Silly money, silly time

Having patience can be very hard when working in retail. There are times when the store is basically empty and other times where there are lines down the aisles. It can be especially challenging when there aren’t enough people working to help and the customers are impatient and grumpy. There are so many instances where I have had to take a moment and take a deep breath so I didn’t quit on the spot. One specific time when I can remember being especially patient was when I was on register 9 at work during a fairly busy rush and a customer started trying to make me upset. I greeted him and was very nice and customer service-ly and then I proceeded to finish checking him out. The next part is where it all went wrong.  When it came time to pay he handed me a twenty and I entered it into the computer. He then tells me that he has some change that he wants to use towards the order…  I tried to tell him I had already entered it but he was not interested in just taking the original amount of change he would have gotten back for the twenty. So I took it and counted it and as I was trying to figure out home much change he would now get back he starts talking to my bagger about how stupid teenagers are. Then he looks at me and says “Did they stop teaching math in high school or what?”. So I gathered his change, gave it to him and told him to have a great day. It took an enormous amount of strength to tell him to be quiet and leave.  He, a grown man, thought it was ok to talk down to me, a seventeen year old girl, because he thought I was taking too long. I had fairly long lines and he thought it was completely fine of him to throw me off and mess up my cash drawer then speak to me like that. I mean when is it ever ok to say to a teenage girl that she is “An idiot that cannot even do simple math”, the answer is never. In the end I am proud of myself for having patience and not stooping as low as his level was. Sometimes it seems like people think I am a machine rather than a person with feelings. I like my job, most of the people there are some good friends of mine, and I enjoy being able to meet new people and talk with them for the few minutes it takes to checkout. I love being able to help make someone’s day better by being kind to them even when they aren’t kind back. Which is why I feel like the moral of the story is that everyone is in control of how they respond to a frustrating situation and choosing to be patient is the right way to respond.

“American coins (also a jigsaw puzzle )” by uhuru1701 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.