Entry level workers; REVOLT!

I have a sister who is a bit of a hopeless case against what I'm about to say here. She's held entry level jobs or "McJobs" for her entire adult life. She somehow seems to consider these jobs as being important. Like her life depended on it.

In her case, it does not.

As a matter of fact she could leave it tomorrow and still be relatively well off because she has no children and lives at home, with mom, who pays pretty much everything except the petrol she puts in her car. Her car is paid for and she has little debt.

Yet she defends her job vehemently, it's almost like she works for NASA or something.

She is a stock "person"; Meaning that her job is to open boxes of stuff the store receives, and to place this stuff on the sales racks. That's it.

Previous to that she was a stock "person" for another store, opening different boxes of stuff and placing it differently, on different sales racks. Oh and in both cases, they make her work when the store is closed, and on occasion, on holidays for inventory. Like last Christmas day and Easter Sunday.

All that for about 9$/hour.

She has a certification as some kind of loan agent or something, not that I know much about being a loan agent, but it seems to me that being a loan agent might pay more than 9$/hour.

I also suspect she might get more respect from her superiors although I might be wrong there because having a "higher level" job does not mean that the boss will have any more class than your previous boss, at McD's...

Regardless.

I keep witnessing clients, customers in various stores and under various situations abusing the clerks or the cashiers and I keep asking myself why they just stand there and take it. I'd up and leave, of course, this is why a store wouldn't hire me, in my late thirties, close to 20 years working experience etc.

They know I'd tell them to shove their McJob up their McAss at the first sign of abuse.

This morning for instance, I was at Dollorama...

Relax, I don't go there to purchase two billion dollars worth of useless crap made in China, which would encourage the Chinese in their repression of Tibetan monks blahblahblah...

I usually will drop by once or twice a week to pick up chocolate, which is made in Mississauga Ontario, or Yum Yum chips which are actually made locally here so please save your sermons about how by simply ENTERING a Dollorama, I singlehandedly encourage a foreign economy.

Dollorama incidentally is still owned by the Rossy family. Who may be foreign, but are definitely not Chinese.

Notice? I digressed...Told you I might.

At any rate, Fat Bitch who was ahead of me in line was purchasing three coffee mugs, the cashier, a young girl, early twenties, very probably in the same situation as my sister, wrapped the mugs individually in paper, rather carefully actually, then placed them in a plastic bag and handed them to Fat Bitch. Then the conversation went something like this.

Fat Bitch; "I want another bag."

Cashier; "Pardon?"

Fat Bitch; "I want another bag, over this one, in case it breaks. I have a long way to walk."

To this the cashier proceeded to giving her another bag, over her normal bag and off she was supposed to go but no, Fat Bitch had to sneer at the cashier, then look at ME of all people, and roll her eyes like her obscene obesity, facial pilosity and the resulting bitchiness were the cashier's fault.

I held my tongue. I do that a lot in real life. It sort of serves me well that I have this "blog" as an exit for my frustrations and rants, it kind of works in a perverted Freudian way. For me writing this is a bit like masturbation but with less lubricants. Again I digress...

Two bags for three fucking coffee mugs. The whole combined weight of the mugs might have been about one pound, maybe less.

I waited patiently while Fat Bitch gathered up both her mostly empty double bag and, her miniature purse, that looked even smaller as accentuated by Fat Bitch's gargantuan proportions. She then wobbled away slowly still rolling her eyes at anyone looking at her.

I gave the cashier a smile, and was rewarded with a smile from her. I genuinely felt sorry for her. Her job sucks I mean face it, she counts items, wraps them as needed, takes payment into a cash register and hands bags to customers all day long. But on top of that she needs to remain polite and friendly with the most annoying people.

For less than 9$/hour.

I wouldn't do it for twice that. It's a question of respect.

Now, in case you've not noticed, look back up at the title of this post. Notice anything?

You called it, I digressed for a full glorious whole post. Well ok, not a WHOLE post but half of one.

So this goes out to all the entry level workers, the cashiers, clerks, everyone universally who makes minimum wage and doesn't live in a town where everyone knows one another. REVOLT!

The next time some customer asks you to do something extra for them, make sure they deserve it.

If they snicker at you, or treat you disrespectfully tell them. If they don't realize they're complete tards, let them know you will not stand there and be insulted, you too are a human being, and the fact that you happen to work as a slave does not give them the right to insult you so, REVOLT!

Keep in mind here YOU have the advantage. If you were to get fired, all you have to do next time you apply for an entry level job is say you never worked there in the first place.

And if you ever decide to get a REAL job, and you manage somehow to get an interview. And your current boss, at your current McJob, buys your excuse for not being at work that day and you actually wind up going to this interview.

A word of advise; Just don't tell them you got fired four years ago, because you told Fat Bitch to keep her attitude for her Fat Kids.

Of course some people have other type of entry level jobs. Some time ago I was working the customer service phone help desk for a large computer corporation and the salary was well above 15$/hour. Yeah, I took some abuse over the phone but the department had a strict two warning policy. If you insulted me, it was ONE warning before cutting off the phone line and if things got out of hand we had a blacklist where we wouldn't serve people who had a history of abusing the "agents".

Also once we called the police because one of the guys was threatened physically by a customer.

I kept the job for almost a full year while actively looking for another one. I wasn't in a hurry and although the job sucked in more ways that I can think of, the salary was considerable and as a husband, a father and a home-owner with a mortgage, we needed it so I bit the bullet and hung on.

Boy was I happy when I left. I'm still farting rainbows now.