House of Eratosthenes

If you have a supervisory job where retail people report to you, and you’ve got a few good eggs, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job — but I got a gut feel you’re going to be well-rewarded if you go the extra mile to hang onto the good ones.

Something is terribly wrong what what’s happening in retail.

I got into it in a chat room with a few people who have experience in retail, many of whom made the rash assumption that I don’t — a falsity I chose not to correct. The issue was the 17-year-old fast food worker who chose to throw boiling hot grease on someone, because he/she was spat upon.

A fast-food worker tossed a cup of hot grease on a customer, giving the woman second- and third-degree burns on her arms and chest, authorities said.

“My skin was cooking,” said Vouncile Lambert, 44, who was treated at a hospital.

The 17-year-old worker was charged with aggravated assault. The employee, who had worked at the Checkers restaurant in West Philadelphia for about two months, will be fired, a restaurant manager said Wednesday.

Lambert’s 36-year-old niece had spit on the employee, a police report said.

Our point of dispute was simply along the lines of whether the fast food worker was a “hero” or not. Who, after all, has ever worked in retail, and not wanted to do the same thing at some point?

Unbelievable.

You know, I’m not too worried about being doused with hot grease when I deal with retail people. But it does help to explain why it’s been so freakin’ long, since the last time I asked someone a question — someone who was paid good money to answer my questions, within reason — and received an intelligible answer, relevant to my question, consistent with the truth. I have trouble remembering the last time that happened.

And now, I think I know why.

I can be as polite as I wanna be, saying please, thank you, how are you today, etc. etc. etc. And yet, if you’re the retail person talking to me, it’ll still be kind of hard to correctly interpret my question so you can supply a useful answer to it, if you think I’m just a walking, talking, raw Chicken McNugget.

Because it’s become a little on the unusual side that a retail person will solve more problems than he or she creates, I’ve taken to making sure people know when I come in contact with a good retail person. I have another habit too, though. I also make a point to avoid retail people when I can. I buy goods and services that don’t involve interacting with anybody.

I do not know if I’m the only person on the planet who does this. But then, I get to read about outsourcing jobs. Tech support jobs, retail jobs, etc. We’re supposed to be oh so worried about it.

Especially those retail people. Retail people who think other retail people are heroes, when they dish out the hot grease to those oh-so-deserving, snotty, rude customers. Yeah, that boss-man is oh, so wrong, so very wrong, when he says “the customer is always right,” isn’t he? Customers are stupid, rude, white-trash hayseed hicks.

Hey, retail people. You’re doing it to yourselves.

Where is the outrage toward this poor representative of your ranks? Where is the sentiment of “Oh my God, he/she gave us such a BAD NAME”? Where is it? What’s up with the attitude that this person is some kind of hero, dishing out the payback you would love to dish out yourselves…while you’re not worrying about your job being outsourced to India?

I’m sorry, I just have this special hostility for people who want to make money off other people, whom they would just as soon wish away to the cornfield. That seems to be what’s happening with retail, sad to say.

To Serve Man. Along with Kick The Can, a favorite episode of mine.

I must share my agreement in opinion. Nobody forced that 17 year old to work at a fast food joint. But I gotta admit… if somebody spit on me, there would be a right hook involved. Of course… I’m so dern polite, I woulden’t have to worry about a mucus bomb headed at me. 😉
- Chad | 05/05/2006 @ 22:21
Yeah, and although I haven’t said it before, I do completely understand the impulse to even things up. And even if you don’t even things up, what an incredible drudge it is to face off with customers who really are stupid, and be told by your boss “every minute until you clock out and leave the shop, they’re right, and you’re wrong.”

I completely understand that. But as you’ve figured out, I don’t think that makes everything okay, when we’re talking about inflicting disfiguring injury on someone who just happened to be driving the car.
- mkfreeberg | 05/06/2006 @ 12:10

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“To Serve Man” is a COOKBOOK!
Thursday, May 4th, 2006