Retail Slaves As Custys: Bad Joke Eel Strikes Again

Hello, RHU devotees.  I experienced a little bit of retail heck tonight.  Not quite hell, I don't give the guy that much credit.

The wifey decided that she wanted fried chicken and mac and cheese for dinner, so I pop down to the local grocery (gasp - I shop at the competitor!  If only we had a store less than a half hour away!).  I made my way over to the Deli.  After 15 years in retail, I think I've developed a sixth sense for mayhem.  I see, from a distance, an old man standing at the hot food case, looking around for help.  An old man kept waiting?  Aw, fuck.

So not too long after I arrived at the counter, striving mightily not to make contact with Grandpa Liverspot (call me anti-social), a clerk came up and began to help him. He too wanted fried chicken.  So she packaged it for him and started to label it.  Then my intuition became fact.

He looked back at me with a grin.  His face said, "Break out your zoot suit, this one's gonna be a doozy!"  (No, don't do it!)

He turns back to the clerk, looks back at me for a second grin to see if I'm paying attention, (OH GOD HE'S GONNA DO IT!) and said, "And an extra thigh for the wait!" (I'm sorry man, I did everything I could!  Via con Dios!)

Now he said this with a smile, and I knew he was joking, and the clerk laughed and played it off very well.  But it still rankled me that he thought he was going to make some grand joke and pull me into it.  I just looked at him, trying to convey "Really?  Did you really just say that?" until he decided that he was funny enough to move on to the next stop.

*    *    *

And on a separate note, do you ever have one of those weeks when people just don't seem to realize that you exist?  

I've had that week this week.  I could be pulling the loudest, noisiest, tooth-rattlingest old busted ass cart full of loose cans fifty feet down an aisle, come up behind somebody who is parked in the middle of the aisle, and have to stop because they have not once even looked up to see where that huge mosquito is that is making all that noise.  

Then if you are lucky you get, "Oh, am I in your way?"  Oh, I don't know, I thought maybe I'd just drag this shit around with me and stop at some random point like Forrest Gump when he decided to stop running.

The worst, though was when I was switching pallets of water out of the entry and pallets of pop into the entryway.  Not once, but twice, I dropped a skid, pulled out the jack, and just as I was about to push it under another skid, people walked between the skid and the jack.  And did not even pretend to look at me.  

Then there was the guy who came out of an aisle in front of me and kept going, forcing me to suddenly bring half a ton of product to a stop so I didn't run over his oblivious ass.

Then came the topper of all the toppers.  Imagine me, pulling a skid of water out of the back room, just accelerating after coming through the door.  Imagine idiot customer approaching from the right, who looks up, sees me, actually smiles at me, fucking speaks to me, and, stunningly, says "Let me get out of your way" as he races right. in. front. of. me.  I damn near ran over my heels trying to get the pallet stopped.  It was all I could do to just look at him in disbelief and not blurt out "That's not fucking helping me, jackass!"  People are actively trying to die!

That's all for tonight.  Stay classy RHU!

--Riferous

Comments

[Swede]

I didn't get the first part but oh-so-fucking-well do I know the second situation.
I have actually begun pulling the really heavy pallets as fast as I can because people hear the thundering noise and the huge pallets of soda charging their direction with my red-face pulling it and get out of the way F-A-S-T.
Pulling 1½-2 tons of liquid does that to people and the thundering noise helps too. ^_^ Self-preservation Exploitation, my friend. ^_^

[Riferous]

For the first part, I don't like the people who think they deserve compensation because they weren't served RIGHT NOW, and the people who think the jokes that we've heard over and over are funny. For the second part, I would eventually be guilty of manslaughter, because these people are fucking oblivious. Or, they just don't care that I have somewhere to go.

[Eviscerator]

Ugh, the people that wont GTFO the way. They're the reason I have a bad back and knees now.

I feel your pain, I do. And about the only thing you can do is to run one down and get in the news. But then you're fired and facing legal action -_-

[Karebear]

People who don't get out of the way are my pet peeve. I literally hate shopping when the place is busy because everyone just parks their cart in the middle of the aisle, not thinking that other people might like to get by and possibly shop or work.

When I used to work for Hellmart, I actually had someone ram their cart into me while working because "they didn't see me." I had a huge pallet sitting next to me, trying to stock the paper towels. They would have had to go around the pallet, so how they saw that but not me (I was right there next to it before they would have had to swerve to avoid said pallet) still baffles me. -.- so I totally get the pain of feeling invisible...so did my hip!!

[Aunty]

I don't think they understand how heavy those things are and the stress it puts on you when you have to suddenly brake.

[The Last Archimedean]

I literally couldn't stop those things once I got them started without 15 yards of free space. After the third oblivious customer mode a panicked last-second dive out of the way the strore assigned someone stronger to move them. Many years ago that was...

[The vacationing NC Tony]

If it wouldn't get you in trouble (or even fired) for running into one of these oblivious asshats. When I worked at the Bullseye, and I was luging one of those heavy motherfuckers around the store I used to yell "Coming through!" so people had the rumbling AND my yelled warning. I got pretty good at dodging around people though, if I couldn't hit them, I'd at least scare the shit out of them.

On the other hand, I was in Wal-Mart one day, and a woman was blocking the aisle and the space where she was standing, and I tried to squeeze past her, my cart bumped her and lightly hit her in the butt. She looked back at me and said, in the most annoyed, grating tone of voice she could muster "Excuse me." I was about to apologize, but her tone of voice, and the look on her face made me say "You shouldn't have blocked the aisle." instead. She looked like she wanted to say something else, but I kept moving, and was out of sight before she could rattle her tiny brain to think of a reply.

[The vacationing NC Tony]

Wow, I really need to proof read before I hit submit.

"If it wouldn't get you in trouble (or even fired) for running into one of these oblivious asshats." should read "If ONLY it wouldn't get you in trouble (or even fired) for running into one of these oblivious asshats."

And "and a woman was blocking the aisle and the space where she was standing, and I tried to squeeze past her" should read "and a woman was blocking the aisle, between her cart and the space where she was standing there was no room to get by, and I tried to squeeze past her"

[Moi]

I have had the same issue trying to pull pallets the store. Especially people who look right at you and stop right in the way. I was dragging a stack of empty pallets back to the storeroom from the liquor dept after working a load and this idiot woman, I don't know how she didn't see me coming she was looking right at me. She stopped in the aisle in front of me fucked off to the other side of produce leaving her trolley right in my way. So I pushed it all the way down the other end of the department. Dozy cow.

I had another morning where I was pulling a pallet through and I was struggling a little because it was a bit heavier than normal. This guy comes up to me and asks me for help with something. Mind you, there's 3 or 4 other staff standing around with their fingers up their arses cos it's 9am Sunday morning and there's nothing happening. I just looked at him with a "WTF" look on my face and said "Uh mate, I'm a little busy here right now" and kept going. People = stupid.

[Larry Berry]

When I worked at McDees we had a customer that came in every day. He would rattle off his order super fast including exactly how many creams and sugars he wanted, and say "and if you don't get it right the first time it's free". I just ignored him and would read the orders back. Typically something was missed and he would keep harping on the "it's free then right?" I never even responded to his "joke" (Which he always said very seriously with no smile) and just assembled the order and told him his total. The kicker was the usual 15 creams and 20 sugars, because he owned the small family mexican restaurant across the street and they used the McDonalds creams and sugars for their customers.

[Mari]

*Vaya con Dios. Just FYI.

[trekkiebabe31]

I hate when people rattle off, say, their phone number uber fast! I just stop, look at them and ask them to repeat it, and I HATE the "if it doesn't scan it's free", I just want to hand them the book and say "why don't YOU try scanning it", ugh!

[Riferous]

@ Mari: I took 3 1/2 years of Spanish, and I think that's the first time I've ever written that phrase, and my whole life that's the way I've always pictured it. But you are absolutely correct.

[RDM]

Damn shame one cannot count on three or four bottles of some fluid jumping off the pallet, popping their tops, and dousing the oblividiots with something sugary and highly aromatic when one has to hit the release lever on the pallet jack to drop the whole mess to the floor to avoid running over an example of said oblividiot.

[TechTiger]

These are probably the same people who walk behind moving cars backing out of spaces in the parking lot without even looking.