I live in small city in the South that is a popular tourist destination.
My city also doubles as a popular retirement destination, largely for people from the Midwest/North (Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, etc.) These people shop at my Kroger in droves, and I hate them.
The first thing I hate about them is their ridiculous accents. "Let's get in the CARE and go to FAIRGO."
Secondly, they're rude as hell. Southern hospitality and politeness really does exist, especially among older folks. These Yankee retirees are incredibly short-tempered and terse. They're simply NOT nice compared to people from my town the same age.
Finally, these moneyed geriatrics are usually Prius-driving do-gooders. It just so happens that my Kroger is an upscale store with a focus on organic produce and a large health food section, and these snobs are drawn to it like flies to ****. They LOVE toting in their reusable shopping bags (usually sporting a Traders Joes or Whole Foods logo on the front). I hate reusable shopping bags because of these people.
"Make sure ya put all my cold stuff together. I have a cooler in the CARE and I have ta drive a long way."
You dumb bitch, if I had a nickel for every **** like you who told me to bag their cold **** together, I wouldn't be standing here putting up with your incessant nagging about how I'm doing my job.
Then they'll stand DIRECTLY behind me as I begin to bag another customer's order, fiddling with their overpriced organic food and basically rearranging EVERYTHING I just bagged. I've witnessed these fools re-bag entire orders for 5 minutes after they leave my line. It's like, are you going to actually eat what you've just purchased or stand there ****ing with it all day?
I now dread senior Tuesdays because that's when these idiots really come out of the woodwork.
After multiple years working in retail, I've come to seriously H A T E old people. Everything you described and more. There seems to come this universal attitude of "well, I'm old and earned the right to act out like a complete jack ass, so you're just gonna have to deal with it."
There have been a few occasions where I've been called up front to mediate a problem between a geriatric and one of our cashiers.....after having their hateful attitude directed my way, I've simply kicked them out of my store.
I bet most of them are from Wisconsin, Minnesota,and Illinois and have a D in front of their name or a hope and change bumper sticker. They think if it wasn't for them coming in a store and having you bag their groceries, that you would be in a shelter or starve to death. I know the type all too well. We want from the greatest generation to the most spoiled generation in.........well one generation. I'd rather deal with an 80 year old or a 22 year old kid than a 65 year old woman who drives a Prius.
You're right. Yeah, I'm a scumbag carpetbagger Yank, and after two years in the south, I've grown to despise other northerners. I especially detest people from the East Coast. Smug douchebags, mostly.
That being said, I do enjoy living here for the most part. I enjoy the friendliness of people, and I love chatting it up with some of the older folks here. Yes ma'am, no ma'am etc etc. I do my best to be respectful and fit in.
But good lord, sure is hard to light a fire under people's arses here.... especially in a retail environment. The lack of any sense of urgency is frustrating.
I think what's most annoying about the older yankee customers is that they always pretend they're in some kind of hardship. "Yea this credit card machine has like a thousand questions doesn't it? Back in Michigan we don't have time for this ****." Well actually, there are only 3 or 4 questions. One is for your PIN, one asks if you need cash back, and lastly we have 'Amount OK?'. If it exceeds a certain dollar amount, we ask for your signature. Not because we want to keep a collection of everyone's ****ty handwriting habits, but because there are laws in place that require it. And if you HAVE to use a big cart instead of a little cart, you have four choices. You can either A. suck it up like a normal person and just take the bigger cart. B. Go outside and ask a bagger to get you a small cart (they will do it for you). C. use a handbasket or D. ride an electric cart. Throwing your arms up and yelling at the wall isn't going to help anything. And having a piss poor attitude CERTAINLY isn't going to help anybody. Oh and here's my favorite one. Whenever one of them will "threaten" to "just go to Walmart" since you don't have organic gluten free toilet paper in stock. This is even more hilarious when their cart is already filled and you can tell that there are poor odds that Walmart even has 70% of the items in it in stock. But even if they do go to Walmart, I don't give a flying ****. Our profit margins are maybe 1 or 2%. Losing a customer that demands constant time and coupon discounts for ****ty coupons is actually costing our store. If you spend 10 minutes bossing around a bagger to check for something, that's about $1 right there. Asking the cashier to honor your $2 coupon with vague terms (by 6809 of course) is another $2. So that's $3 total right there. If it was a $100 order, that's 3% of it. SO no, you're not exactly doing us all a favor in keeping us employed by using general bitchery and greediness in your shopping habits. I may be going out on a limb, but it's probably this same bitchery and greediness that led to us being the most hated nation in the world.
Southern hospitality and politeness exists, just not when you're talking about customers I guess.
It's a fine line. Six Sigma might only be able to express his true feelings here on this forum, and his thoughts and frustrations about certain customers aren't too different from anyone else regardless of where they are from.
I'm glad that I live in a small town, am male, and am easy to get along with. I don't get ****ty customers very often and when someone tries anything I have enough balls to tell them that they are wrong.
"No, ma'am, honey nut cheerios don't work for your "free cheerios" coupon. It's for plain cheerios only because it has to be EXACTLY what the coupon has on it. If it were for honey nut cheerios it would say "honey nut"." Then give a smile.
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Would you like fries with th... I mean, your milk in a bag?
I'm glad that I live in a small town, am male, and am easy to get along with. I don't get ****ty customers very often and when someone tries anything I have enough balls to tell them that they are wrong.
"No, ma'am, honey nut cheerios don't work for your "free cheerios" coupon. It's for plain cheerios only because it has to be EXACTLY what the coupon has on it. If it were for honey nut cheerios it would say "honey nut"." Then give a smile.
