green things should not come in cans
I must look like a ditzy little coffee fetching data-entry bimbo, because I got mistaken for one AGAIN today.
This time, by a customer. Oh but not just any customer...
A couple of months back I went to a birthday party for my um... almost-cousin at a roller-skating joint. This place was owned by a cranky old man who caught me breaking some rule that I had no idea I was even breaking. It was a bizarre rule, and I'm not even sure that it was legal for him to enforce it unless he actually owned the land the building was sitting on, which he did not. Anyway I didn't know I was breaking the rule, so I asked a simple question about said rule and he started yelling at me like I'm some little delinquent and threatened to kick me out if I didn't do as he said. I vowed I'd never return to that place.
So this same crabby old man walks into my office today. At first I didn't recognize him, but then when he said where he was from it all came back to me. And I had to smile in his face when I really wanted to give him a couple of black-eyes. To make matters worse, I wanted to retch when I heard him in my boss's office gloating about how great he was. He also had a nice chat regarding "young people working at his place". I think he was inadvertantly referring to my employment. I think he thought I was younger than I am. I get that a lot. =_=
And the icing on the cake was this:
"Working hard?"
"Mmm..." *continues to enter financial data into Excel*
"What do you do? Data-entry and stuff?"
"Yeah I build the webpage and manage Acounts Payable and Accounts Receivable and do some data-entry."
"Oh you build the webpage?
"Yeah.
"What program do you use?"
"I write HTML."
"Oh we used to use... Weave--Dream--maker..."
"Dreamweaver?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah I used to use that a long time ago. I have some kind of page-builder program around somewhere but I don't use it."
"So how did you learn to write HTML?
"I taught myself."
"Oh, you're smart." <-- The only decent thing he said the entire time he was there.
Why are some people completely unaware of when they are being offensive?
This time, by a customer. Oh but not just any customer...
A couple of months back I went to a birthday party for my um... almost-cousin at a roller-skating joint. This place was owned by a cranky old man who caught me breaking some rule that I had no idea I was even breaking. It was a bizarre rule, and I'm not even sure that it was legal for him to enforce it unless he actually owned the land the building was sitting on, which he did not. Anyway I didn't know I was breaking the rule, so I asked a simple question about said rule and he started yelling at me like I'm some little delinquent and threatened to kick me out if I didn't do as he said. I vowed I'd never return to that place.
So this same crabby old man walks into my office today. At first I didn't recognize him, but then when he said where he was from it all came back to me. And I had to smile in his face when I really wanted to give him a couple of black-eyes. To make matters worse, I wanted to retch when I heard him in my boss's office gloating about how great he was. He also had a nice chat regarding "young people working at his place". I think he was inadvertantly referring to my employment. I think he thought I was younger than I am. I get that a lot. =_=
And the icing on the cake was this:
"Working hard?"
"Mmm..." *continues to enter financial data into Excel*
"What do you do? Data-entry and stuff?"
"Yeah I build the webpage and manage Acounts Payable and Accounts Receivable and do some data-entry."
"Oh you build the webpage?
"Yeah.
"What program do you use?"
"I write HTML."
"Oh we used to use... Weave--Dream--maker..."
"Dreamweaver?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah I used to use that a long time ago. I have some kind of page-builder program around somewhere but I don't use it."
"So how did you learn to write HTML?
"I taught myself."
"Oh, you're smart." <-- The only decent thing he said the entire time he was there.
Why are some people completely unaware of when they are being offensive?