Today I was running the register, and this guy Andrew from the café came up to me and asked me "So what did you DO?" I had no idea what he meant. So he told me some lady came up to him and said something like "I need you to help me, because I don't want to ask THAT lady over there." He asked why and she said she just didn't like my attitude. Huh? I don't even know which customer she was, and I wasn't particularly rude to anyone that I can remember. But I talked to my manager Pat about it, and it turned out Andrew had sent the lady to her to deal with. She said she was very weird and we wanted these evangelical prayer book things, so who knows, maybe she was frightened off by my pentacle necklace, believing of course that I am the devil's slut. Funny, though, that she ended up getting help from PAT, if that was her problem...because Pat is as Pagan as I am. Oops, the devotionals got spoiled by filthy heathen hands anyway.
Here's another one. Our district has a new person from another state getting on a team to handle special events, and our district manager PJ gave her my name as Community Ambassador. Let me rant about this for a moment.
Community Ambassador is usually something that goes with being the Kids' Department Head, which I am. But I was hired at the company for the Customer Service position, and they transferred me to Kids' without my consent. I was not told that C/A would be part of the position, and when I was told it usually was, I said I didn't want it and that was not a problem. Because theoretically that would mean I not only have to work in the bookstore and take care of the Kids' section, but organize, schedule, and run all the special events of the store, including book signings. Excuse me? That sounds like a job in itself, and a manager-level one at that. It certainly isn't something extra I'm going to do when I'm not even making seven dollars an hour. So anytime anyone tried to get me to do C/A related stuff, I told them where they could stick their events.
Come to today. Since we don't have a C/A, people who have to say it's someone end up saying it's me, sometimes. That bugs me. If we don't have one, make the managers do it, because they not only get paid enough to deal with shit like that but also could do it better than I could. So I'm up at the register and someone transferred this stupid call to me, and it's the lady wanting to talk to me about my new responsibilities as the Community Ambassador now that we're going to concentrate on getting more special events!
I explained to her that I had never organized events and that I didn't plan to start. I was pretty rude to her because I told her straight up that I wasn't doing it, never have done it, didn't want to do it, but she kept right on AFTER I said that, saying things like "Oh, well that's okay for you to still be Kids' Department Head (like, as if I need her permission, or as if it was actually an option for me to not have my job anymore), you can have 20 hours in your department and then the other 20 or so, you'd be doing things like cold calling in the community to stir up membership and interest for events, and organizing..." blah blah blah, I couldn't fucking believe that. I refuse to be the sponsor of the "Elderly Book Club" or whatever.
I explained my position AGAIN and said that this seemed like a manager-level job, something I was not willing to take on, but she was like no, it's not a manager-level job, the Community Ambassador still reports to management, blah blah, still trying to act like it's not my choice whether I will do this. So I said very firmly that this stuff was not in my job description and that I worked in the bookstore and did my department and didn't plan to start including something as big as Community Ambassador. She finally started backing off and being like "well I don't want to force anyone" blah blah, and I mentioned to her that at our Saturday meeting Pat had said we were going to hire someone JUST for that position (and we did, actually, she was working right then!), but then this lady wouldn't stop talking and I got a customer. I explained to her that I didn't know why someone transferred her to me up at the damn register and that I had to go because I had someone to check out, but she wouldn't stop! So I really had to be rude and cut her off, and told her if she wanted to talk some more about it either she'd have to get me at another time or she could talk to Pat since I wasn't going to be helping. She finally hung up and I checked out my customer. ARGHHH!
I can't express how pissed off I am that people are trying to sign me up to do the very things that made me not want to go into teaching, and for NO EXTRA MONEY!!!! Putting aside the fact that I would never fucking touch Community Ambassador, I know that if I did somehow get the job, they would expect me to do Kids' and still work on register and truck and Customer Service PLUS doing my C/A work. I really don't think so.
Notes:
Disgusting! Good thing this sort of thing doesn't happen everyday, ne? Commentary: It suprised me how that lady wouldn't SHUT UP. Come on now, if someone is busy with a customer, you don't keep on going like the ENERGIZER BUNNY ON CRACK. Sorry, I just had this problem before and it makes me all frisky. Sorry. [katqueen]