LiveJournal Therapy!
I somehow found myself on the LiveJournal front page and was greeted with this lovely message:
It's certainly been a while. (That's so like 5 months!)
There's been plenty of things going on in those last five months, but nothing has really changed.
I got myself a part time job at Best Buy a few months ago. Working in retail was far from what I had in mind after graduating from college, but a number of things forced my hand. Obviously I needed some money. My parents were fine with helping out with my needs as I figured out where my life was headed, but I still needed money for things like lunch, gas, and hobbies (games, movies, and books mostly). The fact that my mom literally devoted all her spare time in pestering me to get out of the house and get a job only added to my haste to find some sort of normal routine.
So now I sell cameras at Best Buy, and if there was ever anything that could so fiercely reaffirm my hatred in the general population it's working at Best Buy. That's a bit harsh, especially since the majority of the people I interact with are very nice. But the bad ones, oh God do they get on my nerves. The ignorance, sense of entitlement, impatience, rudeness, and cheapness that some of these people have astound me. Maybe there's just something about shopping during the holiday season that turns normal housewives and businessmen (and no that wording wasn't a passive aggressive display of misogyny) into monsters, but if they just took a step back they could realize a couple of important things.
1. It might sound like a stretch, but the guy who was actually trained to be able to sell your wanted product might know a little more about it then what you've picked up from year old Consumer Reports and random customer reviews online.
2. You are not going to be the only person in the store spending money. I don't owe you jack shit.
3. See #2. Sometimes, you're going to have to wait a bit because there's only so many workers who can help all the customers.
4. Being rude to someone is never the best way to get something in return from them.
5. Whether buying for yourself or for someone else, it might be a good idea to at least get a basic understanding of the expected cost of the purchase. There are no magical 50 dollar cameras that are good, and yes you will most likely have to buy some accessories if you want the full value of the purchase. Deal with it. As a quick aside, I sympathize with the fact that there are a lot of people in the world that don't have a lot of money. These people would love to be able to find a great deal on something in the store for themselves or for their families. However, as a worker of a store that sells mostly want-based items, unfortunately you might want to rethink your priorities, or get some better money management skills so you can properly save some money to get things you want. (Also, the average price of a house in the area is 500k. Fuck off.)
Honestly, it's probably just a never ending cycle. I have my own share of personal shopping nightmares in retail stores from terrible service to rude employees. I know first hand that one asshole customer early in the day can completely change my mood for the rest of the day. Bad customers leads to bad service which leads to bad customers.
Aside from that, working at Best Buy isn't too bad. The employees at my store are all pretty cool. There are some people I'm not particularly fond of, but all in all it's a manageable work experience.
The saddest thing is working has become just about all I do. Going away to college has alienated me from my old high school friends. Coming back home has for the most part severed my friendships from college. I have a small bit of pride from graduating from Illinois, and I do miss it, but more then anything I have regret for choosing to go there in the first place. It's been gnawing at me all summer, but if I could do it all over again I wouldn't have gone to school there. Or I would have at least transferred after my first year. I still would have gone away for school, but Illinois was never a good fit for me, no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise during my years there.
Now I'm in limbo. I have unfinished grad school applications sitting on my desk that I dread finishing because I'm fairly sure no school would be stupid enough to accept me, and even if they did, what do I really want to do with my life anyway? I'm still hoping that a job that I'm qualified for and deeply interested in will suddenly pop up for me, but the chances for that are pretty slim as well. In the mean time I guess I just have to carry on. I know what I have to do; it's now just a simple matter of growing up and doing it.
Unless, of course, I want to be selling extended warranties five years from now. And I can assure you that's not the case.
It's certainly been a while. (That's so like 5 months!)
There's been plenty of things going on in those last five months, but nothing has really changed.
I got myself a part time job at Best Buy a few months ago. Working in retail was far from what I had in mind after graduating from college, but a number of things forced my hand. Obviously I needed some money. My parents were fine with helping out with my needs as I figured out where my life was headed, but I still needed money for things like lunch, gas, and hobbies (games, movies, and books mostly). The fact that my mom literally devoted all her spare time in pestering me to get out of the house and get a job only added to my haste to find some sort of normal routine.
So now I sell cameras at Best Buy, and if there was ever anything that could so fiercely reaffirm my hatred in the general population it's working at Best Buy. That's a bit harsh, especially since the majority of the people I interact with are very nice. But the bad ones, oh God do they get on my nerves. The ignorance, sense of entitlement, impatience, rudeness, and cheapness that some of these people have astound me. Maybe there's just something about shopping during the holiday season that turns normal housewives and businessmen (and no that wording wasn't a passive aggressive display of misogyny) into monsters, but if they just took a step back they could realize a couple of important things.
1. It might sound like a stretch, but the guy who was actually trained to be able to sell your wanted product might know a little more about it then what you've picked up from year old Consumer Reports and random customer reviews online.
2. You are not going to be the only person in the store spending money. I don't owe you jack shit.
3. See #2. Sometimes, you're going to have to wait a bit because there's only so many workers who can help all the customers.
4. Being rude to someone is never the best way to get something in return from them.
5. Whether buying for yourself or for someone else, it might be a good idea to at least get a basic understanding of the expected cost of the purchase. There are no magical 50 dollar cameras that are good, and yes you will most likely have to buy some accessories if you want the full value of the purchase. Deal with it. As a quick aside, I sympathize with the fact that there are a lot of people in the world that don't have a lot of money. These people would love to be able to find a great deal on something in the store for themselves or for their families. However, as a worker of a store that sells mostly want-based items, unfortunately you might want to rethink your priorities, or get some better money management skills so you can properly save some money to get things you want. (Also, the average price of a house in the area is 500k. Fuck off.)
Honestly, it's probably just a never ending cycle. I have my own share of personal shopping nightmares in retail stores from terrible service to rude employees. I know first hand that one asshole customer early in the day can completely change my mood for the rest of the day. Bad customers leads to bad service which leads to bad customers.
Aside from that, working at Best Buy isn't too bad. The employees at my store are all pretty cool. There are some people I'm not particularly fond of, but all in all it's a manageable work experience.
The saddest thing is working has become just about all I do. Going away to college has alienated me from my old high school friends. Coming back home has for the most part severed my friendships from college. I have a small bit of pride from graduating from Illinois, and I do miss it, but more then anything I have regret for choosing to go there in the first place. It's been gnawing at me all summer, but if I could do it all over again I wouldn't have gone to school there. Or I would have at least transferred after my first year. I still would have gone away for school, but Illinois was never a good fit for me, no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise during my years there.
Now I'm in limbo. I have unfinished grad school applications sitting on my desk that I dread finishing because I'm fairly sure no school would be stupid enough to accept me, and even if they did, what do I really want to do with my life anyway? I'm still hoping that a job that I'm qualified for and deeply interested in will suddenly pop up for me, but the chances for that are pretty slim as well. In the mean time I guess I just have to carry on. I know what I have to do; it's now just a simple matter of growing up and doing it.
Unless, of course, I want to be selling extended warranties five years from now. And I can assure you that's not the case.