So, I Guess This Is Where You Call Me A...

...Meanie.

As a relatively nice and sweet human being I am rarely called anything but...well, nice and sweet. I am by no means perfect I admit this, I am human after all. I get frustrated and aggravated like the next gal but mean I am not. Until today that is.

My patience is winding down at Le Sad Store. With only two weeks left until I am on a train to South Carolina (VACATION!) where I will spend eight stress free and book shelving (customer helping) days, I don't think I will make it at Le Sad Store.

Unfortunately I feel like this blog has become a job venting spot. I apologize for the amount of posts I make about work. But work for me takes up so much of my life right now that it is my main source of journal writing material. Most of my friends are people I work with, I work five days a week at Le Sad Store (when they aren't cutting me down to 3) and on my days off I like to spend all my time away from everyone.

Tuesday and Thursdays have become an oasis for me. Where the annoyances from my job nearly brings me to tears every shift, my days off are ideal. I don't do anything special on those days but the fact that they are spent away from people abuse the word 'customer service' is enough for me. I don't have to answer the phones, or stupid questions or point to the travel section. I don't have to pick up after people or chase down children who are not with their parents. I don't have to give creepy guys the stank eye for opening the porn mags in the fiction aisle, and I am only concerned on my days with making sure I am happy. No one else. Tuesday and Thursday are my sanity.

On Tuesday the theater charges only 6 dollars for any movie showing. All Day. So me and a friend from work usually attend a movie in the afternoon, after I have spent some time at the library getting books to read. On Thursday I stay inside all day. I have no care to step outside and face the world. By then, I've collected all my library books and snacks in advance so that I don't have to make any impromptu trips. The landlady's cat and I lounge in my room all day (the cat likes to chill at the windowsill, I in bed) where books are the only friends I crave.

I need my Tuesday and Thursdays, because lately people have been driving me crazy and not in a normal people are annoying way. Especially at work, it is damn near impossible for me to head into my shift with anything but contempt on my face. With school just out, parents have come in the store angrily yelling at us because we don't have anymore copies of a book their kid has to read for the summer. The store is trashed daily as if people weren't taught the concept of cleaning up after themselves. And the people who come in every day (the regulars. who I swear have no job) treat the place like home, so much to the point that they never want to leave and bang on the gates early in the morning when our morning meetings get a little long.

While I am usually able to be the better person in all of these situations, I have currently lost the will or patience these days to do so. The drudgery is stifling and predictable. I cannot stand when customers address me by my name (or worse an affectionate nickname) because I work there. I am tired of having to put up with people's shit because I work in retail. I understand that I wear a name tag and a part of my job description is about customer satisfaction. But when someone calls to at noon to ask if the store is open...customer satisfaction does not exist anymore. Just plain contempt. Plain ol' contempt.

The last few days have been dreadful at Le Sad Store. I already know what titles people are looking for (into thin air, the chosen, the outsiders and among the hidden), I already know what they'll say if we don't have it (is there another store near by, this is why i shop on amazon) and I've grown thick skin against the pushy 'so basically you are telling me you don't have the book I want. Well what help are you' customers. Every day they chip at my soul and I try to hold on to my own sanity.

The summer reading thing is very bothersome to me:

Summer reading for me was never mandatory when I was a kid. At the end of the year, the teacher sent us home with a list of books that were suggested reading and because I was a nerdy, nerdy kid I read the books because I wanted to. It's completely different now. The kids who come into the store can't even pronounce the title of the books they have to read (how do you pronounce Beloved? I can bet it's not how this chap the other day pronounced it).

I like having to discover books and authors to read. I like thumbing through an aisle and stumbling upon things. And while I completely encourage required reading, the looks on these kids face are painful. As if reading is something entirely boring and soul sucking.

Surprisingly this is the least of my issues with the store as of late. The regulars are killing me. They are there every day fighting (yes, actually fighting) for the most comfortable seats in our store. We know, almost all of them by name and they have tried unsuccessfully to know all of us in some way or another. I refuse to engage with someone who spends more time at the store than I do. I refuse! They ask to use our phone regularly, to find books for them they have no intention of buying and sometimes (most of the times) they try to engage in conversations as if we are friends.

There is one fellow in particular who is a regular nuisance. A rather portly guy in his mid 30's who frequents the store with his mom sometimes (he lives with her). Every day, sans mother, he comes in the store and asks if we have the new issue of playboy on the shelf. He has asked me on several occasions along with a bunch of us on the floor, even though he already knows the answer. He also has a tendency of speaking in an Indian accent to us though he is not Indian. He has done so at the registers because he thinks it is funny and one or two of us have let him know that is is offensive and inappropriate do an a stereotypical accent.

Recently, he has discovered a book in the humor section called The Fart book. It's what you think it is: a book with 8 buttons you can push that emit the sound of different farts. Creepy guy thinks this book is hilarious and makes a point of pulling it from the shelves so he can stand by customer service and push the button. For the past two weeks, he has carried this book around the store, 'sharing' the sound with customers and laughing childishly.

I have often thought of ripping the book out of his hands, of slamming it on the nearest counter and pointing out that it wasn't funny the first time he did and it is not funny now. It is clear that he is someone who suffers from horrible social skills. He does not know when enough is enough and because no one has told him differently he continues to act like a complete nuisance in public.

During our breaks we often talk about our most hated customers, and he ranks number one all the time. He is like that kid in high school who puts the kick me target on his back because his antics are annoying. He needs attention from people and cannot see when said person has become uncomfortable.

Because I was already in a bad mood I was none to happy to see him today as soon as the door opened with the Fart Book in his hand. He made his way slowly to customer service with this smile on his face and I already knew what he was going to say.

"excuse me, excuse me, tee hee, hey, don't you think this book is funny, tee hee, excuse me, excuse me, this book don't you think it's funny, fart book, tee hee, you need to look at it".

I being an amazing customer service rep, ignored him. But instead of walking away he came around the other side just in case I didn't hear him. My manager (who was also ignoring him), turned to me and we started having a conversation about nothing above the sound of his voice so he would get the picture and walk away. The two of us ignoring him made an impact and he eventually went to bother someone else.

Per usual, I let everyone know that there was a Creeper sighting in order to prepare them for his presence. Some of us have discussed that the only way to get him to stop a) being a bother and b) annoying us is to be direct. That when he is being inappropriate we need to call him on it.

But that too is something we aren't technically allowed to do. While we spend are shifts complaining about the customers who frequent the store, retail revolves around them. And while I refuse to cater or baby or be less of a person because I wear a name tag all day, I can't be all out rude.

But I thought Creepy guy was done for the day. I thought that the anger and frustration that has been building up these last two weeks would go away because he had gone away. But that would be too easy. An hour or two before my shift ended I caught sight of his superman t-shirt heading to customer service. Immediately I made a bee-line to warm whomever was there that he was on the prowl. But before I could get there, Creeper was talking to a co-worker at customer service and as I expected he wanted to know if we had any fart books in the store.

He knew where the fart book was. He put the damn thing away only hours earlier. He just wanted someone to type up the word fart in the search engine, so he could 'tee hee' and snicker.

But for some reason, I saw this as my opportunity to get something off of my chest. I approach Creeper as my coworker was typing in the title and said:

Me: "You know where the book is. Because you come in here every day and ask us to find it for you. You know this, you were just here a few hours ago. Every Day you do this!"

"Oh. I'm Sorry. Tee Hee. But I just want to know who the author is?"

Me:"No you don't. You want us to look for a book that you've put away a million times. It's becoming a little much. We understand that it is funny already. You don't have to keep telling us"

Silence.


More Silence.

My coworker was completely taken aback and didn't know what to say or do...so he kept trying to find the name of the author of the Fart Book. When he finally retrieved the name, Creepy guy sulked away (embarrassed) to the wonderful world of fart sounds.

When I came across the other side of customer service to discuss what just happened, my co-workers said that I was out of line (say what). That I should not have said what I said to the Creeper. That if a manager or someone else were in ear shot I would have gotten in trouble.

And he's right. I would have been written up.But seriously, I just couldn't take it anymore. I haven't been able to take much of Le Sad Store anymore. The stupid questions, the insensitive customers, the repetition. The old people telling me to perk up, the young people laying in the aisle. It takes all of my strength to treat the customers with any level of respect (well the ones who are nice obviously are treated so). And this guy just incites something within me that borders on rage. Unbridled annoyed rage.

Before my shift ended the music manager (a teddy bear kind of a guy) came over to tell me that a customer had complained about me to him. He smiled and said that a heavy set guy in a blue shirt said that I was a meanie(yep, meanie) and that I provided horrible customer service in regards to a fart book he was looking for.

For christ sakes. I'm officially a meanie.

I need a vacation. I need one quick. While I am not too worried about this guy calling me a 'mean person', I am quite upset that he has a small point. Working in retail is taking a toll on me. I am losing all faith in people. I am quickly annoyed and displeased with strangers and find myself having little to no patience with their expectations from me. And it's a shame because generally I like people, I am always able to see the humanity in them but lately it is as if everyone possess qualities that I find aggravating and it is making me bitter.

I don't want to be a mean person. I don't want to come across as a bitch. But the more I work in retail the more my complaints about people grow. And the only remedy is to escape before I have become a person who I can't look at in the mirror. Before I join the ranks as one of those people jaded by the real world and turned sour too quickly by the experience.