Pages

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

WARNING: Work Complaint

My first "real job" was working in a Bakery at a Whole Foods-esque grocery store in a wealthy suburb. Therefore, I became familiar with dealing with snotty plastic women who need their gluten free bread sliced a certain way, no matter how many loafs it takes. While learning to ignore arrogant slimy men, who try to make conversation more than what kind of coffee they'd like. Here I thought those were the only kind of annoying people....

Now after almost two years of working at the local Library, I've grown to long for the days when I was scolded for a stale cupcake or having to explain ten times that we were out of multi-grain for the day. The customers at the bakery seem like saints compared to the patrons [the Library likes to give customers a fancy name] that come into the Library on a day-to-day basis!

Maybe it's because the Library is a free service, right off a busy intersection and that's why we get so many crazy people all at once? Maybe it's because I am just not equipped to work with the general public? Maybe it's just me and this is how ALL people act?! Whatever the reason...I miss the nights I would come home from work and the only story I could tell was that a customer caught me bagging their bread with one glove on.

There really is NO one - way to describe the assortment of people that come into this library. They are simply a bunch of CHARACTERS! Coming in all shapes, sizes, races, and age. It drives me crazy sometimes how they treat me, other co-workers or other patrons.

I deal with... People who become regulars and it's weird if I'm at work and they are not. Bratty school kids that come in to "study" and tend to act up instead...making me second guess ever wanting to raise kids! Computer illiterate people who honestly have never touched a mouse in their life. Straight up bizarre people who ride around my department in a scooter, yet I see them walking perfectly normal through the parking lot or around the library. Foreign people who can't speak English and get upset at me for not understanding my directions. Creepy men who make inappropriate remarks to younger girl patrons. People who argue me. People who thank me. People who I know from high school. People that ask me what their email password is...how would I know their password!? People that online gamble for eight hours straight. People who are looking for jobs. People who can't control their own children. People who don't save in time and lose a whole days worth of work, because our computers shut down automatically. People who call me raciest for removing their belongings out of a 30-minute plus vacant study room. People who tell me what to do...yet I'm the one getting paid? People who tell me that I am a mean person, then ask for my name to make a complaint...just because I didn't know how to answer their question. People who are grateful for my help. People who know my name. People who I see when I'm out with my friends. People who need computer help. :: s i g h ::

ALL that to say... it's such human-nature tendency to not love the unlovable. In this case, the unlovable being the annoying people that come into a Library on a daily basis. We tend to not like the people that don't like us. No matter how nasty the attitude is of someone I'm working with is, I still have to love them. No matter how I'm being treated, I still have to show love to the person whose mistreating me. Of course, this is applicable in ALL areas of life... family, friends, coworkers, professors, and strangers.

These people that come into my story every day at work are just characters that the Author of my life added to make life less boring I guess....now I just have to choose daily to love them whether they annoy me or not.

No comments: