The Primogeniture of Assholes
The moral of the day for Memorial Day, 2004 was that nobody gets ahead by being an asshole, and, to a lesser extent, don’t piss off the person handling your money. I would like to say that I “struck a blow for the retail workers of America,” but that makes it sound a whole lot cooler than it really was, what I did. So, I struck a blow for the retail workers of America this Memorial Day — granted, a tiny one.
Hungate’s Creative Hobbies is an arts, crafts, and hobby store, to start off with a bit of exposition. I work there, as an employee — it’s a small store, in the Patrick Henry mall, so my job is multi-purpose. Everyone there is a cashier, a stocker, and a janitor. I can’t say it’s a bad job, because it’s simple and easy; the pay isn’t stupendous — nor is it stupenfucious — but it’s money for time, and time is money.
The worst part of the job comes down to the customers. It’s bad enough when you take into account the sheer number of little children who come through the store, because ninety-percent of the customers treat it as a toy store, not a hobby store, because we carry a few toys. Although, I can’t entirely blame this on the customers, because the store is definitely laid out in such a fashion where all the toys are visibly predominant up front. Anyway, the screaming children aren’t enough, but you get the constant flow of the socially inept.
As my roommate (who is also my co-worker) and I have discussed on multiple occasions, the fact of the matter is that those who practice the hobbies we cater to — models, art, roleplaying, astronomy, rockets, remote control — are typically those without social skill. It’s not that the nature of the hobbies is such that one can not be socially savvy to indulge, but it’s just that those who do proliferate with them tend to be the ones who have no social life and spend their time substituting hobbies for interaction with people. So, there is a constant stream of people who are soft-spoken, shy, introverted, and, at times, downright inaudible. On the other hand, the flipside of that extreme are those who are loud, boisterous, pushy and obnoxious: the geeks with attitude, per se. Or, in the middle of those two extremes are the ones that just never cease talking about their hobbies. None of this overly bothers us, mind you, because we, ourselves, are hideous geeks, albeit socially fluent ones, but geeks nonetheless. These people are cases for observation and interest, not that which crawls under our skin and causes rashes.
You also get the type of customer who just expects way too much from the workers in the shop (I swear, I’m leading up to my big point, soon). For example, a mother who wants to buy a microscope for her son’s biology project, and has me show her each and every microscope we own, looking for the perfect one. That specific instance didn’t irk me, honestly, because she was very nice about the whole thing — she was just obviously frantically rushed. There was also the guy who wanted a run-down on airbrushes and airbrush-compatible paints, and he was actually friendly about the whole thing, just consumed a lot of time with wanting to talk. I should point out that I was hired for my knowledge in art and gaming, and there are plenty of customers who ask me questions I can answer. But, there are a lot who ask me questions I have no clue about, so I have to fly by the seat of my pants.
This brings me to the next type of customer: those with obscure, random questions. “Do you carry screws that fit a cell phone?” “Do you have any embroidery kits?” “I’m looking for a Honda X300 1998 1/12 model . . . Do you have one?” “Yes, I need a figurine of a prairie dog.” I make none of these quotes up, and I get inquiries along the identical lines constantly. It’s a bit disheartening, because I like to believe I know where things are in the store, but then I get all these people who I can’t help more than, “Uh, maybe? Let me check,” or, in other cases, “Let me call someone to help you.” What it comes down to is that if you work in a store, you still aren’t going to have the inventory memorised, especially since it changes all the time and things move, not to mention the total lack of time to commit something like the entire contents of the shelves to heart. Most customers understand this, and are very forgiving . . . Most.
A young guy came into the store on Memorial Day, with his friend or whatever. He started out by asking if this screw (holding up a screw) could fit an Eclipse airbrush. My roommate and I were up front, so we asked him if we carried the selfsame airbrush, to which he replied with, “No, you have Pasche [sp] and Badger.” So, we apologised and said we couldn’t answer his question without having an airbrush to try fitting it onto, since neither one of us (or anyone who works there, at all) are experts on airbrushing. He walked off, continued shopping. He kept coming up to the counter, dropping off items to purchase, and going back to shopping; we provide baskets, but that’s not the point. Eventually, he came to us, again, with a question about “frisket” paper.
Now, I know art, and I didn’t know what he meant. He said it was “attachment paper, or contact paper.” And I know what contact paper is, and we don’t carry any contact paper. He also said it was sticky transparency, which I knew we had none of, either. I would’ve said these facts loud enough for him to hear, except, before I could really say anything, he snapped, “Do you people work at an art store?” To which, my roommate responded, loud enough for him to hear as he walked off to go search for it on his own, “No, we work at a hobby store with an art section.” I don’t think he heard that, though. The shift leader went off to help him look for it, too. But, apparently, as he was browsing around, he was muttering a stream of insults about us. “These people don’t know anything about art and work in a damn art store. They’re so fucking dumb,” and so on, and so on. Right, because frisquette paper is the end-all, be-all, definitive tool of all art, and everybody who does anything with art uses it. Oh, and we work in an art store, not an “arts, crafts, and hobbies,” store, like the big, bold letters above the entrance say. Also, yes, everybody who works in every store, ever, should know everything about every aspect of every product they ever sell, and that’s certainly possible when you sell hundreds and hundreds of items under a wide disparity of subjects. Yes, that is definitely reasonable, and nobody should go into a store and be responsible for their own damn hobbies and look for anything by their own damn self. It was about then that the shift leader said, “fuck ‘em,” and stopped helping him.
So, he eventually came to the front with a book on how to draw cartoons, which I couldn’t help but silently scorn him for the need to have. Not that I generally look down on anyone who buys the “How To” books, but, you know, he’s obviously such a master artist, since he knows what frisquette paper is, and needs a book to tell him how to draw cartoons. As I was checking him out, he wasn’t even bothering to put anything he was buying in my reach, and was making smart-ass comments while I was moving his shit onto the counter where I could scan it, saying things like, “Slow down, there, chief.” I really fucking hate people who use terms like, “chief,” “sport,” or “buddy,” in a blatantly condescending manner.
And the beauty of this customer just peaked when he noticed that behind the counter were rolls of Friskfilm Matte Finishing sheets. This, I knew what was, and it’s definitely not contact paper. I have always, in the entire course of my life as an artist, heard it called matte paper, or matting sheets. Never, ever have I heard it called frisquette paper, even though it is, admittedly, for the process of frisking. Oh, but he couldn’t be anything but sarcastic and a jerk about it, too, yelling, “By George, I think you have it!” over and over, and laughing that hollow laugh of those who think they’re right and better than present company. I hate that laugh, too. By now, everybody just wanted to gouge this kid’s eyes out with the knives they have sitting on the counter in a bucket (eight dollars a pop).
So, I rang him up and he paid, and I was counting his change out, when I thought, “Fuck this bastard, he doesn’t deserve the right change.” I handed him about $1.70 short of his actual change, and bid him a good day . . . Of course he didn’t count it, or notice that I had given him the wrong change, because I am obviously an imbecilic monkey who does nothing but serve his function. In retrospect, I really wish I had just overcharged him by about ten dollars, given him a “special discount,” and taken much more of his money. But, I was satisfied in knowing that I paid our store $1.70 for the inconvenience of his existence . . . I really wish I had done more to fuck with him, though.
Oh well, the idea here is that you shouldn’t be a dick to those who handle your money, and those who have done nothing to wrong you. There’s a reason the matte paper is behind the counter, under a shelf, hardly noticeable: nobody fucking cares about it, and nobody hardly uses it. Get the fuck over yourself, Sire I-Need-An-Instruction-Booklet-For-Drawing-Garfield. You should never be that proud of your hobby, really, and you should never expect anyone else to care about what you can do, or be impressed with it, or worship the ground you stand upon. Nobody cares if you can airbrush a cartoon figure. Nobody cares if you use matte paper. Nobody cares that you shop at Hungate’s, when there are five better, actual art stores nearby. Nobody likes you, you Bob-Marley-looking son-of-a-bitch.
Everybody should have to work a job for two years that involves dealing with stupid or rude people. It gives you an appreciation for those that do perform those jobs, and those who put up, day-in and day-out, with bullshit. That way, there wouldn’t be any bullshit, because everybody would appreciate the services of everybody else, and the world would be happier. But, that’s not going to happen, is it? God damn it.
Adios.
Hungate’s Creative Hobbies is an arts, crafts, and hobby store, to start off with a bit of exposition. I work there, as an employee — it’s a small store, in the Patrick Henry mall, so my job is multi-purpose. Everyone there is a cashier, a stocker, and a janitor. I can’t say it’s a bad job, because it’s simple and easy; the pay isn’t stupendous — nor is it stupenfucious — but it’s money for time, and time is money.
The worst part of the job comes down to the customers. It’s bad enough when you take into account the sheer number of little children who come through the store, because ninety-percent of the customers treat it as a toy store, not a hobby store, because we carry a few toys. Although, I can’t entirely blame this on the customers, because the store is definitely laid out in such a fashion where all the toys are visibly predominant up front. Anyway, the screaming children aren’t enough, but you get the constant flow of the socially inept.
As my roommate (who is also my co-worker) and I have discussed on multiple occasions, the fact of the matter is that those who practice the hobbies we cater to — models, art, roleplaying, astronomy, rockets, remote control — are typically those without social skill. It’s not that the nature of the hobbies is such that one can not be socially savvy to indulge, but it’s just that those who do proliferate with them tend to be the ones who have no social life and spend their time substituting hobbies for interaction with people. So, there is a constant stream of people who are soft-spoken, shy, introverted, and, at times, downright inaudible. On the other hand, the flipside of that extreme are those who are loud, boisterous, pushy and obnoxious: the geeks with attitude, per se. Or, in the middle of those two extremes are the ones that just never cease talking about their hobbies. None of this overly bothers us, mind you, because we, ourselves, are hideous geeks, albeit socially fluent ones, but geeks nonetheless. These people are cases for observation and interest, not that which crawls under our skin and causes rashes.
You also get the type of customer who just expects way too much from the workers in the shop (I swear, I’m leading up to my big point, soon). For example, a mother who wants to buy a microscope for her son’s biology project, and has me show her each and every microscope we own, looking for the perfect one. That specific instance didn’t irk me, honestly, because she was very nice about the whole thing — she was just obviously frantically rushed. There was also the guy who wanted a run-down on airbrushes and airbrush-compatible paints, and he was actually friendly about the whole thing, just consumed a lot of time with wanting to talk. I should point out that I was hired for my knowledge in art and gaming, and there are plenty of customers who ask me questions I can answer. But, there are a lot who ask me questions I have no clue about, so I have to fly by the seat of my pants.
This brings me to the next type of customer: those with obscure, random questions. “Do you carry screws that fit a cell phone?” “Do you have any embroidery kits?” “I’m looking for a Honda X300 1998 1/12 model . . . Do you have one?” “Yes, I need a figurine of a prairie dog.” I make none of these quotes up, and I get inquiries along the identical lines constantly. It’s a bit disheartening, because I like to believe I know where things are in the store, but then I get all these people who I can’t help more than, “Uh, maybe? Let me check,” or, in other cases, “Let me call someone to help you.” What it comes down to is that if you work in a store, you still aren’t going to have the inventory memorised, especially since it changes all the time and things move, not to mention the total lack of time to commit something like the entire contents of the shelves to heart. Most customers understand this, and are very forgiving . . . Most.
A young guy came into the store on Memorial Day, with his friend or whatever. He started out by asking if this screw (holding up a screw) could fit an Eclipse airbrush. My roommate and I were up front, so we asked him if we carried the selfsame airbrush, to which he replied with, “No, you have Pasche [sp] and Badger.” So, we apologised and said we couldn’t answer his question without having an airbrush to try fitting it onto, since neither one of us (or anyone who works there, at all) are experts on airbrushing. He walked off, continued shopping. He kept coming up to the counter, dropping off items to purchase, and going back to shopping; we provide baskets, but that’s not the point. Eventually, he came to us, again, with a question about “frisket” paper.
Now, I know art, and I didn’t know what he meant. He said it was “attachment paper, or contact paper.” And I know what contact paper is, and we don’t carry any contact paper. He also said it was sticky transparency, which I knew we had none of, either. I would’ve said these facts loud enough for him to hear, except, before I could really say anything, he snapped, “Do you people work at an art store?” To which, my roommate responded, loud enough for him to hear as he walked off to go search for it on his own, “No, we work at a hobby store with an art section.” I don’t think he heard that, though. The shift leader went off to help him look for it, too. But, apparently, as he was browsing around, he was muttering a stream of insults about us. “These people don’t know anything about art and work in a damn art store. They’re so fucking dumb,” and so on, and so on. Right, because frisquette paper is the end-all, be-all, definitive tool of all art, and everybody who does anything with art uses it. Oh, and we work in an art store, not an “arts, crafts, and hobbies,” store, like the big, bold letters above the entrance say. Also, yes, everybody who works in every store, ever, should know everything about every aspect of every product they ever sell, and that’s certainly possible when you sell hundreds and hundreds of items under a wide disparity of subjects. Yes, that is definitely reasonable, and nobody should go into a store and be responsible for their own damn hobbies and look for anything by their own damn self. It was about then that the shift leader said, “fuck ‘em,” and stopped helping him.
So, he eventually came to the front with a book on how to draw cartoons, which I couldn’t help but silently scorn him for the need to have. Not that I generally look down on anyone who buys the “How To” books, but, you know, he’s obviously such a master artist, since he knows what frisquette paper is, and needs a book to tell him how to draw cartoons. As I was checking him out, he wasn’t even bothering to put anything he was buying in my reach, and was making smart-ass comments while I was moving his shit onto the counter where I could scan it, saying things like, “Slow down, there, chief.” I really fucking hate people who use terms like, “chief,” “sport,” or “buddy,” in a blatantly condescending manner.
And the beauty of this customer just peaked when he noticed that behind the counter were rolls of Friskfilm Matte Finishing sheets. This, I knew what was, and it’s definitely not contact paper. I have always, in the entire course of my life as an artist, heard it called matte paper, or matting sheets. Never, ever have I heard it called frisquette paper, even though it is, admittedly, for the process of frisking. Oh, but he couldn’t be anything but sarcastic and a jerk about it, too, yelling, “By George, I think you have it!” over and over, and laughing that hollow laugh of those who think they’re right and better than present company. I hate that laugh, too. By now, everybody just wanted to gouge this kid’s eyes out with the knives they have sitting on the counter in a bucket (eight dollars a pop).
So, I rang him up and he paid, and I was counting his change out, when I thought, “Fuck this bastard, he doesn’t deserve the right change.” I handed him about $1.70 short of his actual change, and bid him a good day . . . Of course he didn’t count it, or notice that I had given him the wrong change, because I am obviously an imbecilic monkey who does nothing but serve his function. In retrospect, I really wish I had just overcharged him by about ten dollars, given him a “special discount,” and taken much more of his money. But, I was satisfied in knowing that I paid our store $1.70 for the inconvenience of his existence . . . I really wish I had done more to fuck with him, though.
Oh well, the idea here is that you shouldn’t be a dick to those who handle your money, and those who have done nothing to wrong you. There’s a reason the matte paper is behind the counter, under a shelf, hardly noticeable: nobody fucking cares about it, and nobody hardly uses it. Get the fuck over yourself, Sire I-Need-An-Instruction-Booklet-For-Drawing-Garfield. You should never be that proud of your hobby, really, and you should never expect anyone else to care about what you can do, or be impressed with it, or worship the ground you stand upon. Nobody cares if you can airbrush a cartoon figure. Nobody cares if you use matte paper. Nobody cares that you shop at Hungate’s, when there are five better, actual art stores nearby. Nobody likes you, you Bob-Marley-looking son-of-a-bitch.
Everybody should have to work a job for two years that involves dealing with stupid or rude people. It gives you an appreciation for those that do perform those jobs, and those who put up, day-in and day-out, with bullshit. That way, there wouldn’t be any bullshit, because everybody would appreciate the services of everybody else, and the world would be happier. But, that’s not going to happen, is it? God damn it.
Adios.
posted by c.Jay Wrong at
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