This is a rant.
I should probably add a [disclaimer: while some of my thought and pet peeves may seem ignorant, arrogant, racist, or sterotypical, I am neither of these things. These are simply opinions, not meant to be taken at anything but face value].
That being said, let's continue...
So, I'm at work tonight and we were open later than usual--until 11:00 instead of 10:00. Five minutes before closing, an elderly lady comes up (the only customer left) even after my two closing announcements (one at 10:30, the other at 10:45 to warn customers we would be closing) and brings about $300 worth of items, all clearance (go figure). She then proceeds to take forever, fighting on the prices of each item, most of which cost about less than five dollars each anyway---God forbid she achieves "big spender" status by spending...dare I say...six whole dollars on an item??!?! I mean, really? We have lives. Don't come up in the store five minutes before closing and then be a pain in the ass. Then, a couple of nights before, this lady wanted to use our store's credit card to purchas items using a coupon that you could only use if you charged it on the credit card. As I checked her card and her passport (she didn't have an ID), she tells me that the card belongs to her friend. Um, excuse me? I flat out tell her she can't just use her friend's card. Her: "So what now, I pay cash?" Um, think again. "No, you don't get the discount. It's not your card." So she pulls out another credit card and before I check with her passport she tells me that once again, it is her friend's card. ...What the hell, lady?! I sigh out of exasperation and tell her, "No, this won't work. You can't just use your friend's card." She looked shocked, as if it were some new concept, not being able to use something that wasn't yours. Oh, really now...
Once again I must reiterate that I am not racist by any means, but in the previous two examples, both women were foreigners. The most frustrating thing about my job is the foreign customers...I won't say which ones, but it seems people of certain ethnicities have similar tendencies. Ignorance being one of them...I've had countless people try to cheat the system by pretending not to speak or understand English, and when I see right through it and don't enable that, all of a sudden they're educated, angry, and most importantly, fluent in English. All of a sudden their vocabulary that was previousy limited to the words "discount", "no English", and "coupon" now included "corporate", "manager", etc. And some don't even bother to get to the latter, sudden-English-speaking part of the plan. Some are legitimately stuck at the not-knowing English part. Only they're not faking. Several people come up to me and I ask a simple "How can I help you?" And they smile, duck their head apologetically, and say "No English." I repeat myself slower and louder, only to have a repeat of the smile, duck, and "No English." Well geez, what the hell do you want then??? Putting my firm belief that if you're gonna be in a country, at least bother to learn the language so you can get around yourself without having to depend on anyone...for ONE second...even if you can't speak the language. Bring someone who CAN, for goodness sakes! It's not fair to me to have to make a game of Charades trying to understand you my sole purpose in life.
Some people are just plain rude. I've had a man merely snap his fingers at me and say, "Hey!" to get my attention. Not even bother with an, "Excuse me, miss?" I've also learned to not give rude people the time of day. Customer service is one thing. But at the end of the day, I am a person and deserve to be treated with respect, and that will always come first. And there are the people who try and get discounts and think we're dumb because they ask for it in such a vague way, we must just have to guess it out. "Isn't this on sale for 15, 20 something....something like that?" No, you twit. Nothing is ever on a "15-20-something" sale. I just say, "Nope," and then move on and cut them off when they try to protest.
Ignorance is probably my biggest pet peeve. Choosing to make things harder for not just yourself, but others as well, instead of educating yourself is just pathetic--not to mention annoying, frustrating, time consuming, energy consuming, and a waste of other people's time. Thank you and good night.
