Disappearing Act

A mere four days after being shoved by a crazy drunk lady I was called an asshole today by a customer. On mother's day. As if, you know, my mom wouldn't be offended that someone called her kid an asshole.

To all those recent college graduates who will soon find themselves out of school with enough book knowledge to.... well write a book, but too little work experience to, I don't know, get a job, working in retail will suck. It will suck hardcore. There will be days when you will not have a name. Because people with names deserve a little bit of dignity and respect, and lets just say you can throw that concept outside the window once you get behind a register or a counter.

You will not only NOT have a name, but you will not have a past, present or future. It will not matter to customers that you graduated from college. That you once rescued children from a burning building or that you donated to UNICEF. In retail you are a face without a name. You are just a face, and a body, and worse a thing. A thing which people can project their anger, happiness, and frustrations on. You've been warned graduates. Don't say I didn't give you the heads up.

As soon as I got into work, 12-8, a co-worker warned me that customers were in a weird mood. She said it like that weird old guy in horror movies who warns you about the creepy legend surrounding the camp, haunted house, or woods that you know you are going to enter. In fact, I hate when people warn you about things at all, because then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. She said it was going to be a bad day, so that means it is going to be a bad day.

For the most part people were just frustrated about books that they wanted to buy but that we didn't have in the store. Of course they were shopping last minute for a mother's day gift which made it all the worse. I will never understand people who wait to the day of to buy gifts. It's not like we haven't been bombarded with mother's day reminders since April. So the store was packed.

Where the customers decided to get nasty were in their dissatisfaction with our ability to produce the service they wanted, just as they wanted it, when the wanted. Josh got yelled at by a guy who was unhappy that we didn't have a Obama bashing book in the store. He accused Josh and the store of being left winged and against conservatism. Another co-worker was told that she had wasted their (customers) time because she drove all the way down to the store to pick up a book she wasn't even sure we had (we didn't). Douches and Douchettes were swinging at us left and right and by the end of the day I was so over being a face without a name.

I only had two encounters with bad customers, but they were epic:

The first guy called the store because he bought an audio book that had a sticker on it for 20%. However it didn't ring up for 20% on his receipt and he wanted to know why he didn't get the discount. So I typed up the product number and go figure the item wasn't promo'd for anything. I told him that most likely it was once a promo but someone forgot to de-sticker it. He then got all irate. But it was stickered 20%, how could something accidentally be stickered 20%, it was on a table that had a bunch of other things stickered 20%.

Once again I explained the situation and that because it was our error he could return the item for the accidentally promo'd item. He then told me that I didn't sound like a manager and that I should be very careful telling him that he could get his 20% back if he couldn't and that he wanted to let all the stickering people that they made a huge error.

Having worked there for some time I know that anything stickered incorrectly has to be sold for the percentage marked off (we don't tell customers this until the moment they are yelling at us). I know this because I have had to do it several times, with a managers permission. And to me, if someone is telling you the price can be adjusted because of store error, I wouldn't question said person and threaten to call the stickering people police (he. said. this.). We went over this "but it says 20%", "I know, so you can return it and get the price adjusted but that's all I can do for you over the phone" before he said he was getting a little aggravated with me. We both hung up confused and dissatisfied (and the funniest thing. The book in question was called: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff).

The last lady (a mother no less) takes the cake though. I was at the cash register the last hour of my shift. For the most part it was uneventful, until the last five minutes. Josh and I were talking for a moment about hipsters and how awful they are when I heard someone do a 'hey you, come here now" whistle. I turn and it is this lady with her two kids waiting at the register. Josh splits and I start walking towards her. Automatically I know that she is at the wrong register (one down from mine) so I tell her as I pass her to sign in on mine that I am not at the register she is at. She doesn't hear me, because she is too busy preparing to get pissed.

She already had her books on the wrong counter, so I wait until she realizes that she is not at the right register. By then, she is livid. She pokes her head around to my register and mumbles 'you are so rude'. Maybe because I didn't grab the books off the register for her, maybe because I didn't do whistle at her like a dog to come hither. She slams her book at the right counter and gives me that stank eye.

When I ask her a question she answers in the affirmative and then whispers that I need to be written up by a manager because of how rude I am. ??? I ignore her and start ringing her up. She is seething, for reasons I am still not sure about and when the transaction is done she barely lets me get the books in the bag before she yanks it out of my hand. Remind you, her kids are still there, right beside her. As she walks away and mumbles "asshole!" and leaves the store.

By then someone was up there with me to cover the cash register and witnessed the angry lady and her attitude. She asked me 'what the hell was wrong with that lady' and all I could say was 'apparently i'm an asshole'. To be honest the whole exchange was absurd. There are a lot of things that I may be but asshole is not one of them. Not even close. But then I had to remember that to her I am not someones daughter, or a college graduate, or an okay writer with a blog. I am a nameless face, who is an asshole because she has deemed me one.

To say today was awful would be an understatement. It's bad enough that people deplete my energy but mean people destroy me. They chip at my particles and cause my whole to feel unsteady. Everyday I literally have to remind myself that I am a person. everyday. Some days are harder than others and I can feel myself start to disappear. Like one by one my limbs are fading away, erasing all traits of the person that I once was. It's a painful, brutal feeling. And after today, I feel less like a person than I have in a very long time. And not because some lady called me an asshole or that some guy on the phone was being a jerk but because being a nameless face I couldn't refute their assumptions about me.

I could only, smile sadly and say 'have a nice day', only to feel like crap now because I've disappeared completely into myself again.