A Retail Wage-Slave's Rant

My doctor's appointment didn't turn out so bad, actually had some mixed results. On the plus side, all talk of surgery has been put aside for the time being. My doctor pointed out one of the first things I learned about hyperparathyroidism, specificly the difference between primary and secondary hyperparathyroidism. The two are difficult to diagnose, so we're going to approach it from the secondary interpretation; I'm now taking heavy-strength prescription vitamin D supplement, which should, hopefully, correct my calcium level, which in turn, should lower my parathyroid hormone level. The minus side is that in the course of the examination, the doctor discovered a horrible case of veinous insufficiency in my left foot, the result of a deep vein thrombosis roughly three years ago. So, in additional to a referral to an endochrinologist and a vein specialist, I was prescribed medical support socks, knee-highs. I fully expected top find an AARP card in the mailbox when I returned home, complete with a complimentary truss.

My shifts at work over the past two days have been challenging at best. Something happens in the more guttural neighborhoods of this blighted city when the weather warms up. The furry vermin head indoors for room service, and the two-legged ones wander out to spread their filth and disease, in the process spilling those pesky brain-cells and their burdensome IQ points with every puff of reefer-laced cigarillo and regurgited malt liquor. I grow very tired frustrated with retail. It's not exactly the sort of job that requires a great deal of intelligence or skill, and thus garners precious little respect, especially in the convenience store industry, but oh, how bitchy and incompetent are the mighty and the miniscule when faced with the options of finding something on their own or fending for themselves. There was a time, some forty or fifty years ago, when customer service commanded a particular level of proletarian nobility, and a well-earned modicum of appreciation. Wearing a uniform wasn't laughable, playing Steppin Fetchit for meager pay wasn't castigated, and wasn't so meager, either. One could earn a liveable wage seeing to the demands and custom of the average bourgeois and lower. Until the questionable advent of the Technological Revolution, that is (and yes, I am keenly aware that this diatribe is delivered because of and courtesy of that very revolution). Within a pitifully short degree of time, customer service became confused with and overrun by the eroneous concept of customer servitude. Because we didn't ply the wares of the new technology on anything but a macroeconomic basis, we were determined to be below average, studpid, uneducated. We were assigned a quota for scorn to be received by the very bastards we serve. Those assumptions regarding our abilities, opportunities, and options rankle me daily. It is horribly difficult to tolerate the treatment receive from my clientel, spoken to as if I were an idiot by the flotsam and jetsom of society whom I could easily outhink and intellectually overwhelm, being requested to re-asess a receipt and make certain of my calculation by thugs that can't be troubled to, or are incapable of reading the simple Arabic numerals on our gasoline pumps.

Ours is an industry that discourages collective bargaining, advocacy for career-minded employees, fair treatment for our workers from both upper management and client alike. We have not yet adopted such lofty and modern concepts as the internal customer, evidenced by the harsh treatment we receive from our maintenance and retail supply departments, entities that wouldn't even have work were we not to exist. I do my best to compensate by backing up the associates under my purview, supporting them against the irate customer even when I feel, privately, that a particular policy or ordinance is being over-interpreted by the employee. The vast majority of customer still believe the falacy that 'the customer is always right.' That myth, that laughable rallying cry of the rude and ignorant still persists from an ancient time when there was no liability law, no government agencies and regulations regarding myriad aspects of sales and transactions, before products of particular qualities were restricted to purchase only by those who met stringent requirements. When a customer utters that foolish phrase, it can virtually be guaranteed that the employee is either being scammed or ask to disregard and violate a law, and suffer the consequences because of some 'honor-among-thieves' code under which they imagine we live, like troglodytes. Get used to it people, you must be over eighteen to purchase tobacco and lottery, and over twenty-one to purchase alcohol. Furthermore, if you don't appear to be exorbitantly over those respective ages, we are obliged to ask for proof, in the form of pictured identification from a recognised government body. We don't like it either, but not from the petty concerns of the inconvenienced consumer of those vices. Our burden isn't just not being able to drink or smoke; it's incarceration, conviction, long-term felony records from both state and federal charges, as well as loss of employment and virtual blackballing form an industry that, while we seek to escape it, provides us with a near constant demand for trained, expereinced employees.

Playing hardball with difficult customers is both the least favorable part of my job and, at times, the most rewarding. There's nothing quite like turning that sarcastic attitude back on its issuer with greater flair, greater skill, and the assurance of righteousness under the law as back-up. I have frequently and with glee refused sale to indiviuals who, although they may be well over the legal age for consumption of any restricted product, couldn't be bothered to renew their identification or driver's license with the state, quite often by as many as five years or more! I have absolutely zero tolerance fort someone who claims to be an adult yet exhibits the irresponsibility of their own children, or, often, grandchildren. And for those of you who like to whine, cry, and bitch that it's your right, your right to purchase tobacco or alcohol? Please point out the passage in the Constitution of the United States of America that secures unto you that right? Please, feign intelligence, maturity, and literacy, and point it out! I DARE you! Like it or not, WE are in control of that transaction, WE have final say, so if you want excellent customer service, cough up some damned CUSTOMER COURTESY!

Needless to say, I'm thrilled that I have tomorrow off. I need the rest, and wouldn't accept an additional shift if the call came. It's nearly 2:00am, but I've only been home for about two and a half hours, and still have a great deal of unwinding to do. My wife should be returning home from her road trip to Detroit within the next two hours, a growing and aggravating new tradition that's cropped up within the past several weeks. We have much to discuss, much to resolve, before I accept that marriage counselling isn't futile, that she hasn't turned from me completely and is engaging in mere humoring. I've set an arbitrary deadline of this coming Monday. Fact of the matter is, if she can't be troubled to find the time to give our marriage a little first aid in the entire weekend, then there isn't a marriage to save; it's been dead for some time, and I've been refusing to smell the rot.