I AM working

[TruthHurts]

Every Thursday I have to do magazine returns. This consists of counting how many returns there are and writing down the totals. My co-worker is manning one register and I am at a closed register surrounded by magazines and got to hear some wonderfully witty comments.

"Wake up", "They don't pay you to read", "Wish I could just read magazines while I'm supposed to be working," "Get to work'" and "Haha caught you slacking."

How would they feel if I stopped by their work and made "jokes" like that when they were obviously busy?

[teh_blumchenkinder]

How does counting look like reading?
Now, if you had them open, were studying it, sitting on your bum and drinking a latte...
they're just being jerks. ... or completely oblivious.

[blas]

I have coworkers that do that to me, too. Though I work in a factory.....ugh, it's so irritating....it's JUST as bad as customers who think it's funny to quip "Haha must be free!" or "Haha, interrupted your break!"

If I get behind because of a problem or the machine needs repair, people just walk by and think it's funny to say "Haha, you're BURIED!" or "Wow, not keeping up there very well!"

The best of all is those comments just fuel my awful shift lead to be even bitchier.

[Trixie]

Tonight as I was standing behind the counter, some old dipshit comes up and says "You look bored. Hyuck, hyuck."

Why yes, yes I was. Now I'll have something to do for the next two minutes. Thank you SO much.

There is also the ever popular "You're not doing anything so I'll give you something to do."

And also "You were just waiting for me." Always followed by the "Hyuck, hyuck" laugh.

To which I always reply with a half-hearted and totally insincere "Heh."

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

There is only one way to reply to that statement.

"I get paid to do my job. What you see me doing, regardless of what you THINK it is that I am doing, is my job. If you want to take umbrage at the fact that I am doing the task(s) assigned to me by my manager, feel free to talk to my manager and lodge a complaint.

Good Day."

[RealUnimportant]

I remember the first time I worked in an office instead of retail, and had 3 hours solid of JUST reading briefings... On the one hand, I couldn't believe I was getting paid for "nothing", and on the other hand I wondered how many people get to do that on a regular basis yet still expect retail workers to run around like their pants are on fire 24/7!

[Snowbird]

I feel your pain, I used to do magazine returns too. I don't know if you are required to rip off the covers and toss the body of it, but I was, and it got to the point that I couldn't do the returns in the front of the store because so many customers, who hadn't bothered to buy the magazines when they were for sale, wanted the ones I was tossing, and they were persistent.

I also got the 'get back to work' jibes, when I was sitting on the floor. I was, however, surrounded by stacks of books, grubby as heck from dust and sticker residue (returns again, yay!), with a clipboard and pen in hand. I just don't get it.

[RealUnimportant]

"Work" in suck-speak means "taking my shit from behind that counter"; anything else is just slacking off.

[C. Cecil Ivanish]

"They don't pay you to read",

A good answer to that would be "I hope they pay you to be a jerk, I'd hate to do it for free."

[AtDIelement]

because so many customers, who hadn't bothered to buy the magazines when they were for sale, wanted the ones I was tossing, and they were persistent.

Well, of course, they want it because they think it's free now.

[EricKei]

"I hope they pay you to be a jerk, I'd hate to do it for free."

Given the number of stories on this site involving spineless managers and corporate gift-card vending services -- er, excuse me -- complaint departments, I'd say that being a jerk pays quite well...

[TruthHurts]

I feel your pain, I used to do magazine returns too. I don't know if you are required to rip off the covers and toss the body of it, but I was, and it got to the point that I couldn't do the returns in the front of the store because so many customers, who hadn't bothered to buy the magazines when they were for sale, wanted the ones I was tossing, and they were persistent.

We do have to rip off the covers but thankfully no one's ever demanded a free one. I hate the people who try to paw through the new ones before I can put them out.

[camjuniper]

"They don't pay you to read", "Wish I could just read magazines while I'm supposed to be working,"

Ugh. I feel your pain.

I work in a library and do book orders for the teen section; I also check and respond to both my work email and the library's general email account. The magazine I'm reading? Is book reviews. The book I'm flipping through? Is a core collection guide. Or, a book I'm reviewing to see if/where I'll add it. The screen I'm engrossed in? Is an email from a patron who fails at communicating that I'm trying to make heads or tails of.

I get so darn much of the 'It must be nice to work in a library--you get to read all day!' The only in-house reading I do is for work! Not pleasure reading.

[Food Lady]

All those jokes--"I'll give you something to do"--are rude. Let's call it what it is: slander. We're being accused of being slackers. It's more than a bad joke. It's a rude criticism. And I have shot back something like, "Well, they don't want us just standing around. We have other stuff to do also." Yeah, the woman backpeddalled after I made that remark.

[Mr.Customer]

Keep a pad of papper with you and when ever someone says something like this, make a tick on the paper and say something like "37, thats a new record for how many times a day I've heard that phrase."