There are times i wish i could say the things running through my head:
What I Want To Say: "You are a complete moron. Your mental problems are not a fault. Get away from me".
What I Actually Say: "Are you sure it's faulty sir? You followed the instruction manual properly yes?"
What I Want To Say: "I really really hate you, you know that?"
What I Actually Say: "You wan't to see it again? Alright i'll go get it down again."
What I Want To Say: "Yes i'm busy. You can tell because of all these things i'm doing."
What I Actually Say: "No, it's alright. How can I help?"
What I Want To Say: "If you don't shut your damn mouth in the next five seconds, you're going to wake up in a ditch somewhere."
What I Actually Say: "I understand what you're saying sir, but please let me explain."
What I Want To Say: "If I have to explain myself once more, I'm going to shove the damn thing up your nose."
What I Actually Say: "No sir, that's the one you need. This one won't be any good for what you're trying to do."
What I Want To Say: "Piss off."
What I Actually Say: "Good morning!"
What I Want To Say: "What the hell is actually wrong with you? Who comes out shopping at this kind of time? We've been open all day! Why now?"
What I Actually Say: "We're closing in three minutes sir."
What I Want To Say: "You're still asking questions? You know what time it is, I know this because I've told you five times now. Do you honestly think I'm going to sit here with you all night? I'm not getting paid anymore you know."
What I Actually Say: "Could we start wrapping this up now? We closed five minutes ago."
What I Want To Say: "Go on, get lost. If i ever have to look at you again, I might just kill someone."
What I Actually Say: "Thank you sir, Goodnight."
Wednesday 15 August 2007
Thursday 9 August 2007
Language Barriers
Where i work, we have a rather large amount of customers who don't speak english as a primary language. This in itself isn't a problem at all. Normally they speak enough to communicate, or we just muddle through without saying a lot. All is well.
Sometimes however, it becomes a significant problem. A good example has occured recently.
I have a customer, and he likes to talk a lot. He talks loudly and energetically, with much pointing of fingers and waving off hands. That's nice. He doesn't, however, speak much english. Or if he does, he chooses not to.
He seems to have the unique impression that i will magically learn arabic or whatever it is, if he occasionally and randomly inserts english words into his sentences. This leaves me with the task of picking out enough of these words to understand what on earth is going on. Generally, i fail. Curiously, he seems to understand what i say back to him. I think.
Worse still, he always brings a friend. Together they chatter away in thier own tongue, in the same lively manner. After a few minutes your brain has decided it's not going to get anything useful from this and takes a well-deserved rest. Suddenly, however, the attention is back on you, with some hand waving, foreign chatter and those scarce few, precious english words. Bear in mind of course that he has a very strong accent, so these are reasonably difficult to understand, even for a seasoned veteran.
They've told me they'll be back for more stuff tomorrow. I'll enjoy that. I've always enjoyed hide-and seek.
Sometimes however, it becomes a significant problem. A good example has occured recently.
I have a customer, and he likes to talk a lot. He talks loudly and energetically, with much pointing of fingers and waving off hands. That's nice. He doesn't, however, speak much english. Or if he does, he chooses not to.
He seems to have the unique impression that i will magically learn arabic or whatever it is, if he occasionally and randomly inserts english words into his sentences. This leaves me with the task of picking out enough of these words to understand what on earth is going on. Generally, i fail. Curiously, he seems to understand what i say back to him. I think.
Worse still, he always brings a friend. Together they chatter away in thier own tongue, in the same lively manner. After a few minutes your brain has decided it's not going to get anything useful from this and takes a well-deserved rest. Suddenly, however, the attention is back on you, with some hand waving, foreign chatter and those scarce few, precious english words. Bear in mind of course that he has a very strong accent, so these are reasonably difficult to understand, even for a seasoned veteran.
They've told me they'll be back for more stuff tomorrow. I'll enjoy that. I've always enjoyed hide-and seek.
Tuesday 7 August 2007
People I Try To Avoid #2
THE CLEARLY INSANE:
Now this one's probably obvious. Of course i want to avoid crazy people.
However, you must understand the true dread of meeting the truly deranged. If you are unlucky, you will not realise it has happened to you until it's too late. Nothing replaces that small, slight panic as your normal-looking customer opens his or her mouth and spouts forth a frothing pile of drooly nonsense.
From here, your experience can lead down two equally unpleasant paths:
1)- Whatever it is they want, you certainly dont have it. You of course try to pass this information onto them, but it will have even less effect than it does on a normal, sane* customer. The predictable explain-repeat-repeat-try to run away cycle ensues, but instead of a normal* person, you instead have to deal with someone who may well be wearing underpants on their head. Why is this worse? Because the truly insane seem to enjoy the mindless repetition. They simply won't leave you alone. The only way out of this cycle is to show them something that will amuse them for a few minutes, then go hide somewhere.
2)- They actually want something you can help with. This is possibly worse. Similar to the events described in 1), only now you have to explain things to them. They will invariably want something complicated. Like the old people i mentioned before, they will not understand your explanations, no matter how simplified you make them. What makes this worse is that running and hiding isn't usually an option. Instead you have to stay with them until they actually get what they want. Or you commit suicide. Whatever happens first.
For extra flavour, Insane person may also have one or more of these extra features:
-Drool. Nothing is quite so off-putting as having someone leaving puddles on your counter.
-Intense smell. Your regular crazy person has little time for hygeine, or the concept at least eludes them. Their very presence makes you want to vomit.
-Sudden, unexpected smell. There is something truly horrible about someone smelling of human excrement. There is something worse about this smell only arriving several minutes into the conversation.
-Random, surprising behaviour. I have experienced such gems as 'getting up really really close to you without any warning whatsoever', 'repeated touching', 'showing me your rather unpleasant disfigurement' and 'crying for no apparent reason'. All of these i feel underqualified to deal with.
*- Sort of.
Now this one's probably obvious. Of course i want to avoid crazy people.
However, you must understand the true dread of meeting the truly deranged. If you are unlucky, you will not realise it has happened to you until it's too late. Nothing replaces that small, slight panic as your normal-looking customer opens his or her mouth and spouts forth a frothing pile of drooly nonsense.
From here, your experience can lead down two equally unpleasant paths:
1)- Whatever it is they want, you certainly dont have it. You of course try to pass this information onto them, but it will have even less effect than it does on a normal, sane* customer. The predictable explain-repeat-repeat-try to run away cycle ensues, but instead of a normal* person, you instead have to deal with someone who may well be wearing underpants on their head. Why is this worse? Because the truly insane seem to enjoy the mindless repetition. They simply won't leave you alone. The only way out of this cycle is to show them something that will amuse them for a few minutes, then go hide somewhere.
2)- They actually want something you can help with. This is possibly worse. Similar to the events described in 1), only now you have to explain things to them. They will invariably want something complicated. Like the old people i mentioned before, they will not understand your explanations, no matter how simplified you make them. What makes this worse is that running and hiding isn't usually an option. Instead you have to stay with them until they actually get what they want. Or you commit suicide. Whatever happens first.
For extra flavour, Insane person may also have one or more of these extra features:
-Drool. Nothing is quite so off-putting as having someone leaving puddles on your counter.
-Intense smell. Your regular crazy person has little time for hygeine, or the concept at least eludes them. Their very presence makes you want to vomit.
-Sudden, unexpected smell. There is something truly horrible about someone smelling of human excrement. There is something worse about this smell only arriving several minutes into the conversation.
-Random, surprising behaviour. I have experienced such gems as 'getting up really really close to you without any warning whatsoever', 'repeated touching', 'showing me your rather unpleasant disfigurement' and 'crying for no apparent reason'. All of these i feel underqualified to deal with.
*- Sort of.
Wednesday 1 August 2007
How rude!
Every so often, i experience something which afterwards leads me to question whether or not it was real.
Today i had such an experience. I answered the phone, and the fellow on the other end asked me for something. He was on a mobile phone, and i couldn't quite grab what it was he asked me, so i ask if he could please say that again, i didn't quite catch it.
"You heard me." he says. "You heard me. You're just trying to act stupid."
Excuse me?
"You heard me."
Sir, you're not on a good signal, i'm having a little trouble hearing you.
"This is a new phone." (as if that ever mattered) "You heard me."
...At which point i hung up.
Now, i may be alone and mistaken for thinking in such a way, but this seemed to be a rather unprovoked outburst on his part. I'm not entirely sure what i did to deserve it. I sometimes wonder if people actually set out to have an argument with a random person, for reasons that seem unfathomable.
Even if i assume that the guy was genuine, i can only wonder what he thought i'd have to gain by pretending not to hear him. If i didn't want to talk to him, i wouldn't have picked up the phone. (Alright, i don't want to talk to most people, but i have to pick up the phone. Nevertheless it'd be a bit pointless to pretend i've gone deaf immediately afterwards).
It's also worth mentioning that not being able to hear something isn't a sign of stupidity in any way. As a matter of fact, a good sign of stupidity is accusing random shopkeepers of deliberately not listening to you, presumably to annoy you.
Again it appears to me that there is a widespread belief that shopkeepers are devious, untrustworthy beasts, dedicated not to making money, but to making your life as difficult as possible, and to prevent you from buying things you need.
Maybe they're right, and i've been doing this wrong. If so, someone please tell me. I want in on the fun.
Today i had such an experience. I answered the phone, and the fellow on the other end asked me for something. He was on a mobile phone, and i couldn't quite grab what it was he asked me, so i ask if he could please say that again, i didn't quite catch it.
"You heard me." he says. "You heard me. You're just trying to act stupid."
Excuse me?
"You heard me."
Sir, you're not on a good signal, i'm having a little trouble hearing you.
"This is a new phone." (as if that ever mattered) "You heard me."
...At which point i hung up.
Now, i may be alone and mistaken for thinking in such a way, but this seemed to be a rather unprovoked outburst on his part. I'm not entirely sure what i did to deserve it. I sometimes wonder if people actually set out to have an argument with a random person, for reasons that seem unfathomable.
Even if i assume that the guy was genuine, i can only wonder what he thought i'd have to gain by pretending not to hear him. If i didn't want to talk to him, i wouldn't have picked up the phone. (Alright, i don't want to talk to most people, but i have to pick up the phone. Nevertheless it'd be a bit pointless to pretend i've gone deaf immediately afterwards).
It's also worth mentioning that not being able to hear something isn't a sign of stupidity in any way. As a matter of fact, a good sign of stupidity is accusing random shopkeepers of deliberately not listening to you, presumably to annoy you.
Again it appears to me that there is a widespread belief that shopkeepers are devious, untrustworthy beasts, dedicated not to making money, but to making your life as difficult as possible, and to prevent you from buying things you need.
Maybe they're right, and i've been doing this wrong. If so, someone please tell me. I want in on the fun.
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