A woman comes down my aisle at Target. She's normal looking. Short brown hair in a soccer mom haircut, jeans, and a sweatshirt. No one would notice anything out of the ordinary while looking at her. So, of course, I greet her like I would any guest.
"Hi! How are you doing today?"
Instead of responding with a polite, "Fine, thanks. And how are you?" She ignores me. She hears me, I know that, because her eyes flicker over in my direction, and yet she doesn't even feel that it's necessary to acknowledge my existence. So I proceed to check out her food, like I would any other guest (I forgot to mention earlier, Target has no customers. We call them all guests), even though I'd prefer throw her groceries at her stupidass face.
When I'm done, I decide to give her the benefit of the doubt and try offering her a chance to redeem herself. I say to her as warmly as I can while handing her her receipt, "You have a great day, ma'am!"
This time, however, she doesn't even bother with a glance. She takes her receipt without even looking at me, and leaves. No "Thanks! You too!" no, goodbye, no NOTHING. Because, I'm just a cashier, and therefore, not worth it.
Now, you may be thinking to yourself, Maybe she was deaf. Nope. Throughout her transaction I asked her a various number of questions such as, would you like your milk in a sack. She responded appropriately to each, ruling out the whole deaf/mentally retarded suggestion. Besides, as I said before, she was completely normal looking.
And this is really no surprise to me. I've had customers who give me death glares for no reason other than to glare. I've had customers yell at me. I've had customers insult me. I've had customers make fun of me. I've even had a customer who asked me on a date. I tell you, eight dollars an hour is not enough to deal with the shit they throw at us.
Another example of a really tragic tale of a customer and an employee (or, in Target jargon, a guest and a team member), the girl who worked in front of me did what she usually does and asked the guest how they were doing that day. They replied as one normally would, and then asked, "How are you? I betcha you're tired, huh?"
To which she replied, "Ohhh yeah. I'm exhausted. I've been at work all day, and I don't usually cashier, normally I'm out on the floor. I hate cashiering."
So what does this person do?
They go out of their way to report her to the manager. For "complaining". This customer, whoever they were, deserves a good ol' kick in the face.
This manager was forced to report it as it was considered a "guest complaint". My heart goes out to this girl, it truly does.
So if you're ever on the other side of the check out aisle, please, extend a little sympathy. Chances are, we're under paid, overworked, and just tired. Customers who start conversations with me, truly make things just a little better. It gives us a break from the monotony and that annoying, headache inducing, beep of items being scanned. Even a simple, genuine thank you makes things a tad better.
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