When you're a kid, young, stupid and unaware of how the world works, you'll put up with the bullshit that surrounds you, because you're young and stupid, believing that this is how things are. However, when you come up on 28, the amount of bullshit you're willing to take is much, much smaller...and yet, it doesn't stop coming.

What does this have to do with my place of employment? Everything.

For five and a half years (give or take a month or two), I have worked as a Customer Service Clerk at a grocery store. It's a pretty decent job and, as I've misquoted a number of times, it'd be a great place to work if it wasn't for the customers. In spite of my bitching, not all of them are bad. Some of them even manage to approach the status of human beings.

Of course, such people are few and far between. A good part of the time, you're forced to wonder how people so ignorant and callous function in society. Say someone wants to buy a pack of cigarettes. Not an uncommon occurrence. There's this law that everyone has to be carded, even if they look like they've been smoking for too long. Some people become really indignant if they don't have their identification and can't get their tobacco fix, as if it's my fault that you can't a) be prepared or b) quit smoking.

Speaking of preparedness, customers have to have their driver's licenses to pick up money transfers. Sometimes, the licenses are expired, even by a few weeks. They still have to be current. Again, people get mad at you; as if you cause the time on their licenses to elapse. (If I had such a power, would I really be caught dead wasting it at this place?) As they produce other forms of ID in a laughably futile effort to attain their money, I tell them that the sender would have to put in a test question, thereby precluding the need for identification. They still insist that I use their expired ID and ask me to call a manager, just so they can tell the customer pretty much the same thing that I did. Meanwhile, I'm going over what I told them in my head, because I could swear on a mountain of bibles that I said it in English. People still speak English, right?

And, from time to time, people don't have the necessary card to cash their checks. We don't keep the cards on file, so if the customer doesn't have it, they are what we in the business call 'SOL'. On rare occasions, they ask people in line to use their card.

People often come in to utilize machines where they turn in plastic bottles, cans and glass bottles for money. There are signs on the machines instructing that the bottles and cans be clean and empty. Hardly an unreasonable request, right? Well, people often pick up the empties from the streets and stick them in the machines. Recently, there have been large chunks of ice in the cans, thereby jamming the machines. Usually, I tend to find leftover liquids in the cans and bottles, which attract roaches, ants, bees and other things you wouldn't want in your home. Also, once, I saw (or smelled, rather) fecal matter in one of the can machines. Real, honest-to-blog fecal matter mixed with the crushed cans. That's common sense and basic human decency right out the window, all for pocket change. By the way, that thing I said about the signs extolling cleanliness and emptiness? That's state law. Why would a person go against state law? Have they no concern that they'll be caught?

Also, and this happens quite a bit, I find myself alone in the office and people at the machines and in line need my help. I do my best to appease them, but, invariably, there will be that one (or two) person who yells out, so that everyone can hear, that I need help. More often than not, the person will be two places from being helped. Don't they have any respect for themselves? For me? For the concept of patience? Also, people at the machines who need them emptied will express dissatisfaction with the performance of my duties. They're not exactly curing cancer, so I fail to see why I should cater to their needs sooner than I can. Sometimes, I'll need to answer a phone call and a person will yell out while I'm on the phone, as if they were three years old. I took this job to service the customers, not to babysit full-grown adults with three year-old minds. If I wanted to do that, I'd take a job in a special care facility or, better still, take my own life.

Speaking of children, they come in with their parents, touching everything: the key pads on the credit card machine, the buttons on the coin counting machine and the dividing rope. It got to the point where I actually had to write 'do not touch!' on the rope, but, as it is clearly shown by the underage visitors, their parents are doing a poor job of teaching them how to read. Every once in a great while, the parents will actually show some initiative and tell their children to keep their hands to themselves.

One would think that I shouldn't hold everyone around me to some higher standard and that I shouldn't try to control everything. The only standards I hold people to are that they be respectful and not stupid. As you might imagine, I am disappointed with almost every person I meet. As for control, I don't wish to control everything...just the things that directly pertain to me. Big difference.

One of the things is my profile in the views of my fellow employees. Honestly, it's like I don't exist. On more than one occasion, I choked on a food item in full view of other people and no one tried to help, much less asked me if I was all right. It's something of a miracle that I'm here now. Also, people think it's okay to touch me and ask me about my personal life; make comments about my weight and how long I've been working there. Three things: a) unless you're a doctor, don't talk about my weight; b) unless your writing my biography, don't ask about my life and c) if you're not offering a way out, don't ask how long I've been working here. You think a prison bitch likes being asked how long he's been at it?

In spite of all this grousing, I really am quite good at my job. My totals at the end of my shift are, nine times out of ten, perfect, and I really believe in being organized. Some might say that organization matters very little in a customer service job if I have trouble with customers. Still, it'd have to be a cold-hearted, mother-grabbing bastard to fire a guy in the middle of a recession.

Whatever. I'm still a young man. A well-educated young man with plenty of other options in life. This job isn't the end-all, be-all...even if it feels that way.

Always,
Tor Y. Harbin