BY LARA MOSES
As a student I worked the crappy shifts in a retail store. Five to nine pm after classes during the week and weekends, which included one Friday and Saturday shift till 11pm per month. Although this cut heavily into my study time, but more importantly my social life, I still smiled my fakest smile at every annoying customer, held back the tear when being verbally abused by that one customer who is always right and asked the old lady at the back of the store, the one that smelt like mothballs, if she needs my assistance.
Through it all I kept my head cool, tear ducts dry and gag reflexes in tact. I was all about making everyone’s experience pleasant enough to return. I was the ultimate customer-caring person, attempting to make your day better with a corny joke or random dance moves which always involved a pelvic thrust (that became known as “The Shuffle” to those in the know). I was a student, earning student money to do and buy student things but still I treated every customer with enough respect to know that I should always go into staff-only area and then bitch, moan, cry and, on occasion, laugh at them.
My student life ended and I put on my big girl panties and headed into the real world with real money which now made me a customer in retail stores with students that worked crappy shifts. I pranced around merrily picking out my items of choice without being asked if I need assistance and thought to myself that they were surely helping the old lady in the back or crying due to “that” customer. I then stood patiently in queues that seemed to carry on forever, waiting to be served with a friendly smile and a hello. But as my turn came all I got was, what I like to call, a “mission”.
Let me explain, anyone or anything that annoys, takes too much effort or involves eye contact is known as a “mission”. A “mission” is that one thing that you totally don’t feel like doing in that moment, the one person you just don’t feel like talking to and those few extra steps you don’t feel like climbing on the hottest day in summer.
So as I stood at the till awaiting my friendly service I get treated like I’m a mission! Yes, I understand that you probably hungover from last night’s 2-for-1 special, and really tired because you only got in at four am and literally slept for two hours but seriously, just a bit of eye contact and maybe a little smile is all I want, and yes it is a “mission” but it’s also common courteously that comes standard with customer service and that is what working in retail is about. This is your job — put some effort into it. I know that the pay is crappy but it’s what you’ll get for now till you get to put on you big person underwear and become a customer. Come on now, put on your fakest smile and do your best to keep it on while facing your “mission”.
Lara Moses is The Soapbox’s contributing editor.
