Savannah Mul — Staff Writer
To have extra money throughout high school, and now to pay for college and the additional fun nights out, I’ve been working at a grocery store, (Everybody’s Market in Cheshire, Conn.) for the past five years. Working in this type of environment makes me question the motives and intelligence people have.
Within customer service (if you have experience in this you’ll know), you’re faced with strange returns on a daily basis. “This meat smells weird and looks icky,” one customer would typically say. OK, in my head I’m thinking all meat smells weird and look icky until you cook it– he just changed his mind about the pork.
But the strangest return was recently. When a lady came in to return red food coloring, her reason was that one of the ingredients is illegal in Canada. OK, is she for real? It’s as though customers will just sit at home, make up an excuse, then come and return almost everything they buy. It’s crazy.
People fascinate me along with the weird hearts each human has, and in my case, from working I get to see their emotions and thoughts unfold right in front of me. It’s probably the only benefit of working in a grocery store, as life there is far from glamorous.
I will never forget one night when a man came into the store for gourmet cupcakes. The bagger asked “paper or plastic,” as he was at the checkout, and the man responded his preferred choice. The young bagger picked up the box of cupcakes, put them in the paper bag, which made one of the cupcakes tip on its side. Now this man was completely outraged by this action and screamed at the bagger. He exclaimed how that was completely unacceptable and the worker shouldn’t bag anymore. The man refused to pay, walked away and left the cupcakes. No offense to this person, but cupcakes can tip. It’s not the end of the world sir, but he sure acted like it was.
Those are the bad days at work. Those are the people in the world who I don’t understand and probably the ones that fascinate me the most. What I want to know is what provokes someone to be cruel, mean and scream at you for no reason? I don’t think I’ll ever know the answer to that mystery, for the fact being that I can’t imagine myself getting mad and screaming at someone I don’t know. Does anyone have common courtesy and old-fashioned manners anymore?
Yes, there is still common courtesy in the world, but unfortunately we see less and less of it with each day. Some of my favorite, weird, hearted humans I’ve met while working there. Some are students from SCSU and others from different towns and schools. There is one older man that restores my hope in people.
He is a regular customer and looks as if he can be anyone’s grandfather. Every time he sees me he sings, “Georgia, Georgia. Savannah Georgia,” then proceeds to tell me about Gen. Sherman and the Civil War. The general didn’t want to burn the city of Savannah down, but instead gave it to President Abraham Lincoln as a birthday present. Imagine that, getting a city for your birthday.
He buys a gourmet cupcake too. Instead of yelling at the bagger in an unnecessary way, he simply says something along the lines of “put that aside as it deserves no bag.” As he’s leaving he shares the purpose of buying the cupcake; it’s for him to enjoy on his ride home, then tells me not to tell his wife.
Those are the good days at work, and unfortunately so, it always seems to be the bad days exceeding the good ones. I’m told working within customer service and around many different types of people will make one hate everyone. I like people too much to agree with that statement. The meanest action I’m guilty of committing is if a customer is entirely rude and mean, I won’t ask which bags they prefer – paper or plastic. I’m such a rebel.
People all have weird hearts and will act differently from one other. If humans were to have the same emotions and feelings, they’d be far less interesting. Besides, we wouldn’t appreciate the good ones as much as we do as they stumble into our lives. Those are the people that restore the hope in us that there are actually good, fun hearts left in the world.
