Why do they do it?

[Seshat]

Two others.

1. They're not thinking. They're operating on autopilot; for whatever reason. So they're not actually paying attention to you as a human being, and anything that disrupts the autopilot causes them to have to actually switch on.

2. Shyness and/or social phobia, in some cases. Obviously, not the belligerent ones! But the ones who perform the absolute minimum social interaction necessary to get the (scary, terrifying) transaction over with.

[PandaHatBear]

Hmm, anyone out there working retail while going to university? Maybe working on a masters? Need a good topic for a thesis? The Psychology of the SC. There would sure be plenty of subjects to observe for reasearch

I was asked to write an essay on "Cognitive psychology needed to complete a shopping trip" or something along those lines. I wrote about how you could use cognitive psychology to not be a sucky customer. I was told that it wasn't really the idea of the essay but it was worth it! I talked successfully about the psychology and so I still got quite a good mark. I think they found the different take on it more ingesting to read!

[EricKei]

...and taking it out on the most convenient target..even if that person does not have any authority/power whatsoever.

Bully syndrome.

In some of the jobs I've worked I'vegot the feeling that putting on a uniform and being stuck in front of a till, making you pretty much identical to all your coworkers, dehumanises the employee in the eyes of some people.

I decided years ago that this is not an accidental side effect of uniforms, but their explicit purpose

Name tags are similar. When you "define" something (here, as "Bob who works at X Store",) you gain a certain amount of control over them, real or imagined.

[lobo94]

Simple. Customers SUCK!!!!

[mharbourgirl]

I just think that Narcissistic Personality Disorder is becoming the new 'norm' for society.

"Narcissists have such an elevated sense of self-worth that they value themselves as inherently better than others. Yet, they have a fragile self-esteem and cannot handle criticism, and will often try to compensate for this inner fragility by belittling or disparaging others in an attempt to validate their own self-worth. It is this sadistic tendency that is characteristic of narcissism as opposed to other psychological conditions affecting level of self-worth."

Explains a lot, at least from my perspective.