It's been a long time- I haven't really been adding entries in the longest while. I just haven't felt like it, really.
But things change, and I'm finding that work is driving me crazy lately. I'm working in a bookstore in an affluent area, where people have more money than brains. They're often illiterate and just come in for Starbucks, or they are SOMEWHAT literate, and think we're a library serving coffee. And I'm discovering that at the end of the day, I want somewhere to rant about these assholes again.
I need out of that location, and I need to get back downtown where there's less Prada and pretention. Everything I do now is geared towards busting my ass so I can apply for other locations and get the f*ck out of there. These people make me more than a little hostile, which is not normally my nature. Their sense of entitlement pisses me off immensely, and holding it in and making nice to these jerks all day is taking its toll on me.

For example.

Last night's winner of the asshole prize (and I can give one daily, but sometimes it's difficult to choose) was a woman who was returning a slightly damaged copy of Tony Robbins' Awaken the Giant Within. Aside from her questionable taste in books, she was apparently dim enough to have purchased this book twice, by her own admission. Who forgets that creepy guy with no neck and giant teeth, and buys him twice? You wouldn't find his threatening jaws on your living room bookshelf kinda difficult to forget?
But I digress.
Our cashier showed reluctance to return it, as is usual when something's damaged, but as it had only been a half hour & unlikely (although still possible- people are awfully careless) that she'd damaged it herself in that short time, i told him to run it through anyway. Her remark to her son while we ran her return through, was that the cashier's reluctance to process a return on a damaged item was "some kind of race thing". Quote-unquote.
This sort of thing makes me really angry. One of the things I really love about my city, and the place i work especially, is how accepting and diverse we are. I've had the opportunity to interact and work with people from all over the world, all kinds of religions, all kinds of backgrounds. At no time was anything mentioned about race at all. Nobody so much as looked at her askance. The conversation was entirely devoted to the condition of her book, and on top of that, she was getting what she wanted regardless of it. Why then, bring this up at all? It's infuriating, and mystifying.
Personally, I take that kind of thing pretty seriously. I'm really proud of the kids who work there for their acceptance of everyone, and I've never been in a place where the way a person looked mattered less. They're a sweet bunch and they all make a conscious effort to be good to people... I'd be shocked and horrified if one of them made any sort of racist comment. How do you think I felt when this bitch started making that sort of comment? I was pretty fucking offended.

Now, since she made the remark to someone else in kind of a stage-whisper, I thought it might be best to hold in my irritation and let it slide, acting as if I hadn't caught what ostensibly was a private conversation. I got the sense that she was hoping I'd comment so she could make a bigger thing of it.
I wanted to just rip right into her and cut her idiotic comments down, because i care about those kids and that's a really unfair way to talk about one of them- a nice kid who was just doing his job. It made me really, really angry. But... she's playing a strong card, and I don't have anything comparable in my hand, and i want to move up and move out of that place. This means sometimes sucking up something you feel is unjust.
Maybe I should've called her on it, but if she's so bloody convinced that that's how we are, i won't be able to change her mind. And on the other hand, if she didn't really think that and she was just doing it to cause trouble, then she's going to cause as much as she possible can if i respond to it.
I'm learning. There was another bitch from a few weeks ago whose expired return I refused on the basis that she was super-nasty to the cashiers (and then verbally abusive to me). She called home office, and they not only sent her back for us to process the return, but give her a gift card in the process... thereby rewarding her for treating those kids like dirt. This taught me that there's a lot less i can do to stand up for the kids than i would want... and it's pointless to try to in cases like these. It went against the grain, because i so wanted to stick up for my cashier, but i really felt there was nothing constructive i could do and had to let it go.

It's frustrating. And while i know these situations will happen in every location, i just found there was so much less of it downtown where people read more and had less money.

I feel a little better now. Ranting is good for the soul.