Venting Time!
Working in customer service has taught me to hate people. Even just seeing someone pull up to our entrance makes me grit my teeth. When other hotels call us because they're sold out and have customers needing rooms for the night, I want to tell them to fuck off and slam the phone down. What has happened to me?!
It's because people are assholes! When I began my first job, more than eight years ago, I was shocked at how rude my customers could be. Once, only a few months after I started, a lady screamed at me about being overcharged for some peanuts. The next woman in line yelled at me because another customer accidentally walked off with her bag. This was before I'd developed my protective retail shell and it really got to me. I held it in for a few minutes, but then the tears rolled down my cheeks. And there were still three people in line. I was handing a man his change going "Here is your *sniff* change. Have a *sniff* nice day." Poor guy, he didn't know what to think.
I just had to get used to it. I couldn't start bawling every time someone was obnoxious to me. It took a year or so, but working in that business hardened me. I suppressed the hurt and anger and learned to let things roll off of me. Oh, I had my days- I hid in the bathroom to cry a few times. And it showed up in other places, like my dreams at night. I dreamed once that a lady was walking around 15 minutes after closing time with a cart full of boxed perfume sets (oh God, how I hated putting those out for Christmas- the mess!) and I grabbed her by the collar, told her to get the fuck out, and shoved her through the front door. There were so many times I wished I could do that for real!
Another time, a lady had been extremely rude to me during my shift, telling me I was overcharging her, that I was stupid and didn't know how to do simple math. Her parting shot as she walked out the door was "Maybe I'll never shop here again! How do you like that!" So I dreamed that night that I pulled a pair of scissors out of my smock pocket and stabbed her repeatedly, yelling "How do you like that! And that! And that!" with each blow. I thought it was kind of funny, (and damn it felt good) so I told one of my coworkers the next day, and he went around warning the other employees "Don't make stardancerx mad!"
Well, my hotel customers are a little better (not too much outright screaming so far, knock on wood) but with the same lack of manners. At least I haven't killed any of them in my dreams... yet.