“This shit just gives me nightmares,” is what Dora said over my head to her co-worker who nodded on in agreement whilst unhurriedly ringing up my sizeable purchases at Target yesterday. The ‘shit’ she was referring to was her day-to-day duties as a sales associate at the Target on the cross street of La Cienega and Rodeo, Los Angeles.
A sales associate at Target may not have been what Dora originally aspired to become in life. Who knows – perhaps she never really got around to aspiring to much of anything. But you can be sure that whatever her aspirations ever were or were not – at that moment in time she was not happy to be working in Target – at all. As exemplified by her language in front of me and my toddler son.
Dora of Target and all other employees like you – you make me want to grab a bar of organic soap and give your tongue a good scrubbing.
Ok we get it. It’s not the dream job. Maybe you’ve got some brilliant scheme up your sleeve to move on to a globe trotting career in fashion merchandising and this is your first step of many or perhaps you will work at the express checkout of Target for the rest of your life. Either way we’ve all had jobs that sucked but it’s no excuse to treat the people who have the misfortune of being your clients/customers like they are as insignificant – and also as hard of hearing – as a dried up old piece of turd.
I have a great job these days but I had to take many, many baby steps to get here and when I was taking those baby steps I endured many, many awful jobs indeed. Some of those jobs were just to pay the bills, some moved me almost imperceptibly in the direction that I needed to take in order to get where I am now. I certainly didn’t love them all – but I never once lost my sense of professionalism when I was doing them.
The nearest I ever got to losing my rag at work was when I cried after I experienced my first earthquake. I was huge and fat and pregnant and couldn’t scrabble under my office desk in time – I was terrified.
Other that that I’ve maintained my cool at work when faced with a deadly poisonous spider in a box of bananas, ovens so hot they’ve stuck my mascara laden eyelashes to the top of my eyelids, obligatory pink frilly blouses and green ruffled skirt uniforms, angry infantile men who’ve thrown computer monitors at my feet, papers up in the air and then chased me round the office kitchen Benny Hill-style, being sprayed from head to toe in alcoholic lemonade, dancing on a stage that wouldn’t stay still and throwing up with sea sickness into a champagne bucket nano seconds before getting back into the chorus line – all without a swear word shed.
So, Dora of Target and all those like you – THAT’S the kind of shit that will give you nightmares.
And Dora be warned – next time I find myself in the unpleasant situation of needing to shop at Target I shall be bringing my scrubbing brush and a cake of SudMuffins’ finest…
So there.
