"Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills...nunchuck skills... bow hunting skills... computer hacking skills..."
My father had a saying when we were young that came to mind yesterday while standing at a counter waiting for the stunned cashier to wake up and serve me. If we were loafing around looking dazed with that dopey look you get on your face...........you know that vacant look.............lost eyes, open mouth...............Napoleon Dynamite-like? My Dad would say:
"Close your mouth, you're catching flies."
Over the past couple of days, I have had the urge to blurt this out on several occasions. It's a funnier and more effective approach than barking out "Wake up, you stunned bunny. Get with the game."..........don't you think? Especially if you said it with the right tone and the right expression on your face. Like, how do you think a person would react if you approached them with a open smile on your face, direct eye contact and quietly spoke the words..............
"Excuse me. If I were you.....................I'd close your mouth. You're catching flies. Ah! There you go. Welcome back to the land of the living. Can I pay for my newspaper now?"
Or, you could put a twist on it and say it sarcastically like Napoleon Dynamite....... maybe with some eye rolling for effect.
"Close your mouth dude. You're catching flies. GOSH!"
Anyway you say it...............it's effective. It always woke me up from my stunned reverie when I was a kid. Snapped me back to reality. And, you know what? It's time to put it to good use with the service industry around here. It seems like every person I have had to do business with lately look like they were imitating zombie mouth breathers. To add insult to injury? Absolutely no eye contact.
It's an attitude that I abhor, and it's permeating the frontlines. There are stores that I will not shop in because of the rude attitudes I've encountered in the past. However, since I live in a smallish city, there are some stores or businesses that one can't avoid. You end up having to just suck it up and accept this rudely passive stance. Or, you can pour on the sweetness and try to connect with the bored sleeping shell of a person behind the counter.
And if all else fails -- "Hey honey...............you wanna catch some flies? Then, keep that mouth open.......... GOSH"
I walked into a store the other day and was accosted by the oppressive heat in there. Since it was connected to a large grocery store that was air conditioned, it seemed strange. The 30 year oldish cashier person was sitting on a stool behind the counter reading a National Enquirer and not moving at all. Mouth wide open, glassy-eyed and kind of pasty looking, I automatically assumed that the quality of the air had zapped her energy. Hmmmm, I thought, maybe she's just finishing her shift and has had to sit in this stifling little shop for hours. Couldn't even lift her head up to greet me.............the ONLY customer.
When I asked her for what I wanted, which was situated behind the counter, it took all her oooomph to put down her alien landing trashpaper, get up off the stool and moaningly turn around to read the item. "Poor thing..............I'm thinking. How inhumane to have this woman work in these conditions......... " She didn't even have the energy to pull up the back of her jeans so that her butt crack didn't glare white and buldgy at me. Yes, the woman had plumber buttitis. So, I commented to her:
"Wow, working in here without any airconditioning must be awful. It's so stuffy."
(grunt, moan, mumble) "I turned it off," she replied. "I'm allergic to air conditioning. It fills up my sinuses," she continued while she took mouth breaths, talking very slowly like it was painful. Still no eye contact, as she frigged up the cash register while ringing in my one item purchase.
"Oh, that must be awful, especially in hot weather like this."
"Yeah whatever."
Oooooooooooooo........I'm going to run right back to this place again. How pleasant.
It can work the other way too.............custmomers can leave a cashier with a gaping hole mouth stance..........which eventually will lead to the "lost in the ozone" look........
Normally, I approach a sales person or cashier with a smile and a warm greeting, more so if I have just witnessed a stuck up customer who treated the employee with an attitude that somehow the customer thinks they are better than the person on the other side of the register. And more times than not, I get a look of gratitude mixed with a knowing look from the cashier that tells me something like .......... "I'm glad you saw that, and thank you for being kind............." Then, a conversation ensues that can cover almost any topic, usually some kind of local newsy thing.
This actually happened at Walmart the other night. The shopper piled her load of goods on the conveyor belt never looking up, never acknowledging the person in front of her (whom she was crowding) and never acknowledging the older woman who was processing her purchases etc. I may have even heard her grunt. When the cashier couldn't find a bar code on the item and had to phone for price verification, the customer showed her displeasure quite openly..... to a point where she even made me uncomfortable. The cashier lady was visibly unnerved by the rudeness. And while we all wait for a price check..............
Harumphs and demonstrative displeasure exuded out of every fibrous pore of the condescendingly rude shopper's body. Excuse me? Who picked up the item without a pricetag?? And where does she get off thinking she's any better than anyone else? Was she brought up as a princess to feel a sense of entitlement and then things went awry to a point where she has to shop at Walmart with us plebes? Oh, I had a variety of questions I wanted to ask her...... some loaded comments too. Instead, I decided to be really nice to the lady behind the cash register because she needed a bit of a boost.
What does it say about a community when people can't be civil, or when people are walking around catching flies? Nothing good...............that's for sure.
"Close your mouth, you're catching flies."
Over the past couple of days, I have had the urge to blurt this out on several occasions. It's a funnier and more effective approach than barking out "Wake up, you stunned bunny. Get with the game."..........don't you think? Especially if you said it with the right tone and the right expression on your face. Like, how do you think a person would react if you approached them with a open smile on your face, direct eye contact and quietly spoke the words..............
"Excuse me. If I were you.....................I'd close your mouth. You're catching flies. Ah! There you go. Welcome back to the land of the living. Can I pay for my newspaper now?"
Or, you could put a twist on it and say it sarcastically like Napoleon Dynamite....... maybe with some eye rolling for effect.
"Close your mouth dude. You're catching flies. GOSH!"
Anyway you say it...............it's effective. It always woke me up from my stunned reverie when I was a kid. Snapped me back to reality. And, you know what? It's time to put it to good use with the service industry around here. It seems like every person I have had to do business with lately look like they were imitating zombie mouth breathers. To add insult to injury? Absolutely no eye contact.
It's an attitude that I abhor, and it's permeating the frontlines. There are stores that I will not shop in because of the rude attitudes I've encountered in the past. However, since I live in a smallish city, there are some stores or businesses that one can't avoid. You end up having to just suck it up and accept this rudely passive stance. Or, you can pour on the sweetness and try to connect with the bored sleeping shell of a person behind the counter.
And if all else fails -- "Hey honey...............you wanna catch some flies? Then, keep that mouth open.......... GOSH"
I walked into a store the other day and was accosted by the oppressive heat in there. Since it was connected to a large grocery store that was air conditioned, it seemed strange. The 30 year oldish cashier person was sitting on a stool behind the counter reading a National Enquirer and not moving at all. Mouth wide open, glassy-eyed and kind of pasty looking, I automatically assumed that the quality of the air had zapped her energy. Hmmmm, I thought, maybe she's just finishing her shift and has had to sit in this stifling little shop for hours. Couldn't even lift her head up to greet me.............the ONLY customer.
When I asked her for what I wanted, which was situated behind the counter, it took all her oooomph to put down her alien landing trashpaper, get up off the stool and moaningly turn around to read the item. "Poor thing..............I'm thinking. How inhumane to have this woman work in these conditions......... " She didn't even have the energy to pull up the back of her jeans so that her butt crack didn't glare white and buldgy at me. Yes, the woman had plumber buttitis. So, I commented to her:
"Wow, working in here without any airconditioning must be awful. It's so stuffy."
(grunt, moan, mumble) "I turned it off," she replied. "I'm allergic to air conditioning. It fills up my sinuses," she continued while she took mouth breaths, talking very slowly like it was painful. Still no eye contact, as she frigged up the cash register while ringing in my one item purchase.
"Oh, that must be awful, especially in hot weather like this."
"Yeah whatever."
Oooooooooooooo........I'm going to run right back to this place again. How pleasant.
It can work the other way too.............custmomers can leave a cashier with a gaping hole mouth stance..........which eventually will lead to the "lost in the ozone" look........
Normally, I approach a sales person or cashier with a smile and a warm greeting, more so if I have just witnessed a stuck up customer who treated the employee with an attitude that somehow the customer thinks they are better than the person on the other side of the register. And more times than not, I get a look of gratitude mixed with a knowing look from the cashier that tells me something like .......... "I'm glad you saw that, and thank you for being kind............." Then, a conversation ensues that can cover almost any topic, usually some kind of local newsy thing.
This actually happened at Walmart the other night. The shopper piled her load of goods on the conveyor belt never looking up, never acknowledging the person in front of her (whom she was crowding) and never acknowledging the older woman who was processing her purchases etc. I may have even heard her grunt. When the cashier couldn't find a bar code on the item and had to phone for price verification, the customer showed her displeasure quite openly..... to a point where she even made me uncomfortable. The cashier lady was visibly unnerved by the rudeness. And while we all wait for a price check..............
Harumphs and demonstrative displeasure exuded out of every fibrous pore of the condescendingly rude shopper's body. Excuse me? Who picked up the item without a pricetag?? And where does she get off thinking she's any better than anyone else? Was she brought up as a princess to feel a sense of entitlement and then things went awry to a point where she has to shop at Walmart with us plebes? Oh, I had a variety of questions I wanted to ask her...... some loaded comments too. Instead, I decided to be really nice to the lady behind the cash register because she needed a bit of a boost.
What does it say about a community when people can't be civil, or when people are walking around catching flies? Nothing good...............that's for sure.
13 comments:
Well, Duh!
I work in a supermarket in Australia.
And let me say,quite unapolopgeticlly, that customers can be a Pain in the arse...
It goes something like this.
Excuse me, do you have the superdooper extra crunchy, with real peanuts and choclate peanut butter?
Sorry, that particular variety, is not available. There are seven other varieties of peanut butter thiough, would you like one of those?
No.Thats the only peanut butter I can eat, on account of the fact that its the only one that i like. You people eally have it in for me dont you? You know I xcome here every thousday, and you made sure it was all out.
No Madam, unfortunately, if fthe Warehouse doesnt have it in stock, we cant get it delivered. There are seven ohter varieties? Are you sure you couldnt make do with another varities, just this week?
You are being rude to me boy! Get me the Manager! Now!
What are you saying........you don't HAVE that brand?? :)
Yes, people are becoming more and more rude and demanding. It's that whole selfish instant gratification virus that is rampantly taking over manners.
I have seen that kind of tacky person. They frequent my office regularly too. Not looking for peanut butter, but looking for a fight.
My office is located behind the reception desk in a government building, so I see and hear (and often get pulled into) the rudest beligerent people demanding stuff. Oftentimes, the person is in crisis and are completely unaware of how beligerent and scary they are....(or maybe they know)..... A lot of times, they have had a negative experience with a government worker and then have painted the same opinion onto the next government worker.
It's like we are all faceless sometimes.........people who work the frontlines, whether its in a store or providing a service.
ON the other side of the coin......well, there are service providers who look like they are catching flies!! :)
It never ceases to amaze me that some people can be so RUDE! Sure we all have our moments, but I think some people are just that way all the time.
Great post. I wrote one the other day about a conversation I overheard at the nail salon. You might find it entertaining - but disturbing.
Yes thats true, some supermarket monkeys are very adept at catching flies...
Another factor in the growing demand for instant gratification in our culture though, is undoubtedly due to the retailers themselves, becuaese they do everrything they can to to feed the beast of consumerism. and manipulate customers desires and wants.. Or is that starving it to make it hungry for more..
Rudeness irks the heck out of me as well. Respect goes a long way if practiced on both sides of the equasion, and being rude interrupts the civility of any situation.
What surprises me is that I was under the impression that the US held the gold medal in rudeness, but now see it is a fast-spreading virus across the planet. That's just sad to think of!
If we can't be civil to one another, isn't that one of the last vestages of polite society we are sacrificing? Whatever happened to the "magic words" of please, thank you, and may I help you? Have people forgotten how far these words will get you? It almost makes you think they live more under the expression of "squeaky-wheel" theory of entitlement, rather than plain manners.
And, by the way, my Mom used the "fly-catching" phrase on my brothers and myself as well. Our parents must have read the same book, because it was effective.
"Hello,is anyone home" was the other saying my parents used or "Hey, space cadet your flight just left"
I to was behind a shopper at Wal-mart who had a hissy fit because they had to do a price check ... I, being the lovely lady I am said in a very loud voice "Maybe if you took some time to pick the item with a price tag on then we all wouldn't have to stuck behind you waiting on your fuck up" Amazing that did shut her up! Maybe I am just getting to that age were I really don't tolerate bad behavior in public anymore ... if you act like an ass I'll call you an ass.
You remember my story, when I was a receptionist .... Your rude to me I put you on hold for a very long time!
My Dad used to say, "Be careful a bird doesn't sit on your lip and poop in your mouth!" I have encountered this same type of customer service in several places over the past few months. I thought it was just the new generation but apparently people of all ages are rude. It is funny that our neck of the woods was once considered to be the friendliest in the country but as each day goes by I can't understand why. There is one particular ice cream parlour (yes the big one that is #1 around North America) and I find there is a huge lack of pleases and thank yous, no eye contact and an overall attitude that you asking them to do their job and get you a Blizzard is the most outrageous thing they've ever heard. Princesses working for the Queen!
What's with the Walmart anyway? They have tons of cashes but only a few open with lineups a mile long! Cash register rage will be the next big problem in society. Thanks awareness for brightening my day once again. You are like the coffee with my breakfast.
I had a totally stoner try to charge me almost $6 for four items on the dollar menue at Wendy's. I know our taxes are high, but they aren't that high.
I LOATHE rude people at stores. Just yesterday I tried to strike up a convo with the girl behind the counter while I waited for my coffee, but she was just very "whatever"-ish and smiled and nodded. Being nice to everyone seems to have it's setbacks.
My mom used to say that to me ALLLLL the time when I was a kid, LOL, I would just roll my eyes :)
Great comments one and all! Gee, I thought my Dad invented that saying!
The only way I can see dealing with the rampant rudeness is to kill it with kindness. It always seems to disarm the snooty old meanies.
I can see here that the conversation seems to have been wrapped up pretty neatly, but i would like to point out that big systems that breed consumerism ( like Supermarkets) have a hand in the shortening of peoples wicks on both sides of the counter. The stingy budgets spent on wages are what ensures that staff barely have time to smile at you, let alone give you the total attention you so obviously "deserve."
the more convenience a customer gets, the more they expect, the more convenience they expect, the more likely they are to lose it because they had to spend two extra minutes in line!
Dont forget that the only reason shopping is made so convenient is to get you throught that checkout faster, so you will come back faster, and more often, and spend more money.
Next time you find yourself getting pissed off in a supermarket queue with only three checkouts open, remember that your impatience is the by product of being manipulated by big retail juggernauts.. Not the because the 17 year old checkout girl cant muster a smile for you...
Hey there Urbanmonk.....
I hear you............ yes the issue in some instances is systemic for sure. However, I do believe that the prevalence of rudeness has permeated many other services not link to big conglomerates. And, I think it may have a lot to do with attitude and a twisted sense of entitlement.
Government workers, for example are faceless cogs to most. It's amazing how many people walk up to the reception desk in my building and just start blasting the poor woman who runs the show there.... AND they are looking for a completely different government department and don't even take the time to enquire as to whether or not they are in the right building.
On the other hand.........
Last week, I had to call a government employee....WHO WORKS IN MY DEPARTMENT (but I don't normally have contact with her, so she doesn't know me at all) about a mutual client, who found himself homeless after his "special care home" operators decided to close. This employee was supposed to be overseeing the "management" of this case and of the special care home. I got no where with this employee. She was rude, dismissive and couldn't give a shit that this client was quite ill and stuck at the homeless shelter. I was appalled........if I couldn't get her to take care of her responsibility, I'm sure individuals outside of the public service sure can't.
BTW...........I follow up with her Manager to ensure that this so called social worker got the blast she deserved and not just the one from me.
Ooooooooooooooooo I guess this conversation aint finished :)
Glad you resurrected it.
Yes, that is a nice way of describing it. "A twisted sense of entitlement." Which i believe is in large part(not omitting personal responsibility) due to the 24/7 get what you want when you want trend in society.
People have been taught over along period of time by their shopping experience that are "entitled" to not have to wait for anything. ANd that they can have anything.
50 years ago, before barcodes and streamlined computer systems. I bet you people were alot more patient in their supermarket checkout queues. Probably even more considerate.
ONe of your regular posters here said, "I tried to start up a convo with a girl making my coffee - she was just like, whateverish."
Perhaps that girl had been on her feet for the last four hours... making coffees. Perhaps she was sick and tired of peoples impatient glares, when she was the only staff member rostered to serve the lunch hour rush, coz the boss is trying to avoid spending money on extra wages so he can get his monthly bonus...
Yeah, your right, some people can be darn rude.
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