Bad Service

I'm a smoker. It happens to the best of us and, yes, I am more than aware of the fact that its bad for me, unhealthy, "Every Cig is Seven Minutes (that I don't have to listen to you preach anymore)", etc (actually...that last one might be a country song, I'm looking into it).

So I go to my usual CVS for some cigarettes after work and ask for my usual. Camel usually has 75c off packs and I saw that one row had a discount pack and one didn't. The cashier grabbed the 75c pack and it was the last discount pack, so I said "ooh...that's lucky!". Mister Highandmighty decided to say "as lucky as you can get while killing yourself" and I replied "thanks for that, now can I pay and not be judged please?". He tells me he's just trying to help, doesn't understand why young people smoke, etc. I told him the best time to give help is when asked and that perhaps he should consider a job that doesn't put him in such a moral quandary. Still considering complaining, I'm so over people with their groundbreaking news of "tobacco is bad, mmkay?"

No one died in this story, so maybe it's not HORRIBLE service, but it did leave a bad taste in my mouth.

There's a dollar store near me where the cashiers apparently have to keep a handful of seasonal items at their registers and ask every customer if they'd like to add something (glow sticks and/or bubbles last month, gloves and/or socks when I went in the winter, etc.) to their order. I think this is generally stupid, because the items are all things that the customers could have found and grabbed while shopping throughout the store, so obviously if they have arrived at the register without that item, chances are pretty good that no, they would not like to add them to their order. Whatever. When I happen to go to that store, I just look thoughtfully at the items offered to me, then politely decline, or accept if I decide that, yes, maybe I would actually like a pack of glow sticks or something.

I went in the other day to get some stuff for a care package to mail to someone, and as I'm standing in line, I hear the cashier ask someone if they would like to buy school supplies to donate to military families. Okay, this is a slightly improved spiel over simply asking people to buy some bubbles, but I still don't want to do it. I get to the register, and the cashier asks if I'd like to donate some school supplies to military families. I say no, because...no. I know from experiences that cashiers are not interested in your reasons for declining to donate to charities, so I just leave it at that.

"Are you suuure?" She asks, and the look on her face reads as irritation to me.

"Nah, not today," I reply, and dig out my credit card.

"It's for military families," she repeats, somewhere between incredulous and frustrated.

"No, I'd rather not today." At this point, I'm a little bit snappish. No one in this store has ever pushed their last-minute items on me like this before. She runs my card and hands me my receipt, and as I'm turning away, I hear her mutter something about supporting the troops.

Maybe the cashiers at this store have a quota that they have to sell every month. Maybe her mother/father/sister/brother/friend/whoever is in the military. Maybe she was just frustrated at having been turned down by everyone else in line in front of me. Maybe she was having a bad day. That still doesn't mean that I should be badgered into buying something that I don't need or even want just a little bit. Like I said, nothing in this story led to any kind of illness or death or tragedy, so it's not the worst that could have happened, but her attitude and pushiness was still a little bit...irritating to me.

This is what it takes to buy a gym bag.


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