[Everywhere]

This generally means the topic or place at hand is universal. Paying for your new item or service is a touchy thing. It doesn’t need to be said that I have many grievances with exactly how patrons pay, because I feel it says a lot about how that person views me. If you’re a man, it’s akin to woman viewing you by how you treat waiters and waitresses – if you’ve never heard that before, mark it down now. If you’re a woman and you’ve never heard of it, start; it says a lot about a man. Anyway, the point of this is to complain (surprise) about how people pay in cash. Cards and checks will be another post altogether.

Yeah, something like that. But worse.

One of the worst is when they pull out a wad of cash. A literal crumpled up wad of cash and tosses it on the counter. Anyone with any retail experience or a western common sense would know that I have to verify the funds they’re handing to me. I also have to sort the bills into slots for easy handling and counting at the end of the shift. So tossing a glob of cash onto the counter and staring at me to count it is undoubtedly the worst way anyone could pay for their whatever. Most times I pull the bills out one by one, slowly, and press them down on the counter while counting out loud in a pleasant voice. Seriously – are they getting pleasure out of this?

Throwing the money on the counter is another insult which makes the first look like nothing. After a simple “your total is 4.57”, the person clearly has a five in their hand and as I slowly reach out for it, they throw it on the counter. As a sidenote, I am very aware of the foreign implications here: the French, for example, always present cash on the counter; otherwise exchanging it by hand looks like you’re trying to scam them. But these people are never foreign: they have clear, loud American dialects coupled with overflowing compassion for the working class. If you’re going to put the money on the counter, set it down please. Don’t toss it like an overdue bill you’re begrudgingly paying off.

No, Stevie Wonder. I do not want cash in my face. Thanks.

Now, the final form of annoyance when dealing with cash is surprisingly not coins. I don’t mind it when people pay things off in coins – of course, unless the bill exceeds $20. But since that’s never happened to me (yet – knock on wood), I have yet to be scorned by it. The last one is when people hold out their cash to my face when I’m clearly not ready to take it and hover it there until I do. This one is always fun because I proceed to take my time doing other various things so that their arm starts to get tired. Pushing money in my face doesn’t make the process any faster – just annoys the living shit out of me.

“Do you hate people?”

“I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.”  

- Charles Bukowski

[The Phones]

As I stated before, I have held and currently hold various retail positions. To keep the companies private, for both their sakes, mine and the customers I speak of, I will refer to every job in the past tense. I also will begin every entry with the generic title of the place of business. Today’s concerns …

The Phones

Some jobs require you to answer the phones amongst your other duties. Mainly this is when the store itself is not a heavy phone traffic store or has an automatic message (such as a movie theater). Then there are stores where people call and often. That’s when they get a dedicated phone operator and that poor sap has been me. It sounds like a golden job; just sit there and answer the phones. But that is its magical aura, like a siren or other bewitching creature. Once the veil is off, you realize how terrible such a position is and no one, other than your coworkers, understands because they are veiled and jealous. If you are one of these people, please, inspect your grass again because this job is horrendous.

Now I worked for an electronics store when answering the phones. The first fun little quirk is when people call us and ask for the electronics department: such is a standard Wal-Mart or Target customer. I’ve had multiple replies to it, some I have thoroughly enjoyed while other times I end up feeling bad. Here are a few:

“The ELECTRONICS department?”

“Electronics, as in…?”

“Well,  the whole store is TECHNICALLY electronics, so what area in particular?”

“Yeah, I can help you with that.”

This is just a general disregard for common sense; know who you are calling before dialing. I find this as ridiculous as calling up a friend’s cell phone and asking for them when they pick up.

Now for a fun send off with the phones, I will give you a list of names (and pet names) I have been called after introducing myself (my real name is Samantha):

Amanda

Wendy

Molly

Hun

Sweetie

Sarah

Robin (a co-worker)

My favorite is Wendy. 

Skewed

For as long as I remember receiving a paycheck, I have been working in retail. Before I graduated high school, I was scribbling down my weekly schedule and requesting days off. And as long as I have been self aware, I have been a misanthrope. But I had to ask myself, upon the self realization of who I am, this: did I always hate people or did working in retail make it so?

[mas-an-thro-py] noun, a hatred or distrust of humankind

This isn’t an easy answer. My instinct is to say it is naturally within me and that I masochistically choose customer service jobs to further my inner hatred. But the longer I punch in and out, the more I answer the same questions daily, I feel less and less inclined to be in want of human company. Then I started to lean towards nurture, believing the jobs made me like this. Logic says it’s the middle of the road, a combination of both. And I tend to explore both concepts.

[mas-och-ism] noun, pleasure in being abused

I have worked retail since about sixteen; it’s just long enough to be at peace with the daily atrocities of coworkers and customers but too short to really have gone anywhere up the ladder. Well, that and I have a fondness for changing jobs every year or so. I have worked in a movie theatre, a bar, in electronics, coffee, food, books, humorous gadgets, serviced computers, a dentist office, at a children’s fitness center and answered the phones. Throw a few odd ball jobs in there, like a renaissance fair and modeling nude for art classes, but neither of which will really be involved in this blog (most especially not the modeling). So needless to say, my inability to stick with one job for long periods of time has left me at the bottom of the totem pole every time, with minimum wage but maximum stress.

[human] noun, a bipedal primate mammal

Now, as a college graduate, one would assume I was finished working retail and would move on to bigger and better things. One would naturally assume that rather than try to work up in the company, I would use my degree to find something much more pleasing. And you would be accurate; but in the meantime, I’m that girl serving your food with a smile on her face and her eyes on the clock.

[re-tail] noun, the sale of commodities or goods in small quantities to ultimate consumers, also: the industry of such selling

Most people tend to think that it’s not stressful at the bottom, since you rarely have to worry about numbers, getting customers in and dealing with the worst of the problems. You don’t really have to answer to corporate, who marginalize your daily efforts into spreadsheets and percentages. You just have to make sure your shirt is tucked in, you look presentable and you’re always smiling when they show up. But by claiming that working retail is any less stressful than a manager’s position is ignoring the fact you, or I, in this instance, work daily with the consumer. I am the one that has to hear the complaints about the taste, quality, or price when I have no direct say in the matter. I listen to the customer stories that I can’t turn away, even with a line out the door, and I get the nasty glares when someone isn’t in a good mood. I am the one that gets that phone call at the end of my shift, hearing f-bombs and being told I ruined their life because something didn’t work properly or a co-worker of mine told them something incorrect. So I apologize, apologize and apologize.

[blog] noun, a web site that contains an you’re probably not reading this, are you? you know what a blog is anyway, so nevermind

So what, you say? You’re probably thinking that’s life, that’s your job so deal with it. And my answer is: I am. This blog is less about trying to make a change and more about voicing the ridiculous things that happen, what people do that annoy me and so on. Some of these stories will seem normal and shouldn’t annoy an average person, and that’s where I ask you to remember the misanthropic nature of the author. Others will be crazy stories about customers. I promise you, it is all true; just skewed by my point of view.