If you work in retail, or somewhere else that require costumer service, please do not think that customers are being rude if they do not answer you.
That customer may have anxiety, selective mutism, or be autistic. They might not be able to talk or they may be too afraid to make small talk.
So please don’t call us assholes, shitheads, or bitches because we can’t make small talk at the counter. It’s probably not our fault.
honestly the original post pisses me off so much… like thanks for guilting people for potentially not being able to speak or hear lmao… it’s really a shitty sentiment and unnecessary. like there’s rude customers, but people aren’t rude for exising as selectively mute, autistic, or hoh/deaf.
Also like, I am pretty sure that many employees are required to say stuff or go through a certain script with their customers– maybe there are some employees that have social anxiety and worry that people who don’t engage with the provided scripts hate them, but my friends who work retail have also told me that being made to be ‘perky’ to . every single. customer. rather than trusting their own instincts, is also extremely stressful.
oh please, almost every customer i’ve gotten who ignores me at the register always finds their voice when they find something to complain about. you know, if they’re not ignoring me for a phone call about how they forgot to put on deodorant (yes, really), or because they won’t take their earbuds out long enough to complete a transaction. every customer i’ve gotten who can’t hear or speak has let me know at the start of the transaction. i have apd and i can barely hear all you assholes who mumble and whisper the answers i need to complete your transaction (and then bring the volume up to complain when i don’t get it right because i had to guess from context and body language), but literally no one in this thread is taking retail workers into account i guess
i also like how none of the responses above are from anyone actually working in retail, just—at best—someone with “friends in retail”
Y'all are assholes. In my expansive retail career I have seen dozens of people quit retail within hours of their first day because of the anxiety caused by assholes customers, the amount of times a manger had to talk someone down out of a panic attack in a store or a crying fit is a fuckin’ standard. The amount of kids who have social anxiety or whatever who had to be counseled by their coworkers, myself included, that no matter what the higher ups said, it doesn’t get better, customers are almost always and asshole and they shouldn’t risk their health for it.
TLDR: Just say you an asshole and GO!
I have social anxiety and I worked for 2 years as a Bagger and Cashier at a grocery store. Sometimes it’s either thinking you’re an asshole or taking it personally and breaking down crying, which is incredibly embarrassing. Those who are anxious like me who didn’t want to talk usually gave me a smile to let me know they heard me and I usually understood. Those who didn’t speak English and couldn’t understand me would let me know. Disabled customers would also let me know. I can’t speak for autism. Your mental illness isn’t an excuse to be shitty. If you can’t even muster an acknowledgement that your heard me say “How was your day?” but can tell me if you want paper or plastic, you’re the asshole here.
The answer is apparently “because we’re actually able to eat it”
Interestingly, what actually happened is that people who settled in Northeastern Europe came to rely heavily on milk products, particularly preserved milk products (cheese) from kept livestock as a source of protein and fat through the long frozen winters in the area. Those who could eat cheese lived, those who couldn’t starved. So, we adapted to keep producing the enzymes that let us digest lactose past infancy and into adulthood.
Other cultures (particularly in warmer climates with shorter winters) that had more varied sources of fat and protein throughout their lean seasons didn’t need to develop this adaptation.
Give this a few thousand years to simmer, and various European cultures developed hundreds of different types of cheeses that were integrated into cuisine in just as many ways. Using/loving cheese has been handed down to the descendants of those Europeans, and hey presto you have the map above.
Imma be a downer and add an important note that milk has been wielded, intentionally or not, as a really awful tool of colonialism in North America.
This map doesn’t show it, because it’s post-colonial, but Native Americans, to this day, are also largely lactose intolerant (1) as dairy of any kind wasn’t part of the Native diet after early childhood, so their bodies simply don’t produce the lactase to digest lactose after they have been weaned. When colonization hit and indigenous kids were forced into white institutions like the boarding schools that were designed to eradicate Native cultures and lifestyles by instilling “good white Christian values” into the Native children, they were made to drink milk as part of the diet they were forced to follow (2). This obviously made them unbelievably sick and more prone to serious illnesses like tuberculosis and measles that often swept through the schools.
Even to this day, Native folks have a higher propensity toward lactose intolerance: around 80-100% of Native Americans are lactose intolerant (3). This still causes issues, especially in education. Dairy products are an inescapable component of school lunches most everywhere, and milk is often the only beverage served to students with free or reduced school lunches (4). A 2009 study of 4th graders showed that well over half (68%) of Native students in public school were eligible for the free or reduced lunch program (5). Being all but forced to drink milk or eat dairy when lactose intolerant (since options like juice or water aren’t readily provided through his program) and then being made to sit in a classroom while fighting severe gastrointestinal issues puts Native children at a severe disadvantage educationally, compared to their milk-drinking peers. This line of reasoning also definitely extends to children of other minorities with high rates of lactose intolerance and high rates of students living in a low income family who rely on school lunches for a good deal of their daily nutrition, like black students (74% on reduced lunches (5) and 60-80% lactose intolerant (3)) or Hispanic students (77% on reduced lunches, 50-80% lactose intolerant).
It’s just one of the nasty ways the system is stacked in favor of even low-income white folks like me, so I’m gonna do my bit to call it out.
Alight so I’m allergic to milk, as in, my throat constricts when I drink it, I get hives, and I have horrible diarrhea or even vomit if I consume too much. I have built up a tolerance but these are still issues I deal with. While I did deal with this issue briefly as a child enrolled in public school, all that was needed to remedy it was a doctor’s note and my mom to advocate for me to the school. Soon, I had juice as a replacement. There’s also the choice of telling your child to not drink the milk provided to them and pack a water bottle for lunch. White colonialism is a bitch but there are tools to fight it and fight for the well being of your child.
You’re going down punk, just you FUCKNG WAIT!! You will learn that this fandom is far worse than you will ever want to know. We may seem soft and shy, but we’re just being NICE! We can be cold, cruel, mean, and make you suffer and wish you had never said what you said. We can send you into the farthest most empty reaches of the galaxy, summon demons to our disposal to make you suffer, and make you feel the feelings that we experience, and don’t fucking think for a single goddamn second that’s easy! The amount of emotions that would boil inside of you would literally kill you. So keep your motherfucking distance and we won’t hurt you, so stay the hell back, asshole. If you so much as insult us one more time, we will bring firey hell upon you and bitch slap you into oblivion. Your move, dildo.
We know how to kill a human and hide the evidence. Your body will never be found, and that is a promise.
You do realize a majority of the fandom are 20 somethings right? or at least in college. We can find you, kill you, and make it look like you killed yourself. Don’t try us :)
Shut up. We can exorcise a demon from you faster than Dean and Sam, believe me you need it. We can toss you into a supernova, never to be seen again, or banish you to the end of the universe where you would explode to create a new one. We can murder you and destroy all evidence of you ever existing. Basically- D-O-N-T-C-R-O-S-S-U-S
This is like finding a lost family heirloom you’ve been hearing about
