I have decided that I need to use my voice to better the human race.
So…here it goes: STOP BEING DICKS!
There. Everyone got it?
For example:
My youngest child recently got his first job working at the games at an amusement park. He’s 15 years old and has the bright, shiny face of a motivated employee. Also, he has money now. Money and no bills. Paychecks are actually EXCITING for him.
The downside? He’s learning what it’s like to deal with the public.
The public sucks ass.
The public loves people working in the service industry. They are simple targets. The public can say whatever they want and the service industry workers have to smile and take it.
Having a bad day? Yell at the person working the drive through for getting your order wrong!
Boss give you shit at work? Blame the clerk working for minimum wage at the gas station for the high price of gasoline!
Lose at ring toss? Berate the 15 year old kid who is working the game! It takes a real man to scream at a kid because they can’t win a stuffed Sponge Bob for their date.
Part of my son’s job is to try to entice the crowd to come and play his game. Yesterday at work, he was yelling: C’mon! Who is gonna be my next big winner?
A guy, a full grown adult, yells back: Hahaha. You’re looking for your next big wiener!
Really? This is an adult yelling crude shit at a child.
My son, who is not allowed to respond negatively to park guests did the next best thing. He doubled over and laughed his loudest and most fake laugh and said: YOU ARE HILARIOUS!
Just once, I want to be there when some motherfucker yells something obscene at my son. HE can’t say anything, but you can bet your ass I could.
Let’s all just think about the things we say to people who can’t respond. For instance, people at checkouts probably hear the same lame ass jokes all day long. It has to get tiring to offer the same polite laughter hour after hour. I am in no way referring to my husband when I say this.
I might be referring to him a little bit.
My son has a very strong sense of self. These things are not going to cling to him and really, it will help him prepare for a life of dealing with people who are dicks. There are a lot of us out there.
Still, can’t we all try to think before we open our big, stupid mouths?
You might be referring to my husband a little bit.
Using humor to put a-holes in their place takes a special kind of skill. This may just be the training he needs to run the world in a decade or two.
Hahahha…he would be benevolent. I think.
Yes, hubs thinks he’s hilarious when we go through the grocery check out. I’ve never been able to teach him the difference between someone finding him amusing and polite laughter.
I have pretty much come to the conclusion that I loathe the general public. This only reinforces my desire to be a mountain hermit who only communicates with cool kids on Twitter.
I think that’s a great plan. I love individual people…but as a group…they kind of suck. And who says shit like that to a kid? I seriously want to spit on him. asshat.
Yep, unfortunately you’re talking about MY husband, too…
His juvenile sense of humor still makes me squirm; lame jokes about things being “free” when harried service person can’t find the code/can’t get CC machine to cooperate etc make me want to sink through the floor in shame.
I read somewhere that you learn a lot about a man by observing how he treats his parents and/or waitstaff – all I can say is I SHOULD HAVE PAID ATTENTION.
HAHAAH… Yeah, my hubs says things like…Hey…you want a bite of this? Or…get your manager…you squashed our bread. It’s. Fucking. Hilarious.
Never once have I uttered anything about get your manager…or squished bread.
As for lame jokes…we can’t all possess scintillating wit-on-demand or humor. You’ve taken it all.
You HAVE TO!! I remember a poor girl who just started working at a grocery..it was like her first day and you said she squished our bread and you wanted to see her manager. Poor thing.
Your kid has the coolest name on the planet. He just needs to say “I’m Joey Ramone, top that!”
He really does! It’s especially cool when he’s wearing his Ramones shirt. Even without the name, he’s pretty fucking cool. Sure..kind of a dweeb…but funny and kind and scary smart.
And he is eligible to get his temporary license T O M O R R O W. I’m not freaked out at all by this. I might be lying.
The problem is, I think some people DO think before they speak and all the dick still comes out. I’m not for spanking children, but I was for spanking adults. Until I learned it was called “assault.” So I don’t recommend it.
hahaha…well…that and some of them use that activity for recreation. You don’t want to risk making them feel BETTER not WORSE.
I work in my county’s welfare office. We are the largest county in the entire state. And, let me tell you quite honestly – from day one six years ago (plus change) through today, I can say that I saw offices in post-communist, corrupt-like-a-mofo Moscow run smoother back in 2001 during the time of 9/11 (that is a whole other story). There are clients here in our county today – in the USA, in 2013 – that have to come back so many times because the financial workers who use the union as an excuse to do crappy-but-I-came-to-work-and-put-in-my-time service for clientele. The saddest pert is that if they went to another office in a time of need and their case/issue got messed up even half as bad as they screw up some of the cases they do here, they’d be on the phone to the commissioner’s office, the attorney general’s office, the mayor’s office, hell- even the governor’s office. They’d talk to the governor’s damn dog if it would get them “justice” but when they do their job, they don’t think about what it is really like for the person they are talking to.
I just got moved to a new unit in December. Single adults. Mostly known for homeless, mentally ill, elderly, disabled, those in facilities such as halfway homes, etc. I sit at a desk as the ONLY county employee out in the lobby all day. Security sometimes comes through on their rounds and the nearest window where a worker sits doesn’t allow that person the ability to easily hear what is going on where I am at.
The first three months were all winter. I sat there giving people tickets to sit and wait to be called by a worker and answering questions as best as I could. I no longer worked with a team, so if a client got really insane – there was no one to vent to and get out the energy before moving on. I took the brunt off EVERYONE’S frustration 8 hrs a day and 5 days a week for those first three months straight until things started to lighten up. People would LOVE to ask me how my day had been because it would be do over the top hilarious when I would tell people what was going on – hell, they didn’t need to watch soap operas – they were so into my office – it was enough. I swear, if a producer and director visited our specific building and just sat in the different lobbies for a few days – they’d have the next hit that would blow “ER” out of the water – except this would be about the ghetto ass welfare office in a major metropolitan city.
When I worked in Families, I can’t tell you how many times I heard a variation of the following, “I don’t give a fuck if we are in the welfare office. If you don’t hurry up and c’mon, I’mma beat your muthafuckin’ ass!!” And, when you turn and look, God as my witness, the kid is like three. Really? Are you that ignorant? You’re going to allow Child Protection to get all up in your business and dictate to you a whole crapload of classes and therapy to take that we taxpayers get to pay for just because you can’t either carry your child since you are in a rush or slow down and let the kid walk at a normal pace? Damn! And then there are the moms!! They come in with their 16 & 17 year old children that are about to give birth or who have just had a child and we no sooner ask the parent of the newborn a question and their parent moves them over and leans in and starts to talk for them. Well, damn!! Did you sit in the room and tell them how to fuck the boy that got them pregnant too? Or did you forget that safe sex talk and now you are over compensating?!
Then there are all the outrageous fights. We work in the one county building with the most entrances and so it is impossible to do individual screening as people come in. We have the only county building besides the jail that has a holding cell. But I can’t tell you how often the Sheriffs, County Security, or the private contracted security that works in our building has to escort people out. One day, before lunch, I had to call them into my lobby twice and have then escort someone out. They gave me so much crap!
The only staff that work begind protective anything are the accounting folks. And one day, an email came out one day stating that IF we were attacked by a client and responded in kind – we could get fired. Let me tell you, the Latino & Black women were very VERY clear that the day a client attacked them would be the day they would just have to quit because there was no way in hell they were going to just let anyone beat on them. Although – the way they said it would require a LOT of <>ing 🙂
At least I can’t say my job is boring!
WOW! I’m feeling better about my day already!
I like the way your son handled it though! Other kids would have probably gotten all embarrassed and nervous but your son was ready with a good comeback!
He’s really good. He is concerned about appearances to a degree..he is a teenage boy…but he isn’t consumed with it. He’s got a good sense of self.
I really wish it was as easy as telling everyone not to be a dick. ‘Cuz the ones that are being dicks usually have no self-awareness. Your son’s response was great. So great job right there!
That is the problem…Dicks never know that they are dicks
You’re absolutely right! Dicks NEVER knows they’re dicks. That’s because they usually think they’re God’s gift to humanity. Sad, isn’t it?
It really is kind of sad. Kind of. Still..when it comes to my kid, my sympathy flies out the fucking window..he did handle it well, though. Better than his mom
Awesome post. Your son is learning an important life skill. Dealing with assholes is a daily chore – unfortunately. There is no way round it. I’ve been trying to find one for 43 years.
Ha. I have to deal with them at work every day. It’s a day to day process. today? not the worst day…but there is still time for someone to fuck it all up.
I really like you. In fact I think we must be related unless you are taking my posts from my blog hibernationnow.wordpress.com to yours. I know you are not, but we seem to be alike in so many ways. You are definitely more to the point. LOVE. IT.
Thank you so much!! And who knows, we MIGHT be related. At least cosmically.
This sums it up!!
My daughter had this happen at her first job at 16 at a place that *may* or *may not* have been Burger King (she quit, with my blessing). She was so excited and sweet. They put her on the cash register (a machine she’d never seen, let alone used), on a lunch rush, with no help (“I ain’t helping YOU; I’m on a BREAK!”), about 2 hours after she filled out her W4 form and got her uniform. She’d never even been INSIDE a BK.
No matter how nicely she tried to explain it was her first HOUR on the job, she had assholes actually throwing food ON her because their order was wrong.
I felt the same as you–maybe she can’t say anything (why?), but I sure CAN. I wanted to go sit there and wait for one of these dicks to yell at her, then stuff them up the kiddie shute, folded in half, with ketchup in their hair.
ahhh…not that I’m bitter.
Thanks for the laugh! 😀
Yeah..the public can really make the momma bear come out, right?
I know. The only thing that stopped me was the thought of:
“Assault Charges Filed: Mild-mannered Mom and Local Business Owner goes Total Commando Psycho at Burger King, Kicks Man in Shins–Story at 11!”
Glad it’s not just me.
HAHAHAH…If I were on your jury..I would NOT convict you. And my son handled it fine. Actually, in a more mature fashion than I would have.
Yep–I was glad I didn’t go in (tho my husband seriously almost DID).
She handled it all with grace (and many tears). I just felt so mad that she had to learn about the worst side of customer service, her FIRST HOUR on her FIRST JOB.
People do need to remember, not to be such jerks. It can’t be that hard…
When I moved to New York City (specifically, Manhattan) two years ago, I was astonished at the mean, hurtful things folks would say to me when I was in my public-facing job. And the work I was doing was actually to help people.
New Yorkers have no filter. I’ve been told that I’m “no good at my job” that I’m “sexist and elitist” and have been yelled at for things over which I have no control.
I think people in other parts of the country may FEEL like acting that way, but in NY there’s no penalty for being an asshat. At first I took pride in “winning over” these people (which I can do, because I’m sincere and –contrary to what customers have said– I’m really good at my work) but it gets tiring.
I worked for an investment company in the early 80s and had to talk to traders in NYC on the phone. I was in no way prepared for the way this one guy talked to me. He would actually hang up on me if I didn’t respond to him quickly enough. It took one time of me getting shitty with him after he treated me rudely. We were pals after that.