The other day (1/18), I was helping out with a long line on the register and had the misfortune of working next to Dweebo the Neil. I dislike working with him because he kisses all the customers' asses. Granted, this is what some people want, and some people happily bend over and get a big grin fixed on their faces when Neil applies his slimy lips to their buttcheeks. But most of the time, people can see right through this façade, they can see he is trying to flatter them, and they don't want any part of that. Unfortunately Neil cannot tell the difference between these two types of people.
I try not to kiss any ass myself. I will give people what they want and usually I will even be nice about it, and sometimes when people are buying things that show they have (or someone they know has) something in common with me, I will be enthusiastic. But they don't need me to say things like "Very good choice, sir!" or "Wow, you're a few years older than my mother and you look SO much younger than she does!" (Yes, that last is an actual quote from Neil while looking at someone's driver's license for check identification.)
So anyway, Saturday I'm working next to him and I'm still with the last customer while his line is done, so he goes off to do some petty thing and comes back, and manages to overhear me talking to the customer, who says we are her second favorite bookstore.
She says that her favorite bookstore is this huge used bookstore, at which she and her family spend the whole day sometimes. She mentioned that it was the largest used bookstore in the state of Florida.
Neil came running up, officious little prick that he is, and walked up all ready to correct her. See, Pricko knew of a used bookstore that he was sure was larger than this woman's supposed largest in the state, and he descended upon her demanding to know what it was called. She told him and he disagreed, saying the largest was such and such a place, and then they realized that they were talking about the same place.
But then he got even more obnoxious. He began to explain to her that she was wrong about its location and that it wasn't actually in the city but in the outer limits of some other city, and that was why he thought she was talking about another place. And he was real slimy about the whole thing. I don't know why it was so important to him to bust into my transaction and say "NO, YOU'RE WRONG, IT'S THIS!" but it was.
Then later on some customer asked me a question about the discount card, and Neil leaned over from his register, interrupting his own transaction with a customer, and answered my customer's question. I was like, "Ya know, I'm so glad he answered that, because, like, I had no idea." Neil went back to his damn corner. Was she talking to your ass? No.
Today we got into it arguing about my status in the company. Our manager wanted to be left alone to eat, but since our returns have to be approved by someone with a manager's clearance, I had to do it, and he called me up to approve one. After it was over he started giving me shit about it. He gave me the paper to sign and said, "Here ya go, Miss MANAGER." I was like, "I'm NOT a manager," and then he started saying how I only had the management clearance because I'd been there so long.
I informed him that actually no, I'd earned my red badge status when I'd helped train Mary. He said, "What's a red badge and who's Mary?" Turned out he didn't actually know that I have a true position above him; he didn't know that my status was higher, he just thought that my numbers worked for manager clearance because I'd just been there so damn long or something, like I got it through some miracle of seniority. I told him a red badge is the position between regular associate and management, and that Mary was a manager who'd been here and gone long before he got there. (If he wanted to bring up the seniority thing, hell, I'll rub his face in it; I had red badge status before he even started at the company, and now even HE has been here longer than most.) I have a feeling that now that he knows red badges exist, he's going to start lobbying to get one. What's funny is I complained to a manager that now I was the only one since the other red badge (Diana) got promoted to management, and then we were trying to think if there was anyone who'd both been here long enough and deserved one. The only person we could think of was Stacy, and she couldn't get it because she was part time. I mentioned that other than Stacy, no one had really been here a long time except Neil. Then me and the manager laughed.
This is weird, here, because most people at the store dislike Neil, and I am counted among them. I'm not used to being on that side of the fence, not that people hated me in school or anything but I'm not used to being on the side where everyone thinks someone else is a loser. The adult world is a bit different than school. You earn your jerk reputation by actually being a jerk rather than, say, getting the wrong haircut.
I was thinking about whether I'm being cruel or anything, dissing him like I do and giving him crap. I kind of wonder if I'm like one of "the cool kids," putting down someone who just isn't cool enough to hang with the in-crowd or something. But then I realized, hey, some people don't deserve the treatment they receive . . . but some do. And every time I talk to Neil, he asks for it. He tries to make people look bad in front of customers, because he thinks it makes him look good. He kisses customers' asses, because he thinks it's good PR. He is the one going through life with the attitude of the cool kids--the ones I hated. And it just so happens--in the nerdy world of bookstore life--that that is both the wrong thing to do AND the minority.
This has been a mini-rant by Julie. You may now return to your regularly scheduled program.
Notes:
-_- You would never be accused of being like the "cool kids" who look down upon others. Though you are pretty cool *hugs* Neil is a prick :P [katqueen]