Working Gripes and Groans

People who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up. ~Ogden Nash

1. Listen, if you don’t want the slip after you pay with a credit card, TELL ME. I would so much rather throw the slip away in my little register trash can than find it soaked in CBS (cinnamon sugar butter) in the bottom of your basket later.
2. If you hear us all cracking up in the back over some joke or other, be happy for us. It means that we’ve found a moment of happiness amidst the gloom.
3. I like kids. When I smile at them, it doesn’t mean I’m trying to lure them into a dark alleyway. So don’t give me that look. And honestly, it doesn’t bother me when your 3-year-old tugs on my sleeve and I end up on my hands and knees looking under the tables for that red matchbox car. And I really don’t care if your baby cries or your toddler throws a tantrum or your kids make a mess (unless they’re older kids—above age 6 or so, they ought to know better). I do care if you threaten, hit, or yell at them within my hearing.
4. If you move my tables, put them back. Pleeeease?
5. We usually listen to top-40 hit music on the radio. This is NC, so sometimes a country song is going to play, whether or not it’s top-40 in other areas. If you complain about how you’re from New York and this isn’t music, I want to throw you out, and your coifee, too. This isn’t Yankee territory. And listening to “Before He Cheats” just once will not cause you to swell up and explode. I promise.
6. Don’t roll your eyes when I motion that I’m coming and I have food in my mouth. And don’t tell me to eat my bagel—which, yes, I get free, and it’s rude to ask, anyway—on my break. I don’t get a break. It takes me 2 and a half hours minimum to eat a single bagel with cream cheese, what with everything I’m trying to get done at the same time.
7. If you call in, know what you’re ordering. I’ve got people in here. Hemming and hawing is unacceptable.
8. This isn’t really your fault, and at least it does imply that you realize I have local status, but don’t ask me for anything but very basic directions unless it’s to, like, Walmart, or FFHS, or Atlantic Dance or something. This is the girl who ended up at Tanger Outlet Mall trying to get to Nags Head Acres and at Pizza Hut trying to get from the high school to the library. I don’t want to be responsible for you when you get lost. But thanks for recognizing that I do live here.
9. Yes, we’re overpriced. I can’t do anything about that, so please don’t complain to me. Take it up with the owner. In fact, please take it up with the owner. But with me, please just pay and smile and tip.
10. Look, I’ll benevolently accept ignorance as an excuse in certain cases, but if you sit there and watch me clean the door every five minutes and still get up and smear your hands all over the glass…well, that’s just mean and hateful, and it makes me want to cry.
11. Umm…I have an outstretched hand, and it’s clean. I’m fairly articulate. No tattoos, no wild loose hair, no caked-on makeup, no bloodshot eyes, no indecent clothing. I smile when I give you the total, or at least I try to. Point is, I’m not scary. Please don’t get your money out and just fling it across the counter in my general direction. I don’t smell. I have all my fingers and teeth. Can’t you hand me your money like a decent person? I’m not a retriever.
12. And inversely, please don’t extend your bill towards me, and then, when I try to take it, keep gripping. I know you hate to lose your money—I do too—but you already ordered, and you had to know it was coming. So you can really let go and let me take your cash and get your change. I would rather not play tug-of-war. (Once again, do I look like a dog?)
13. I am not your mother. Or your servant. If you need help, I’ll help you, of course, and I’ll clean up after you, because that’s my job. But please keep your requests and demands reasonable. I really do understand if your table gets messy with chips and crumbs or whatever, but don’t leave baskets all over and act as if I have nothing better to do than spend ten minutes putting your area back in order. That’s momentously inconsiderate.
14. This isn’t so much your fault, either, but I don’t prepare the food, so if you ask me a food question, I’m gonna have to go ask somebody else. Don’t sigh and roll your eyes and look all impatient at the delay. It’s not my fault; I’m honestly trying to get back to you quickly. Have a speck of compassion.
15. I know it’s cold. Working the register, I’m cold, too. I understand and I’m sorry. But there’s really nothing I can do.
16. Please tip. Even if it’s just a penny, it’s something. And if you get a $62.84 order that includes four G2s (that’s a Reuben)…tip or have the staff think of you as the stingiest person ever.
17. I do appreciate you telling me when there’s a spill. However, don’t expect me to regard you as my personal Angel of Mercy or something for letting me know. After all, it just means one more thing for me to do when I’m already working on 3 million others.
18. Trying for conversation wins you brownie points, in my book, even if it’s awkward or pointless. I give you props for trying. Thank you, you relatively decent person!
19. No, I really don’t care how they do it where you’re from. This is how we do it here. Sorry if it doesn’t work for you.
20. I don’t dislike you just because, but don’t come up, swaggering, expecting me to like you and treat you as the most cherished customer I’ve ever seen. It’s one thing if you’re related to me or if you went to school with me or you know me from somewhere…it’s another if you’re a stranger and you just think you’re all that. It’s not very attractive.
21. That’s nice about the weather, but I’m stuck inside from 7 to at least 4, so please don’t expect me to be able to give too much actual information about today’s weather.
22. Above all, don’t treat me like I’m stupid just because I’m working at the local bagel store. Don’t treat any of us like we’re stupid, in fact. The foreign employees speak good English, and they try really hard. Most of the rest of us are young. We know each other, we go to the local schools, and most of us are (or were, since two of us are now graduated) honor students. But, hey, you gotta make a dollar somehow. I don’t need you to speak slowly and loudly to understand you. Seriously. Treating us like we’re dumb is probably the most offensive thing you could do to any of us. Show some respect.

Fortunately, today is it. The last day of work. May the clouds part and angels descend upon golden sunbeams! Singing hallelujah, of course. I’ve been dreaming of work, of customers, of the crazy owners, and I’m so glad to see it end.

You know, though, I’m really glad I did work this summer. For one thing, it helps me to relate to every other teen I know who’s working…which is nearly everybody in my grade…for another, I didn’t do badly at all, monetarily. Most of all, though, I feel like it’s taught me a lot. Concrete things, of course, like how to stock and how a business works and how to use a bottle opener (don’t laugh; I didn’t know), but also things like how to deal with unpleasant people on a daily basis, and how to communicate with extreme efficiency, and how to appear capable at something even when I’m not sure I am. I never went off the deep end with a customer; I accepted mild reprimands without argument, I got there on time to do something I didn’t enjoy but that I needed to do. And I didn’t vent until I got home. Although I am tremendously, incredibly ecstatic to be free now, I’m also grateful that working gave me these experiences, because they’re probably character-building and all that. :]