Rudeness

I had to pick up breakfast this morning for a meeting at my office. I was fine with doing this, as I always slip my own order in as my pickup/delivery fee. This morning’s feast happened to be from Metro Crepes, so it was especially alllll gooood.

If you have never been to this establishment, let me describe: it is a funny little place that reminds me of food places in the mall. It is just a cut-out in the wall to which you walk up & order. They don’t have seating, really – but the building in which it is located has tables & chairs set up on their atrium (right in front of the counter). On the left, there is a window that states, “Order Here”. On the right, the signs boldly states, “Pick-Up Here”. While approaching the counter, I quickly dart over to the latter. I stand there for about 30 seconds…nobody around – no customers, no workers, no one! I even threw caution to the wind and walked the 3 feet over to the “Order Here” side (I am daredevil). Still no one. At this point, I start to think that maybe I was the lone survivor in some post-apocalyptic epic turn of events. I turn around & notice a woman walking up…Yay, another survivor! We make eye contact as she approaches the counter to place an order. Just as she does this, a woman walks up from the back of the shop. Before I could so/say a thing, my fellow survivor places her order, even though she clearly saw me walking from side to side. What the eff??!!

As she turned to walk away, I once again made eye contact with her. This time, said interaction included a Charlene D. Evans patented stink eye.

This “incident” makes me ask the question, “Where has the politeness gone”? Seriously, what the HELL?! I am a fairly surly person, but I am not rude. Do I suffer from frequent righteous indignation? Heck yes I do…that’s not what I mean. I am talking about saying “please” and “thank you”. I am talking about telling your muni driver “thanks”. I am talking about getting off your cellphone when you reach the cashier. Seriously, this list could go on & on.

I wish we could take the best aspects of each era/generation & consolidate them in to one super mega era. For instance, wouldn’t the politeness of the 50’s be great without the racial injustice? Bleck, this is just getting me mad again…what’s the solution?

Either it’s bad customer service or I am just a jerk

Today at work, some girlfriends and I were exchanging links to delightfully humorous novelty products. I fell in love with a particular design that highlighted the common misuse of the words “they’re”, “there” & “their”. The only problem with this discovery was that they did not have the design in coffee mug form (I am in desperate need of a snarky desktop coffee receptacle).

This prompted me to write the following to customer service:

Question: I would like a Grammar Lady design on a coffee mug. Will this ever be available? Thanks!

Phone:
Order No.:
Store ID:
Regarding: Orders
About: cs_product

To which I received the reply:

Dear Charlene,

Thank you for contacting CafePress.com!

I’m happy to hear of your interest in CafePress.com! Our marketplace features over 30 million different designs which span a wide variety of topics. Try searching the marketplace for the design you are looking for. I have included the link below for your convenience.

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/browse/allproducts.aspx

If there is anything else I can do for you please let me know.

Best Regards,
Jennifer W.
CafePress.com Support Associate
(877) 809-1659 Toll-Free
(402) 517-4480 Local/International
9:00 AM – 9:00 PM Monday – Saturday (EST)
www.cafepress.com
http://server.iad.liveperson.net/hc/s-74058960/cmd/kbresource/sig.gif

I, naturally, replied in a snarky manner:

Thanks for your prompt reply, but I contacted you only after discovering this item did not appear on the site. I posed the question in the hope that it could be added. I appreciate that you probably have tons of emails to answer, but your form email method of answering only served to annoy me.

I reiterate: I know that this nice lady is probably extremely busy and most likely underpaid…but COME ON!! In the grand scheme of things, this is minor & petty – but I needs me that coffee mug!!!!

OMG did you hear about the guy who did the thing?!

I am a typically apathetic person. I say “typically” because I really only care about things when they affect ME personally. This unfortunate trait of mine has not necessarily gone away, but I am working to lessen it somewhat.

So lately, I have been barraged with an endless wave of outrage due to several animal abuse cases in the news. Loving animals is all well & good – I love little Walter Evans (cat) more than I love most people. Greater importance is placed on his health & well-being than my own.

Having said this, I now must pose this question: Where is the outrage about people? I don’t mean the boutique subject du jour about some upper middle class white girl getting injured by fireworks in an upper middle class city park. I mean the downtrodden masses that are constantly under siege. I did a quick search & immediately found this:

http://sfgate.com/oaklandhomicides/. The search criteria I used for this was “Bay Area murders 2007”.

Here are some others:
“elder abuse san francisco 2007” brought me: http://cbs5.com/localwire/localfsnews/bcn/2007/01/04/n/HeadlineNews/ROOF-DISPUTE/resources_bcn_html

“child abuse san francisco 2007” brought this classic: http://socialissues.wiseto.com/Articles/161824208/

I could spend my entire day (instead of my sacrificed lunch break) writing about this inequity. Instead, I will stop my belly-aching & stop procrastinating long enough to sign up for the volunteer work I should have been doing all along. (http://www.volunteermatch.org/)

Charlene’s rules of entering/exiting Muni

I have been too busy & too lacking in angst lately to write very much…that is until today.

Here, I must post Charlene’s rules of entering/exiting Muni:

1. If you are waiting to get on, please make room for me to get off (why does that sound dirty?)
   1. My general rule of thumb: body plow them out of the way. Elbow checks by me are common/perfectly acceptable – they are, in fact, begging for it.
   2. Addendum to above rule: self righteous/indignant look-o-disgust is a must.

 

1. If the vehicle is packed with heaving bodies & a lone soul in the middle needs to get out, LET THEM THRU!!
   1. If you are standing in the doorway of a train, step off & let people exit.

i. Note to this rule: if you see that someone has politely done the above, DO NOT take the spot they vacated to create this flow. If you do this to me, I will:

1. Stand 2 inches from you & stare in your face the whole ride.

2. Sigh disgustedly.

3. Complain about you to the other passengers…in front of you.

 

1. If you are getting off (leaving it alone this time):
   1. Wait til the vehicle come to a stop before you try to fatass your way off of it. Guess what, jerkoff – lots of the people you are trying to topple are most likely disembarking as well.
   2. Here is an example:

Me: jammed up to a bar near the door on train

Dummy: Gets up from his seat by window, carrying obligatory laptop bag

Dummy: Clamors over poor lady sitting next to him

Me: Notices this and rolls eyes

Dummy: gets next to me & stares at my white knuckled grip on the pole (again, sounds dirty)

Dummy: says “Excuse me” in a pissy fashion

Me: replies, “I am exiting, too”. This, of course, was punctuated by adding signature disgusted glare.

Dummy: “Oh”

 

Once again, proof positive that I am itching to get my ass kicked.