RHU: A Rant
From The Raised Elbow:
Hello, RHU!
Today I share something with you that I would like to send to morning radio show host Moby (of Moby in the Morning on WNGC 106 in Georgia.)
While I was at work this morning, I heard Moby complaining about the Occupy Wall Street people and their movement to Stop Black Friday. Now, I will admit I'm not completely sure what Occupy Wallstreet's anti-Black Friday movement is about. Things like that make my head hurt. They, from my understanding, want to push more people into buying gifts from small businesses instead of the bigger ones in order to curb the hype of Black Friday. This is my understanding of it.
Now, I don't know my stance on the subject, but Moby's view is that the "Stop Black Friday" movement is ridiculous and useless and that they should just shut up and deal with it.
Well. This is where my letter begins.
When you are looking for a gift for your child or wife or any member of your family, what do you see across the counter when your purchase is being rung up? Do you see a living, breathing human being or do you see a robot with a pair of hands working the register? When the store associate spends an hour helping you find something, being polite and enthusiastic and oh so helpful the entire time, do you think of them as a person or as an extension of the store that's required to help you because you are the customer, you have demands that need to be met and you are always right?
I can almost guarantee that a lot of the people in this country not working in customer service don't even consider the people behind the counter. All they see when christmas decorations start going up is the possibility of getting the best item for the least amount of money. They don't consider the damage that's done to the stores they visit nor do they consider the feelings of the cashier or associate they're screaming at because they couldn't get the item they came for. They, like you it seems, don't consider that the people not rushing for the items, the ones that are in fact helping you find the item or ringing you up have families of their own that they would love to spend time with. But, because customers like you demand stores to be open at ungodly hours of the morning on friday and now even bleeding into thanksgiving, they have to cut their time short for demanding, selfish, destructive people that only care about buying items that they believe won't exist past that one day.
Do you realize that holidays like Thanksgiving and Halloween are being cut drastically short and are on the verge of being ignored because Christmas decorations go up in some stores by september? Do you even care about the people that get hurt in the crowds rushing into stores and trampling each other over a five dollar toy? What about the thousands of hours that go into planning and setting up the displays and sales and the countless hours spent cleaning up after the hoards of customers have gone? How is it fair that the store workers are forced to cut their time with their own families short because they have to be at work an hour or two before the store opens at four in the morning because YOU want some twenty dollar game?
I thought Christmas was supposed to be the time for families, kindness towards your fellow man, peace and warm fuzzy feelings. To me, and probably many others in the customer service sector, the Christmas season is a time to be looked upon with dread because people are demanding, pushy, rude and inconsiderate. Your lack of acknowledgement of the retail work force shows the mentality that many people in this country have. To you, we don't exist. We sleep in the store, we have no lives, we have no families. We are a name tag to you.
This is the season for consideration. So where is that when crowds are rushing the stores demanding items that honestly could last another few days if people were kind enough to wait and be understanding.
Sincerely,
--The Raised Eyebrow
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