone else working who can pull you up a cart. But I CANNOT get you a cart right now. You ARE NOT the only person in the world. You are one of many, and while you may have some lovely qualities that I cannot see at this rather unflattering moment (all I can see right now is a selfish dumbass who thinks that her need for a cart is more important than the handicapped woman who is trying to check out of this hellhole of a store right now so she can go home). I don't mind getting your cart. I really, truly don't give a shit about how lazy you are. BUT YOU ARE NOT ANY MORE SPECIAL OR IMPORTANT THAN ANYONE ELSE IN THIS LINE, SO DON'T ASK ME TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR MINOR, TIME-CONSUMING NEEDS WHILE THESE PEOPLE WAIT. This is just one example, but it happens all the time at work. My job sucks, I know it and you know it, please don't treat me like that. Happens all the time in traffic too. The road to another highway is running slow, and traffic is backed up. Some guy pulls out from 600 feet behind you, and zooms past, only to cut in (in front of some well-meaning, small-testicled person who lets this dickwad in without a single honk of protest) again 300 feet in front of you. Apparently, they are very special and important. Their time is much more valuable then the rest of the people who are patiently waiting their turn (onto a road that is probably backed up because some other asshole pulled a similar stunt 20 minutes ago and cut it too close-- to the point where the person they cut off had to brake extremely abruptly, causing the back-up in the first place), and so it doesn't matter that they are elevating the wait for all the rest of these people even more by cutting someone off, causing another string of brakelights to go off down the road again. You may be special, but so is everyone else. Please offer them the same consideration that you would like them to offer to you. I am so miserable and jaded at work now that I have begun to lose the ability to care. I used to be able to hear someone who was genuinely mistreated (not too frequent an occurance, actually), with genuine sympathy for their plight, and do whatever I could to make it better. Now I'm just so tired that I can't care anymore. I can hear it, understand it, but I just can't muster up the energy to do as much anymore. I've worked retail too long, and working in an understaffed hellhole is killing me, mentally and physically. I had no idea how bad it could be, despite retail's overall shitastic nature with even more shitastic pay. I need to find another job, but rarely have enough energy left to put into the search. God help me if I don't get into grad school, which will provide me with retail freedom (and a whole new set of interesting new challenges and problems) in less than a year.Chloehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17079649755741632003noreply@blogger.com