Manners? What are manners?
Warning: This post is sure to make you think I'm a crotchety old woman. Maybe I am. You decide.
Which means we've made a lot of trips to retailers of a variety of sorts.
And I gotta tell ya: I just don't understand kids nowadays! Not crying kids in carts who need a nap and shouldn't have been brought to the store in the first place. I'm talking about the kids who serve as cashiers, customer service reps, stockers.
They're all a bunch of idiots! And they have no manners, no professional courtesy about them!
I know, this isn't anything new. Everyone laments customer service nowadays, and I'm certainly one of those regularly complaining about the lack of manners -- and smarts -- on the part of those supposedly servicing the customers. But just this past weekend, Brianna and I experienced such idiocy to the nth degree.
At the hardware store, where we needed an electrical kit for the dishwasher and new innards for one of her toilets, Brianna politely asked the young man working in the electrical supply aisles if he had an electrical kit for a dishwasher. She held up the old cord that no longer worked as an example. He looked at her with a smirk. "Yeah, we have that," he said ... and just stood there. No attempt to locate it on the shelf, no sign he was going to even tell her where it's at.
"Good," Brianna said, thinking that would urge him into action. But he just stood there, looking at her like there was an inside joke she'd not yet caught on to.
"Can you show me?" Brianna asked.
"They're right over here," the guy said with a chuckle then headed down the aisle to retrieve the kit. Brianna and I just gave each other a "What a friggin' dumbass!" look behind his back, then politely thanked him for his assistance.
We also were confronted with -- at another store -- a young (and I mean YOUNG) itsy-bitsy tiny SuperStore cashier who sported a huge, HUGE pregnant belly and appeared ready to pop out the baby at any moment. She wore a tiny T-shirt, low hung pants and a sweater of some sort hanging around her butt and tucked into the waist of her pants. A very unflattering look. But what was even more unflattering was the way she completely ignored the older woman in line before Brianna as she went through the motions of her job. No fake smile, no "How are you today?" No "Thank you for shopping at this madhouse." She did the very same with Brianna.
Maybe she was in pain as she struggled through another shift with a ready to drop baby, in hopes of covering the cost of diapers for her soon-to-arrive little one. I get that. And I get that it really sucks to be a young mama living a life you didn't expect to be living. But c'mon! You've got a job -- something many folks would kill for nowadays -- and part of the requirements of that job should be that you be considerate to -- or at least acknowledge! -- your customers.
As teens, my daughters worked as servers in restaurants -- Brianna and Megan at a microbrewery; Andrea at a local burger place (made famous by "Fast Food Nation"). They worked those jobs throughout high school. And they made mega tips, more money than they make now in their chosen "adult" careers. The reason they made so much as servers? Because they had manners. And they knew how to treat the customer right. And they knew that if they didn't have manners and treat the customers right, they'd likely lose their jobs.
But apparently the rules are different for retailers. Those employees don't work for tips. Or maybe the rules are just different all around nowadays.
I remember watching educational films on manners at school during my formative years. Goofy black-and-white films -- or the really cool Disney "I'm No Fool" shorts hosted by Jiminy Cricket -- that taught kids proper etiquette in a variety of situations. Kids apparently aren't forced to watch such propaganda anymore. And it shows in their conduct out in public.
I think such films should be brought back. I'll start if off with the one below. Sure, it's about office jobs, but the same rules apply for any job. So if you have a teen or young adult child hoping to secure employment, share this video with him. It might help him secure a position. And it surely will help keep some crotchety old woman from bitching and complaining about him in a blog posting!
Today's question from "If... (Questions for the Game of Life)":
If you could choose exactly what you will eat and drink for your last meal before death, what would the menu consist of?
I would like boneless buffalo wings with lots of chunky bleu cheese dressing on the side, homemade macaroni and cheese (with real cheese, not Velveeta), fried okra (also dipped in the dressing!), and hot apple pie ala mode. To drink, I'll take a cherry limeade from Sonic. Nothing healthy there, but what difference will it make at that point?
Monday, January 11, 2010
