I am a person too..YEESH

I've had people go off on me for calling them Ma'am OR Sir before. Some just don't like it, they think it's rude because they insinuate that it means they're old

I get that too. For some reason, it always comes out especially when someone is doing something wrong like shoplifting. If you actually CATCH them shoplifting and call your manager and tell them where they stashed the stuff, everyone becomes a racist. Everyone who acts in a certain way is equally suspicious, and yes, we are suspicious of you when we have caught you trying to steal!

I have had people call me racist too. One time I was working alone upstairs and a man said "They have you working all alone up here sweetie?" and I just got the creepiest vibe ever. So I told the store manager and they decided to kick him out (he also special orders books all the time and never buys them) and he went home and got his preacher to come back to the store with him, claim he wanted to apologize, but all he wanted to do was call us all racists. The kicker is I didn't even realize what race the man was until he said something, so I don't know how I was racist.

I hope you feel better very soon! You know it wasn't your fault and this woman just needed to take out all her problems on someone, and people who HAVE to be nice to you are easy targets. She will get what is coming to her eventually.

Seems there are stupid people all over the place!

Yes and I think it is a regional thing as well. In the South it is much more common. Out this way, some people get really offended. Had a co-worker go off at a driver yesterday because he said "excuse me, Ma'am". Also, I hear men say all the time not to call them "Sir" because they work for a living. Have no idea what that's all about.
When I was young and living in Missouri, Okalahoma, Arkansas and South Dakota, we were expected and encouraged to call our elders Ma'am or Sir. We got into trouble if we didn't. Aren't people interesting?

I worked for Fred Meyer, a "one stop shopping center" for three years. I just had to quit cold turkey one day and trust my luck. I had started to have nightmares about going to work. & one more christmas there & I would have just flipped.

Look for a better place for yourself. As for those type of customers, I had them too and sometimes I still meet them one way or another.
It is their way to exercise power. They are most likely absolute zeros in their life/mind and treating you like dirt is their shinning moment of power for the day.

Hope you feel better thougth, being sick make everything worse.

Take care
Daniela

Originally Posted by oregon

I worked for Fred Meyer, a "one stop shopping center" for three years. I just had to quit cold turkey one day and trust my luck. I had started to have nightmares about going to work. & one more christmas there & I would have just flipped.

Look for a better place for yourself. As for those type of customers, I had them too and sometimes I still meet them one way or another.
It is their way to exercise power. They are most likely absolute zeros in their life/mind and treating you like dirt is their shinning moment of power for the day.

Hope you feel better thougth, being sick make everything worse.

Take care
Daniela

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Gotta love Freddy's! I shop there often. I had a friend who worked there for 7 years. The stories I heard from her were amazing, especially during the holidays! I hope you found something much better

Guess they're not confined to my little part of England then. *Sigh*

Sorry you had a bad day and had to deal with this customer... I've only been working in a shop for less than a year (first job) and I still have some stories. Worst would be at my very first job (only lasted a fortnight... Neh.) - I got into work a little late one day as I was kept back from school, and I rushed off to try and find my manager to apologise; she was in a meeting with my supervisor so I just got to work restocking. I'm in one of the aisles, merrily packing away some dog food, when this woman approaches me, and informs me that she'd like to buy a hamster and that she's been waiting a little while. I'd only just started there, so I looked around to see if anyone could help me out, since I wasn't allowed to sell hamsters and I didn't have the keys for the cages. No-one was free, so I explained the situation (including that there was nothing I could do about it) so she tells me to go get my manager. When I told her that I wasn't prepared to get her out of a meeting just to sell someone a hamster, I am ordered to go get her.

So I walked out back, hung around for a few minutes, and went back to tell her that she was still in her meeting, and I wasn't going to disturb her (which to me is the height of rudeness, especially for something as trivial as buying a hamster - We weren't near closing time, it was still going to be there when she got out). She tells me that her mother has to get back to her house for 5 'o clock, and that if they don't get this hamster now, they'll have to leave and never return (Oh, scary - The massive pet chain I worked for is going to miss your £45 a lot). They didn't notice that there was a massive queue at the checkout anyway. She mentioned that she lived in a small village literally 10 minutes away from my town - Even in 'rush hour' traffic. It was still only about quarter past four.

She then chirps up that theres a man waiting to buy a rabbit around the corner, and he then proceeded to give me abuse as well, about how I was incompetant and 'my manager would recieve a strongly worded letter about this, as [he] writes letters for a living'.

Aren't people delightful? At the shop I work at now we just have the regulars who boss you around, though we've had a couple try and pick a fight for no good reason.

Awww honey I can honestly say i've been there. I heard every nasty word in the book you can think of at my last job Some people can be sooo nasty! A few months ago i was working a temporary job in a grocery store until i found one i liked (i finally did! ) -i can honestly say i couldn't have had better coworkers- i loved them all and we were all really close nit and friends. That being said though- we had way more than our fair share of nasty customers. I had one lady come in the store and just blast me with racial slurs and curse words on Christmas Eve of all days! I just smiled politely and told the she-devil to "have a super day!" haha my manager about kicked her out of the store......things like that went on all the time. I am sorry you had to go through this today- especially since you don't feel good! Sounds like you need a nice hot bath and something good to drink!

I'm sooo sorry you had to experience that. There is NO excuse for that, but some people think they are above the law or common courtesy. My mom works in admissions for a university situated right next to an army base. She has to deal with people like that often. Some "blacks", not ALL, seem to feel so inferior that they think by discriminating and bringing others down, whether white, foreign or purple, that it makes them above all others. It just makes me fume because they think they can throw their weight around and it will get them somewhere. They have nothing else to show for so they do this to make up for it and it's just ridiculous and pathetic. Some of them have the worst attitude like the one you encountered. Our neighbors across from us, on the other hand, are african american and are some of the nicest people I know.
I congratulate you on staying polite and courteous even though she was due none! I would not have been able to stay calm and cool. Don't let her get to you. She just embarrassed herself more by making a scene and hopefully one day she will get what's coming to her for her obscene display.
I hope you get better soon and know that you aren't alone. It's happened to me before also and many others.

Wow, what a day. I totally understand. I work in a restaurant. I treat everyone the same way, because you never know who is going to tip or not, but I have gotten the same racial remarks for absolutely no reason. Sometimes I go out of my way for these people in order for them not to think any sort of racial thing against them. So actually they are getting better service than the others..... maybe I should rethink this....

Hope you have a better day tomorrow.

oh, and why is it when you don't feel well, or one person comes in in a bad mood, EVERYONE is in a bad mood that comes in. A sometimes it is just the opposite.

Originally Posted by Bonnie1965

Also, I hear men say all the time not to call them "Sir" because they work for a living.

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They're probably ex-military enlisted men. Only officers are addressed as "Sir" and its the enlisted personnel who do all of the work.

I think it is the issues and circumstances that people deal w/at that time. I remember I was in a checkstand when I was younger.
My manager had impressed on me the need to get id & check guarantee. NO MATTER WHAT, unless I want to get fired. becouse of my lack of experience at the time.
This black guy come at the checkstand. He is young, attractive, very well dressed and probablly a professional w/a better bank account then mine. I ring up his purchase. Ask for a check guarantee (probablly a thing of the past now) And he flips out on me.
He doesn't care of even think about me losing my job. To him it is becouse he is black. To me it is becouse I am trying to follow instructions and keep my job.

Black, White, Brown, pokaDots. Everyone's got issues. Just scared/offended people trying to make sure no one threads on them.
Not that it makes your life any easier.

Man this customer should made an issue out of an inexpensive item and took it out on you!! To me you handled the situation really well-aren't customers' grand sometimes!!
I hope you feel better tomorrow. (and that customer doesn't come back!)

Originally Posted by katl8e

They're probably ex-military enlisted men. Only officers are addressed as "Sir" and its the enlisted personnel who do all of the work.

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That, and also it can be used to make someone feel more like they are talking to a equal not above them..

i get people calling me sir all the time at work. and in truth i dont like it,
just use my name

Aaaaah, what is wrong with people? I think they forget that we are all humans and nothing else.

I will never get how people are jerks to one another..we are all the same and don't we all want to be treated nicely?

Geesh, I'm sorry you had to go through that

well today was a decent day. Had a few crabby people but most of it was the usual. Thanks for all the support i am really happy for it

tommrow i wont be atthe register thank goodness. although i am thiking about..calling in.I feel like doggy doo.

I worked in the public area for 4 years, and understand how you feel! There were times I could've cheerfully reached across the counter, and strangled customers! People can be so nasty. I hate it when I see a clerk being treated badly. If I'm in his/her line, I make a point of being especially nice to them when I get up there. I think you handled a rotten situation very professionally and gracefully. I hope your boss realizes your attributes. I know it's easy for me to say, but don't let it bother you (of course it does!)--you are a far better person than that %%*%*#@. You also held up very well under pressure--which is a heck of a lotmore than I can say about HER!

Hope you have a better day tomorrow!

MargeCat

There is a person that my wife and I used to communicate with on MySpace, but never met in real life. She posted a blog about how she went to Walmart, and she was either trying to return/exchange something, or use a gift card and there was a problem. She wound up losing her temper, and call the cashier and a female manager the *C* word and insulting the manager by saying "That's why you work at Walmart". The manager replied "Excuse me, I have a Bachelor's" "Oh I can see you're using it". I don't know what was sadder, that, or the fact that the people who responded to the blog didn't mention her attitude. They only agreed "Yeah Walmart sucks etc.." I was the only one who called her out on it, and she stopped speaking to me.

Fine by me, that's not someone I want to associate with if that's how they really are.

Oh, boy. Two things I have to respond to here.

First: of course that woman was completely out of line, and sadly, she's got lots of company these days. The whole "gotcha" culture, as Bill Maher recently called it, has made everybody hypersensitive to race. But ironically, we'll never achieve true racial equality until we stop being sensitive to it. You can only legislate so much -- ultimately, it has to come down to the ability within each of us to simply not notice or care what race anyone is.

Bruce mentioned the Don Imus debacle, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was directly responsible for this woman's behavior. What Imus said was offensive, no doubt -- but it was nowhere near as bad as things Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern have said, or things many people in the public eye have said about blacks and every other minority there is!

The real issue here is why we accept any of the trashy, tasteless, ignorant, and often hate-based garbage these "shockjocks" spew out onto the public airwaves. All it does is polarize us and -- as in the case of what happened here -- train us to see ugliness in each other that isn't really there at all.

Now, having said my piece on that, I have to respond to something someone else said. I assume that person was not stating this as her own opinion, but merely quoting something she had heard:

The idea that the "enlisted men in the Army do all the work" is a common one, and I think it arises from the fact that it is indeed largely the younger, lower-ranking soldiers who get sent into harm's way. I deeply respect and appreciate their service, and I wish to heaven that certain political leaders did, too -- maybe they wouldn't waste so many precious lives on needless, botched conflicts.

So please don't think that I'm speaking against the lowest echelons of the military. I am not.

But the stereotype of the pompous, bemedaled Army officer who barks out every order and summarily demotes anyone who doesn't salute him fast enough is just that -- a stereotype. As with most stereotypes, there's a grain of truth in it, but only a grain. Most military officers remember well their own time as enlisted men or women, and take very seriously the responsibility to lead their troops with wisdom, compassion, and deep respect for the value of every single life.

Yes, it's the enlisted personnel who pitch tents and haul sandbags, just as it's the entry-level employees who sack groceries or run the copy machine. That's the natural progression of things. With experience and time, the most gifted of the enlisted personnel will become the leaders who ensure that our military is ready to defend us from whatever danger we may face.

So if you define "work" as physical labor, yes, the enlisted personnel do most of that. But "work" is also planning, developing, strategizing, expediting, and that's the province of officers. Without their leadership to inform and coordinate the efforts of enlisted personnel, all that work would be wasted.

And here's why I say all this with such passion: my father, who is about to be 86 years old, is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army. He was at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked. He served as a forward observer, flying a tiny plane into enemy territory to help calibrate artillery fire by radio. He was shot down in the ocean and floated for hours under Japanese fire before he was rescued. Despite an 8th-grade education, he earned entrance to Officer Candidate School, and he made the Army his life. All over the world, in three wars and countless peacetime endeavors, my father risked and sacrificed and worked his heart out in the service of his country. And for decades now, he has suffered a whole constellation of illnesses arising from exposure to radiation (as a pilot) and to Agent Orange (as an officer in Vietnam).

So there's one example of what an Army officer can be. Please don't let thoughtless stereotypes keep you from recognizing that the service of an Army officer can be just as valuable, and his dedication just as deep, as that of any enlisted man.

Thanks for listening.

lol your taking all the fun out of that statmenent you know haha
eheh i never saw it as a slam on officers. But like most places the lower people will make fun of the higher ones.(and sometiems they need to be made fun of), hehe

but what do i know i got kicked out of the army after a couple of year lol