Any job that involves directly interacting with a customer is automatically terrible, since there are always people who are horrible to interact with. Generally, people are pretty okay human beings. Maybe it's me, but I'm pretty sure that for some people, there is something in their brain that instinctively switches to turn a good number of individuals into relentless jackasses when they step through the threshold of a place in which they have to deal with some poor schmuck who is stuck behind a counter. I am one of those poor schmucks, and it is the customers that make me dread going to work in the morning.
My job is theoretically fairly simple: get into work on time, fix some shoes, clean the entire store, sell some shit, make sure the alarm's on when I leave, and try not to stab myself in any vital arteries when I'm trying to cut a bit off the heel of some woman's crappy pair of heels that she's worn down to the shank in order to pull out the metal dowel. Trust me, that last part is harder than it sounds. Shoe repair, for anyone who doesn't know, is an absolutely miserable industry to work in, largely because of the customers. The work itself is extremely labour intensive, and a large percentage of customers have it in their heads that they can expect miracles for next to nothing and almost immediately. Sorry lady, but if your dog has chewed through the sole of your shoe, there's not much that I can do for you in the half an hour until closing because you don't want to leave it for us to get to tomorrow. I get it, you're going on vacation tomorrow and you really wanted to wear those super cute strappy sandals on the beach for your third cousin's nephew's mohel's brother's daughter's wedding, but I've been standing for eight and a half hours straight and I don't really give a shit. Replacing a sole on a shoe is a good three hours of work if there's nothing else to do and it's an easy fix, and considering that your shoes are plastic and you're demanding leather, I'm pretty sure you don't know jack shit about what you're talking about. So yes, I'm sure I can't help you. No one can.
Today I got called incompetent by a couple of customers. Once was because I'm a girl (which, frankly, I'm used to hearing, especially from senile old white broads who want a strapping man to aid them with all of their shoe-related problems), and once because I took more than twenty minutes to find this woman's pair of black, closed-toed, patent leather pumps. Look bitch, just because I've got shoe polish all up under my fingernails and glue all over my apron does not make me a moron. There are more than a hundred pairs of shoes in the place where we put the finished ones, and about fifty percent of them are black, closed-toed, patent leather pumps. When you walk into a place without the ticket we give you and can't remember the god-damned name you gave us when you dropped your shoes off, you're going to have to deal with us digging through every single pair of shoes in the shop. That's just how things work. To the woman who thought this made me, the girl who apologised profusely for the wait and gave you five dollars off your $20 purchase, when I said, "Have a nice day," what I meant was, "I'm going to be planning your elaborate death for the next three hours because I have never hated anyone more in my entire life. Hope you like vats of acid, douchecanoe!"
Shit happens, I get that. Sometimes you're in a bad mood, and sometimes the person helping you really is a massive fucktard and you're surprised that they've managed to keep themselves alive long enough to con some sucker into giving them employment. That happens. And sometimes they fuck up your shit. That sucks. But until you haul your ass behind the counter and realise that service jobs are some of the most harrowing professions in the modern world, being a giant jackass about it is not only wholly unhelpful to the situation, but makes you out to be a huge fucknoodle that's going to get whined about the second you leave. And, if you do decide to come back, we will remember you. I mean, usually we'll pretend we don't and we'll stick a dumbass grin on our faces and be super polite, but inside, we're seething. And maybe I won't do as good a job of fixing your shoes. I probably will, because professional pride, but you know... fuck you, man. Yeah.
