The Far Corners of the Mind

Yes, indeed...there is a overstock of beef I have with modern society. Anyone that knows me can vouch for that. Children are spoiled, people are ignorant, and the lack of respect in today's society amazes me.

I won't lie to you, ninety percent of the time, I don't care about what anyone outside my universe says to me. I have had customers that I connect with, and have semi-meaningful conversations with, as well as people who I've met by happenstance and developed long-term friendships with. That, however, encompasses only that small ten percent of the time. The majority of the people that start going off about their personal problems, or reasons as to why they absolutely must return that XBOX 360, even though the damn thing has CLEARLY been used, I simply do not care. I don't need to know about the time you had a fifty year-old one hundred dollar bill, and no store would take it, so you had to go to the bank to exchange it. I don't care if your kid was bad and you decided to take his video game, which YOU bought him in the first place, away. It's a state law, I don't care if your son punched you in the twat, I still couldn't take it back, BECAUSE IT IS THE LAW. I don't care that you bought a game that is CLEARLY labeled with an M rating, and after opening it and seeing your six year-old cut a guy apart with an AK-47, realizing that "17+" isn't there by accident.

Don't get me wrong. I like connecting with people, but on my time. I am at work, and most of the time, I don't care about your life. I am there to hand you your PS3 that you're buying with your tax return, even though you have debt coming out your posterior. Now here's the crucial difference. If you ask me to get you an item, and i ring it up, and THEN you start telling me a story, I won't care. If, PRIOR TO me getting you something, you ask for my opinion, or bring up your sad tale, there's a better chance of me giving a damn. Here's the breakdown, since I am at work, I have (oddly enough) more to do, then just get you your crappy iCarly game for your four year-old with a DSi. Therefore, if you have already selected an item, rarely will I care as to WHY, except on certain things that I have made it a point to steer people away from, i.e. iPod Shuffle. If you don't know what to get, and ask for my opinion, I will give it to you, and there is your opportunity to lay a story on me. It might help me give you a recommendation.

Here, however is the difference between myself (along with a solid half of the retail industry) and the rest of the world. EVEN THOUGH I could actually not care about anything LESS than what you are saying, I will still listen, and still say "Thank You" and "Have a good one." Simple courtesy, oddly enough, will ensure you get a solid customer service experience, giving a bit of wiggle room for people having a bad day. Since we must remember, retail employees are also people, and they have their own lives, and their own universes to maintain.

I won't even get on the topic of insolent children today, it is too long a topic, and too much anger involved in it for me to get into. That will be a topic for another day, when I have had more cause for a blog about it.

I have however gone three days now, without any significant motion on the website. And that upsets me. The cause, however, is primarily the fact that I have had no days off since last Friday. In that, I have excused myself from the issue. Next week, starting with this weekend, I plan on crunching out a few rough drafts, getting some ideas down. The Knight Rider fic that I have been slowly working on is coming together more. I have almost chosen all the vehicles for the new iteration of F.L.A.G. and the story is pretty much self-explanatory, once I have the vehicles.

I also need to find a place that will let me put something into the public domain. I have created the ultimate answer for all those nagging "extra-normal" prophecies that people end up with in their fantasy stories, and I would like to offer the explanation to the world. I conceptualized the idea many years ago, and I have been simply looking for a place to put it. It will be a short story, but it will be in the public domain, and will hopefully give some causality nuts a way out of their entanglements.

I have yet another shift tonight, so I leave you, web with this: Respect people. All people. Except for the French. I hate the French. I don't know why. (Joking. Mostly.)

Stay Frosty.
Dalibor