We all treat servers at restaurants and the guy behind the counter at McDonald's like a sub-human. Maybe it's time to get to know who we're dealing with...
There was once a joke making the rounds that if you were over thirty and had a job where you wore a nametag -- the comedian stops right here and you hear the chuckles and laughter in the background: we're all in on that joke, and know exactly what the comedian and his audience thinks about the poor sap wearing the aforementioned bit of bling. He's a loser.
Well, I'm here to tell you a little bit about the rest of the story. You see, I'm fifty, well-educated with a degree that does me little good out in Deepinthehearta, Texas, and I wear a nametag. To work. Every day. Horrible, isn't it? The wearing a nametag part, not the living in Texas part, which really is bad enough all on its own. I'm politically very liberal, you see, and live in the most right-wing county in a right-wing state, and -- but I digress. We'll get back to that another time, shall we?
We're people, too. We have families, friends, interests outside of -- although not always exclusive of -- our work. That's an important distinction, there: if we have been very, very lucky, as much as you think our jobs might suck, we've done something you may only dream of, and that is find a job involving something we are interested in. I'm in the grocery industry, and I'm also a foodie, a very talented cook -- I'm by no means a chef, although my daughter is a culinary arts major in college -- and I enjoy talking to people about food. If you have no idea how to make a perfect Hollandaise sauce without breaking it, I should be your best new friend. But that means you have to dump some of those preconceptions you're so proud of, first.
Like that, because we don't have PhDs -- they don't give them for work in the food industry -- we're stupid. So, how many letters do you have after your name? Probably not many, aside from "Jr." if your Dad ran out of ideas for another name starting with "J" or ending with "-Bob." Most of us don't have degrees we can put on the letterhead with a lot of pride: Phoenix University just doesn't have the clout it did back when it started out. But, does it really matter? Just how smart does a tight grouping of letters after your name make you?
Not very, it turns out. The lady in the scrubs with the security badge identifying her as the Chief of Staff of the local Baylor cardio-pulmonary surgical team found that the hard way when I walked over to diffuse the situation when she started calling my self-checkout lane attendant "stupid" because the lanes were "shit" and never worked right. I made it there as the robot attendant (what we call the computer hiding behind that touch screen) asked for the fourth time for her to "Please select the type of payment." I pressed "credit," it processed the card and spit out her receipt, which I handed her.
"But aren't you going to discipline the checker?" she asked. "She doesn't know what she's doing."
"Excuse me? You're the one who can't follow printed and verbal instructions. And you're a surgeon? Remind me not to go to your hospital if I have a heart attack."
We're there to help. Really, we are. If for no other reason than we can't afford to be unemployed or unemployable. But you've got to help us out here. Throw us a bone.
And we know your secrets. Don't call us names or look down on us, but still expect us not to tell other people.
Like the elderly woman who is the head something-or-other for the town in which my store is located. She asked me a few weeks ago where the restrooms were since she "normally never visited the facilities in this sort of place." I pointed out the restroom door, cleverly hidden behind the sign that said "Restrooms."
A little while later she came flitting back, commending us on our forsight in equipping the restrooms with such luxurious items.
"What did she say?" asked a bagger.
"I'm not sure. I thought something about a 'bidet,' but no..."
A bit later I was called to the management office to talk to our very agitated utility clerk, who spoke little English. He was upset over finding a grey-haired little old lady squatting on the urinal in the men's room about twenty minutes earlier. "But he says she looked very cheerful, so he didn't disturb her," commented one of the managers.
So it's okay. We won't tell your secrets except in self-defense. And we won't go to great lengths to point out just how wrong you are unless we're provoked. We've both got to live here, right?
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