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Some things reall AREN'T your business

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  • #31
    One of my default responses to the "You need to smile!" comment is to look at them, completely serious and deadpan, and say, "I am smiling."
    PWNADE(TM) - Serve up a glass today! | PWNZER - An act of pwnage so awesome, it's like the victim got hit by a tank.

    There are only Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because I choose to walk!

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    • #32
      I had one today I thought I'd add to this thread...an older man, being waited on at the register next to mine saw me yawn and went off!

      "Yawning at 1 in the afternoon? Maybe you shouldn't have gone out partying all night last night if you knew you had to work today! You should be ashamed!"

      What exactly should I be ashamed of? The fact that I had a human bodily function while at work? The fact that I've been working 9 days straight without a day off? That I am a single mother with 3 kids and an old house that requires constant maintainence and repairs, which I do myself? That I have a car on it's last legs that requires fluids added daily, which I also do myself? I haven't gone "out" to dinner, let alone "partying all night" in YEARS. My big Saturday night was spent laying on the couch with my cat, watching PBS.
      I just dont understand the mentality that tells people they can make random assumptions, accusations, and judgements about our personal lives based on a ten-minute transaction in the grocery store? I wasn't even waiting on this guy, so my yawn in no way affected his service.
      BTW, one of my CW's is currently finishing radiation treatments for breast cancer and is often tired and sick. Maybe this douche-bag can come back when she is working and tell her how ashamed she should be for whatever imaginary transgressions he can invent in his head for her. *smh*

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      • #33
        ^^ I have had the exact same thing said to me. Very shortly after 8 in the morning.

        My "partying" last night consisted of slinging boxes until 9, finally falling asleep at 11, and waking up at 3 this morning to be in to work at 5. Not hitting on white-girl wasted chicks.
        Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard. Be evil.

        "I never said I wasn't a horrible person."--Me, almost daily

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        • #34
          Quoth TattooedMommie View Post
          I had one today I thought I'd add to this thread...an older man, being waited on at the register next to mine saw me yawn and went off! ...
          This is why I hate yawning at work. I also hate coughing and sneezing, or working a knot out of my back because I've been standing too long. I always expect someone to say "Maybe you should stop having late nights" or "Why don't you stay at home instead of spreading your germs?"

          As for assumptions, this was the worst one:

          It was 2011. Someone was being served by another cashier at my former place of work, and he told her, "Cheer up, it might never happen!"

          She just broke down; had a massive crying fit right there on the shop floor, and ran off upstairs sobbing. Her son had fucking DIED a month earlier and she had just come back to work. The guy was told, and he just went, "Well how was I supposed to know?"

          EXACTLY! How the hell do YOU know what someone is going through? That phrase always bugged the crap out of me anyway. I hate it with a passion.
          Last edited by EricKei; 07-28-2014, 01:15 AM. Reason: edited quote

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          • #35
            Quoth Evannah View Post

            She just broke down; had a massive crying fit right there on the shop floor, and ran off upstairs sobbing. Her son had fucking DIED a month earlier and she had just come back to work. The guy was told, and he just went, "Well how was I supposed to know?"

            EXACTLY! How the hell do YOU know what someone is going through? That phrase always bugged the crap out of me anyway. I hate it with a passion.

            Nope they dont know, cuz it's none of their goddamn business. People need to learn how to complete a simple sale without trying to "own" the people who wait on them. They dont need to make personal comments, cuz they DoNT know what we might be going through.

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            • #36
              Quoth protege View Post
              I messed up my jaw in an auto accident years ago. My face hit the steering wheel and did some damage The joint doesn't quite fit the way it's supposed to, and sometimes makes a loud "cracking" noise if I attempt to.
              Thank you for the "squicky" imagery..... I now have the perfect disconcerting/annoying character foible to give to the next "creepy" person in one of my fiction works. Shall we name him after you?
              - They say nothing good happens at 2AM, they're right, I happen at 2AM.

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              • #37
                Quoth Argabarga View Post
                Thank you for the "squicky" imagery..... I now have the perfect disconcerting/annoying character foible to give to the next "creepy" person in one of my fiction works. Shall we name him after you?
                I'm imagining that episode of CSI with the bad guy who got identified because his jaw clicks in a distinctive way.
                PWNADE(TM) - Serve up a glass today! | PWNZER - An act of pwnage so awesome, it's like the victim got hit by a tank.

                There are only Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because I choose to walk!

                Comment


                • #38
                  Quoth sms001 View Post
                  "Yes, yes they are. Kinda sad to have been widowed five times at my age." Pause, then chirpily: "But hey! At least I'm not in prison for any of them. Anything else for you today?"
                  Yes!! I will have to remember that one
                  Sometimes customers remind me of zombies, but I'm pretty sure that zombies are smarter.

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                  • #39
                    I've had customers say, whenever I yawn, that I shouldn't have gone out partying the night before. They soon shut up when I tell them I suffer from occasional insomnia.

                    As for the "cheer up, it might never happen", I must confess to an incident that happened a few years ago. The speaker of the phrase was a complete stranger who said it to me while I, a complete stranger to him, was walking down the high street doing some shopping. If he'd left me alone after, I wouldn't have done what I did, but he kept on with the "Cheer up! Cheer up! Smile!"

                    So I looked him in the eye, and said that I'd had a miscarriage. Cue the Cheer Up stranger stumbling backwards, gasping out an apology and making a pretty sharp exit. I went on with my shopping. I hadn't had a miscarriage, but I figured at the time that it was the best way to save him from saying that to someone who had suffered a terrible loss.

                    Now, I think that what I said was a little harsh, but I hope that he stopped bugging complete strangers and telling them to cheer up afterwards.
                    People who don't like cats were probably mice in an earlier life.
                    My DeviantArt.

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                    • #40
                      Quoth raudf View Post
                      Since I went to the store today, I decided to try something. An experiment if you will. I smiled as I shopped for my items.
                      YES! I do this. I did it today. I have an abscess on a tooth. I get the tooth pulled out in two days, but I have had 5 hours sleep in 5 days. I made at least two people happy smiling at them, and told another how difficult her job must be (she was kneeling on the floor, stacking shelves)

                      On the way out there were [people of different ethnic origins to me] and their children blocking the narrow walkway, and I paused and smiled at them. They smiled
                      back and moved their children out of the way.

                      Don't do it as an experiment, do it every day. To someone who is not smiling. See if you can get them to smile back just by being happy.

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                      • #41
                        Quoth Lace Neil Singer View Post
                        It's amazing how many people think that in order to look normal, a person has to walk around with a wide manic grin on their face. Personally, if I saw someone like that, I'd wonder what drugs they were taking. O_o
                        I thought if people did that in the UK, others accused them of being Yanks
                        Smile, or I'll smack you silly!
                        At what age does a vampire become a crazy old bat? :[

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                        • #42
                          Quoth vikingchyk View Post
                          accused them of being Yanks
                          Only if you're also clapping.

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                          • #43
                            Quoth Argabarga View Post
                            Bet they weren't a day younger than 40, there's a real hard generational line out there regarding tattoos. People under 40 don't see what the big deal is, and people over 40, well, might as well be Victorian England, so sure are they that tattoos can only ever coincide with criminality.
                            Gen X is in our forties and fifties now. You've got the age wrong.


                            As for the smiling: I can't always limp around looking happy, I'm usually in too much pain. But when I interact with people, I try to pull my mind into focus, and actually interact with the person. As in, I pay attention to them, try to say something nice, or otherwise generally behave as if I believe in their individuality and personhood. (I mean, I do believe in it, but there's a difference between believing in it, and being so zoned out and exhausted I can't act that way.)

                            I don't always smile at them. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. But making the effort to treat them as people seems to leave them smiling, or at least - there's something in the posture, the way people hold their shoulders and their arms, that changes when they're feeling good/bad. Interacting with a person as a person vs as an animate machine seems to affect that posture change.
                            Seshat's self-help guide:
                            1. Would you rather be right, or get the result you want?
                            2. If you're consistently getting results you don't want, change what you do.
                            3. Deal with the situation you have now, however it occurred.
                            4. Accept the consequences of your decisions.

                            "All I want is a pretty girl, a decent meal, and the right to shoot lightning at fools." - Anders, Dragon Age.

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                            • #44
                              "Smile" is one of my personal favorites. When they say that to me, I smile, with my mouth only. If they bother to look at my eyes (what SC ever does?) they see my eyes are not smiling. In fact, my eyes tend to say, "Fuck you."

                              Recently a friend committed suicide. I had a customer make the "Smile" comment to me & I flat-out told them about my friend. "I'm sorry, Sir. My friend shot himself in the head on Tuesday. I can't smile right now. Would you like to address this with my manager?" Cue mouth dropping open to about his belt, stammer & walk away FAST.

                              Sometimes I want to tell them, "yes, I AM a human being with a life outside this hell-hole. I have feelings and resent the FUCK out of you telling me how I should feel, so eat shit, douchebag." ::::but that would be bad customer service::::

                              Sorry for the mini-rant. Still can't believe he did it.
                              Here Mr Customer, let me pull that out of my arse for you!

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                              • #45
                                JSM, I'm so sorry about your friend. That's awful.

                                Please take care of yourself, do what you need to do. We care.
                                I don't have an attitude problem. You have a perception problem.
                                My LiveJournal
                                A page we can all agree with!

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