First off, geniuses are smart enough not to brag ;)
Secondly, man...do I have a lot of stories about crappy jobs. Hairbndrckr, no person (at least that I know) working on minimum wage has pride for their job. It's bloody minimum wage! It's a paycheck, that's it. I can honestly say, I'm a lazy guy when it comes to work and I don't put much effort into the current job I have. Furthermore, once you've been at a job for many years (4+), especially in the public service sector, you're even less inclined to care what customers think. Once I finish University, and get a 'career', yes, I'll take pride in my work. But if you're just working a cashier job, who cares? And frankly, after dealing with many arses day in and day out, your patience wears thin. If a customer complained to me 5 years ago, when I was more naive and didn't stick up for myself, I'd practically kiss their feet. If someone complains now, I'll just give them a dirty look and probably say some smart-ass remark. After a while, I guess you just don't care anymore. A minimum-wage job is not worth getting yelled at by jerky customers.
On the other hand, I'd be choked too if some stupid employee was just chatting it up with her friends while I was waiting at a drive-thru. That's understandable. People like that get what they deserve.
Finally, here's a list of pet-peeves of mine, working as a cashier at a grocery store:
-No hello, no goodbye. No acknowledgement whatsoever from customer
-Putting the hand-basket on the till and expecting me to unload it and bag it. It's the customer's responsibility to unload their f'n groceries.
-People who don't bother putting bin numbers or prices on their bulk items. Am I a f'n robot? Do I know everything?
-People who are impatient and rude (Some a**hole once said, before I had even done a thing, 'Pack my asparagus carefully. If you break the tips I'll have your balls on a platter'. That's rude as hell. Another situation I remember was when I called for a price-check on some bakery buns because a customer said they were advertised cheaper on the shelf than what they were ringing up at on the till. The only reason I bothered checking was because I was familiar with the price of the buns and I wanted to see if the bakery department had made a mistake in their advertisement. The customer gets all angry and says 'This is ridiculous. What's taking so long? You can shove these buns up your ass'. Hence, you can see my intolerance for customers. Not to mention the amount of shoplifters I deal with. )
Matt
