I know I typically don't talk about the casual things in life, like work, but today I'm making an exception because I have a few things I feel need to be said.
I work at a bit above minimum wage at a common chain store that almost everyone has shopped at, one time of another, and because of their prices, most people in lower income brackets shop there all the time. I've worked there for four and a half years, while I'm finishing college, and so I've seen quite a few things. Some absurd, some angering, some good things. But the thing that stands out to me most out of that, is how rude, entitled, and mean spirited many of the people who shop there actually are.
I try to be nice to everyone, which doesn't come easy to me. I really don't like people all that much. But I'm polite, and I try to help anyone who asks find what they're looking for, and help answer any questions they might have. But when you yell at me because prices have gone up by twelve cents, it makes me want to take a baseball bat to your face.
Look, in chain stores, no one working there controls the prices even slightly. All the prices come from corporate, and we have to put the prices out there. Don't blame us if a shortage in sweet potato crop because of rain has caused it to make an apparently massive jump from 34 cents a pound to 42 cents a pound. We have nothing to do with it. It bothers us more than it bothers you, because not only do we have deal with your ridiculous complaints, but we also shop there, because we can't afford to shop anywhere else.
How much did you make last year? 30,000? 40? Maybe you're down on the lower scale and made 25,000. But I know you make more than me. You know why? Because no one who makes my pay range yells at me about prices. Why is that? I make around 10,000 a year. In case you're not aware, that is less than most people on welfare and disability make. So it'd actually be a better career choice for me not to work at all. I'd make more money. So why is it that the people who make around 10,000 a year don't complain about prices, even though a price spike of a few cents means we might not be able to buy it, but the people who make 4 and 5 times that complain about it like it's the end of the world?\
It's because people who make my pay grade are in jobs where they constantly have to deal with people like you too, and so they understand what it's like to get yelled at for something that you have absolutely no control over in any way, and not be able to defend yourself. That's right by the way. At my job, if I talk back to a customer, or act in any way that might imply that he/she is an entitled prat instead of a shining cloud-wreathed god in the sky, I get fired. Dignity's all well and good, but it won't pay for food. So I have to keep my mouth shut and smile, and say thank you for your comments, and all that other crap, because I can't afford to not. People who make decent have a few weeks of leeway where if they get fired they have a bit of time to find a job. Not me. If I get fired, I have to start working the next day, or else I'll sink.
So for God's sake be a decent human being to the minimum wage slaves.
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