Being nice isn’t always enough

I’ve always felt that of all professions in our society, being a cashier – a relatively common… I’ve always felt that of all professions in our society, being a cashier – a relatively common occupation – gets surprisingly little respect. People are always rude and inconsiderate when being rung out in a retail setting, which I know because I’ve worked as a cashier.

The way people look at you, or, more correctly, fail to look at you, it’s as if they wish your job could be replaced by a robot one generation sooner. So I’ve always tried to be polite to cashiers, feeling as if we are all brothers and sisters in a great, unbroken chain of retail workers, united in our occupation and its discontents. I always try to be very proactive in not sucking when I enter any sort of situation that involves the buying of chips or unnaturally colored fruit beverages. So my question is: why does my neighborhood convenience store hate me?

Because it totally, absolutely hates me. It hates me utterly and absolutely. It despises me. If the cashiers could never wait on me, they would. If they could kill me, they would. All right, maybe not kill me, but would they maim me? They would certainly maim. And I have no idea why.

It didn’t used to be this way, this protracted battle between the clerks and Kevin. In fact, my convenience store – whose name and exact location I am withholding – used to be all right with me. I would go in, buy the paper, say thanks and leave. I even found out they had eggs behind the counter, which they didn’t have to tell me. They would take my money and nod emotionlessly, which I took for acceptance. Just as rapidly, however, things shifted and I was caught quite unaware.

I believe the change occurred one Sunday when I bought the New York Times. I had received a little heat in the past for this bourgeois entertainment I allotted for myself, but I simply took it to be a sign of affection. However, this Sunday proved to be different.

The clerk rang up my paper at $1.50, and I was reluctantly forced to say the correct price of $5. Instead of the person thanking me for correcting him, he merely wrinkled his face and stared at me through narrowed eyes. “That’s too much for a paper.”

He didn’t say it like someone making friendly banter with a customer. He didn’t say it like he was kidding around with me. He said it in a tone which implied that not only was I stupid for paying that much, I was also annoyingly different from him. He said it the way the banjo sounded in “Deliverance.” He said it like he hated me.

After that incident, every time I walk into the store it feels like I’m walking onto a battlefield. Admittedly, the battlefield doesn’t involve guns, or bombs or anything exciting, really. The only weapons possessed by the clerks are their horrible blank stares that make me feel that I should just leave without my candy bar.

All of the clerks visibly despise me, which, I must admit, is kind of impressive in terms of in-store communication and the team being on the same page. I suspect they have a small collection of photos in the back, of which mine is one, that says “Customers Who Suck.”

The only problem with that is I do not know why I suck. I try not to be rude, so when people hate me for absolutely no reason, I am astonished. I mean, I have exact change ready. I make small talk. If someone in the store drops something, I hand it to that person. I am a good customer! Yet this store’s clerks act as if they couldn’t be happier if I never came back. And this isn’t the only convenience store I could patronize. There’s one about equidistant from my apartment that has basically the same selection and much more normal clerks who don’t act like I’m a lunatic. I could go there, and everything would be all right. So why don’t I?

I don’t because I don’t want my convenience store to win. I don’t want to walk away from it and let the clerks know that they can pick and choose their customers. I want them to have to deal with me. I want them to accept me. I want us to squash our non-record selling beef and stand together, triumphant, forever. Also, the store is open 24 hours, whereas the other store tends to close early.

But, as God is my witness, someday that convenience store isn’t going to hate me.

Want to beat up a cashier? E-mail Kevin Sharp at kjs34@pitt.edu and he’ll respond with address and phone number of said location.