The towel tosser, C, from previous posts has finally crossed the line. I'm sure you guys remember her from the previous posts, namely the one where she purposely trashed the hotel room so that "those fuckers" would clean it. Well kids, it took all that I had to keep from throttling her this afternoon. This is a long one. I am sooooooo mad.
She has never, ever, ever worked in customer service, except for a remarkably brief stint in the call center before she applied for this job and moved. Actually, during her highschool days she wasn't expected to hold a "regular" job, as she helped out on the ranch at home. ALSO she wasn't expected to work while in college, so she had LITTLE job (and real life) experience after graduation. I’ve explained all that in previous posts.
We were on our way back from lunch when we saw this woman, probably late 20's, in a Burger King uniform walking on the sidewalk. C pointed her out and said
"Oh look, she just got off her shift at the fast food store because she's not smart enough to have the job qualifications for anything else!" before erupting into a fit of giggles at this woman’s expense.
Whisky.
Tango.
Foxtrot?
I casually mentioned that fast food is a job that I will never do again and that I had dutifully put in my time behind the counter. Her giggles ceased at that point, as she realized the weight of them. She stammered that she'd never done food service before...or retail either (trying to change the subject). I said that I had done BOTH, and I believe EVERYONE should do one or the other at some point in their life. Obviously uncomfortable with her faux pas, she tried to change the subject again, and stammered half hearted, embarrassed apoligies. I, on the other hand, felt it necessary to give this stuck up little you-know-what a little talking-to from a former not smart enough to have better job-skills person.
I told her the tale of being 15 and having a hamburger smashed into my face because it was not prepared just right and of having to remove a customer from the store that I
managed due to his name-calling of my 15-year-old counter person. Of giving up prime “party nights” because I had to work and of the thieves and general rudeness of those you encounter in retail.
I told her about the people you meet, in any service position, that think you are a
looser or mentally challenged simply because you wear a uniform.
She did not say anything the rest of the ride back, and has said very little to me since we’ve been back in the office.
It makes my blood boil when ignorant people feel the need to flap their mouth hole. It’s an industry that, by her own admission, she knows nothing about and yet she still feels the need to put down another human being because of it. Neither of us knew anything about that lady, save for the most obvious, outward facts: She was a brunette in her late 20’s that worked at Burger King. She could have been a young woman putting herself through college or a single mother doing the best she can to keep herself off of welfare and her kids fed. Maybe she was a housewife trying to earn a little money of her own or fill her otherwise boring days with something constructive.
Or maybe she was just a lady trying to earn an honest freaking dollar, just like the rest of us in the world.
How dare she or anyone else take it upon them self to pass judgment.
Who the hell do you think you are?
People like C wouldn’t last a day salting fries and apologizing for “the wait” than can't be helped in a lunch rush. C would be rocking in a freaking corner with 3 bus loads of teenagers rampaging through the lobby. She’d crack after an hour of folding and refolding a display of shirts and cleaning out dressing rooms at prom time. She doesn’t have what it takes to spend her 8 hours running around covering different departments let alone being able to answer questions in said departments. Her stint in the call center was so brief; she never made it past the probationary period where a supervisor was there to hold her hand the entire time. Yes C, I want to tell her, ‘if you take that bit of customer service work, you can say that it’s easy. You’ve never had food ground into your pores, drinks thrown at you, or been screamed at while you sat there, helplessly silent and fighting back tears. It’s easy for you pass judgment and look down your nose at people who wait on you because YOU'VE NEVER DONE IT. You’re lacking humility, and its from that humility that compassion stems. It’s where character begins to take shape to create a humble and caring individual.
Like I told her, those of us that have done our time in customer service think
long and hard before raising a stink. We, unlike you, have a
very hard time being an ass, because we've been on the other side of it.
GOD DAMN IT I'M PISSED. And she knows it. I did't even have to raise my voice, or cop an attitude. I think she realized the size of the nerve she hit. It's people like HER that burn us out. Attitudes like hers that make me insist that everyone needs to spend some time on the other side of that counter.
On a related note, I tried on some clothes at Target (thats where we were coming from) and I gathered up the gigantic pile of clothes in the dressing room and brought them to the girl at the front. She looked utterly shocked stuttered a surprised thank you to me. I patted her arm and told her it was no biggie. I know how awful it is to clean out changing rooms.
See? It's that kind of compassion and responsibility that customer service fosters. It's all about being kind to one another. It's not that hard.
The Towel Tosser Has Crossed The Line
Linear Mode
