Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Tuesday, Sept. 04, 2007 - 10:52 p.m.

Reason #482 Why I Love My Job:

Scene: Big Chain Bookstore Checkout Line
Event: Labor Day

Customer: (hands me product, a set of cd's with which to learn Spanish)
Me: Have you a discount card to save on this today?
Him: No, I have a teacher discount card.
Me: Okay, can I see it?
Him: Sure. (whips out some sort of photo id which in no way whatsoever identifies him as a teacher*)

* We get this a lot, btw. The store offers a fairly generous discount to educators, so a lot of people try to take advantage of that, including people who are not actually educators. They also buy a lot of shit that is in no way something they are going to use for teaching. Unless they're teaching classes in how to write trite and predictable trashy romance novels full of heaving bosoms and throbbing members and which must be written while consuming Godiva chocolates. But I digress.

Me: Oh, that's not a store discount card. You'll need one of those, so can you fill this form out, and can I see something with the school year printed on it?
Him: What do you mean?
Me: Well, I need to see something with the current school year printed on it, or I can't give you the educator discount.
Him: (snatches his id card back from me and suddenly shouting) I'm not buying it, then. FUCK YOU! (and continues maligning my person as he steps away from the counter)
Me: (pissed, but staying calm) Please don't speak to me like that, sir. You don't need to insult me for doing my job. I am just a tiny cog in the giant wheel that is Big Chain Bookstore, and I don't deserve that kind of abuse.
Him: Fine. Let me speak to the manager, then.
Me: Yes, sir, I'd be happy to call the manager for you.
Him: You're right; I shouldn't have spoken to you like that. I'm sorry.
Me: That's okay, sir. I understand. Let me get the manager for you.

At this point, I call over the PA for the MOD, and then return to my register, where he and the 3 *adult* members of his party are waiting. Did I mention there's a line? Because oh yeah, there's a line.

It takes the MOD 7.5 minutes to get to my station, because she is herself dealing with a problem in another part of the store.

This is what happens while I wait for her:

Woman with Customer: What kind of stupid bitch are you?
Man with Customer: This is bullshit. Give him the discount. Why are you such a bitch about this?
2nd Man with Customer: What's your problem? Just give him the discount.
Him: Don't hassle her. She's just doing her job. (2nd man flies under the radar from here out.)
Me: I'm sorry. I have a set of rules I am told to operate under.
Woman: Can't you think for yourself? How stupid are you?
Man: This is fucking ridiculous. Give him the fucking discount, you stupid moron. Learn to think for yourself. What's the fucking problem?
Me: For all I know, he could have been a secret shopper. I'm just doing my job.
Man: A secret shopper? Jesus, are you that dumb? (snorts) A secret shopper. What a fucking idiot.
Him: They get secret shopped. She doesn't want to lose her job. Leave her alone.
Man: Oh yeah, like some secret shopper is going to ask for a teacher's discount. Yeah, like that could actually fucking happen. (eye roll) Jesus, are you really that stupid?
Woman: Jesus. He has a Ph.D. He's entitled to some fucking respect.

At this point, I'm thinking someone with a fucking Ph.D should know better than to shout "fuck you" at a bookstore employee over a measley $4 discount, and that the members of his party should have the manners not to stand there for over 7 minutes and harangue the fuck out of a minimum wage employee who's only doing her job, but obviously the world is a deeply imperfect place, so suck it and shut the fuck up, you obnoxious fucking cow, but what I actually said was rather less than that. It was, in point of fact, nothing. Meanwhile, the gigantically fat man and woman (their combined weight had to be close to 1,000 pounds) who were with the customer continued to tell me how stupid and what I bitch I was, until the MOD finally showed up. And since she was, as mentioned previously, dealing with something she thought was much more pressing (you know, if you call a guy who is threatening to shoot people pressing), she said "I don't care, just give him the discount," to which the fat fucks behind him very loudly said "FInally. Jesus," and he replied, "Katie's doing a great job," in a tone that was so incredibly over-bright that neither the MOD nor myself could figure out whether he was being sincere or a sarcastic tool, but both of us had the gut feeling it was sarcasm. But he pretended to be nice the rest of the time he was there, despite the fat fucks behind him continuing to be rude and insulting pricks, loudly going on about people who are too stupid to do anything but work in a bookstore and can't even get that right. They finally left, and the guy who was standing at the next cash register over shook his head and looked at me and said not to let them get to me.

I finished out the line, and then I had to go on break, because I was shaking from the stress. I found the MOD and told her the whole story, and she said next time to leave my post and come and find her and tell her what was going on, because that made her really angry, and if she'd known they'd been like that, she would have pitched them out of the store, no if's, and's or but's about it. Which made me feel slightly better, but only slightly, because they got to be abusive pricks and totally get away with it. I'm trying to believe the guy who got the discount was sincere in his apology and everything that happened after, but that's pretty hard to believe, his friends were such assholes. I sat in the breakroom and cried, because I wanted nothing more than to quit a job that forces me to stand there and take that kind of abuse from people who clearly need to be punched in the face fairly often, but I couldn't quit it, because as shitty as it is, I need it more than I need oxygen, at this point. But I am sick to death of being in positions that open me up to that kind of bullshit. I want to be a person who commands respect, not the person in the shitty little job that everyone else wipes their boots on. I'm tired of being the person in that job. I want to be the fucking boot wiper. Only I wouldn't wipe my boots on other people, because hello, THEY'RE FUCKING PEOPLE. And you don't wipe your fucking boots on other human beings. I can't believe this actually has to be said. You do not wipe your fucking boots on your fellow human beings. You do not treat other people like shit just because you are a miserable loser and a pathetically unhappy human being, or because you think you can, or because you're such a dick that you think you've somehow earned the right. You haven't, you useless git. And every time you treat someone poorly, you demonstrate more clearly than all the self-loathing and insecurity in the world ever could that you are of a lower quality than they are. I don't give a damn who you are. I hate the boot wipers of this world. Lividly.

I guess yesterday was the day for assholes. A few months ago, some guy in the store picked an argument with another customer, a random stranger, and threatened to come back with a gun and shoot him. So the MOD had to have him removed from the store. Yesterday, he came back and made a point of getting a chair and setting it in front of where she was working, then sitting there and staring her down. Which is what she was dealing with when I called for her. Security had to come and eject him from the store again. I can't wait until the day some unbalanced asshole (probably him) comes into the store with a gun and opens fire. Won't that just be awesome?

::sigh::

Peace out,
Katie

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