Why People Make Me Bitter

Okay, so really I'm a big fan of people. I love watching them, interacting with them, etc. I love it. However, when I'm at work, that boat sometimes flips over completely. Every now and then I get customers that make rude remarks, throw things at me, and are just total grumps.

Example 1: I have a skin condition called dermatits, which is linked to eczema. I have it in both bends of my arms and a little on my neck, a very unholy place to fall. When I get hot or irritated, I begin to itch and so my skin inflames and looks very ugly. Well, one day the dermatits on my neck had become inflamed and really, I can't control it. I can only take my pill, apply the topical cream, and hope for the best. Well, you know, it looks a little like a hickey. This older, plump lady comes in the store to shop, and we all "know" her because she's a regular. Well, she has a reputation for being snooty and, for lack of a better word, a bitch. I mean, she really does look like she's angry with the world. Anyway, she finishes her shopping and proceeds to come through my line. I greet her and we talk a little, her expression never changing. It was the day before Easter and so I asked her what she was doing for the holiday. She said "Nothing," in that rude tone of hers. After a few moments of silence, she asks me the same thing. I tell her that both my parents are working, therefore we're not doing anything big. She looks at me and says, "Well why don't you get together with the boy who gave you that hickey?" I looked at her, confused, and said, "What hickey?" And I touched my neck. My fingers ran over the rough patch of skin and I knew what she was talking about. "Oh, it's not a hickey," I begin, "I have a skin..." I always lose words that I want to say, which makes things different than they should be, and so it looked like I was lying. "Rash." I finished. She looks away after putting her last bag in the card, turns back to me and says, "You can call it a skin rash, but I don't believe you." She smiles and walks out. What's odd is that I didn't get angry, but rather I was hurt. Who has the right to indirectly call me a slut? Especially since she doesn't know me (she probably has no idea what my name is) or the type of background I come from.

Example 2: The store has a policy that if you want to take bags loosely from the store for your own personal use that does not involve bagging your groceries, you must pay for them. This isn't my rule, this is what I was told by a co-worker who has been working there for 23 years plus. All right, simple enough, right? So when people take paper bags loosely, I stop them with, "I'm sorry, but if you're going to take those like that, I have to charge you for them." It's ten cents for a paper bag, five for a plastic. It is kind of absurd, but the logic behind it is the store pays for these bags, why would they just give them away for free without a purchase? To me, that makes sense. So usually I tell people that if they want the bags, to put their groceries in them so I don't have to charge them. They usually smile with me and agree, then do so. One day this short, older man came in and went up to my friend. He asked her about plastic bags, and she directed him to me. The main reason for that is because she didn't know how to handle the situation, having only worked there for a month or so. So he comes over to me since out of the girls that are there, I have tenure and kind of know what I'm doing. So he comes next to me and pinches a set of bags on my bag rack and asks if he can have them. I looked at him like he was nuts because a set contains more or less a hundred bags. I told him that he could not have that many and if he did want that many, he'd have to pay. So he then pinches half a set, which is still a LOT of bags. I tell him that the store pays for the bags and so it's not my place to just hand them out to people. I then ask him if he's going shopping. He tells me, "Yeah, I shop here." Um, not what I asked, but okay. I still tell him that he needs to pay. He starts getting short with me and starts telling me useless information that I really don't care about. To get him out of my hair, I take about ten bags and fold them, hand them to him nicely, and tell him to have a nice weekend. I turn to help my next real customer when the guy comes back. I'm trying to listen to the lady, as she's telling me how many cases of water she has in her cart, but the guy was trying to get my attention as well. I was ignoring him for a second while the lady was talking to me. I turned to him and waited to hear what he wanted to say. In his grumpy state, he crumples up the bags and throws them at me, and says, "You know you're not doing me a favor." Everyone saw it, my co-workers and the customers. I excused myself real fast while I ran to the back to spit out an abridged version of the story to my co-worker to tell the boss about, in case anyone calls and complains, just so they have my side and don't need to call me back. I came back to the front-end and my customer goes, "Wow, that was REAL rude of him." I just shrug and say, "Hey, it comes with the package." We both laughed.

Example 3: I loathe waiting on young people. They're arrogant, they think they're the spit, and they LOVE flashing their credit cards around. I'd rather wait on the people who are at least twenty years older than I am because they have a great sense of humor and they're just darling! (Well, most of them.) Anyway, these two young people come to my line and the boy, though he looks ridiculous with his clothing being three hundred sizes too large, is actually quite nice. His girlfriend looks familiar, as if I had gone to school with her before, and actually I'm almost quite sure I had. Her name is Theresa or something. Anyway, he gets all of their groceries up and I ring up all of them. The girl asks him what candy he wants and he said to just get Reeses, so she takes a box from the display and tosses them down the belt at me. Mind you, the belt was still moving. The belt stops by itself after a few seconds, so there was no need to toss the candy at me, I would have gotten it eventually, even if the belt had stopped. I couldn't control my expression so I looked up at her with the dirtiest expression I could muster. Her expression didn't change, the smirk still plastered on her face. The boy, after paying, ran into someone he knew and so they were having a conversation. The girl pushed the cart up and stood there. I looked up and she was still staring at me, smirking. I don't understand what was so funny. I would have liked to say something, but because that would jeopardize my job, I bit my tongue.