What's The Difference Here?

A tale of two customer service experiences.

Store 1: Just as I get in line, one of the cashiers at another register says that he's free. I move to his line, announce that I have coupons, and he rings me up.

I pay by credit card, he shoves the slip at me with a "have a nice day, ma'am", then starts ringing up the next customer and pushing her stuff into the space where I'm trying to sign the slip.

When I finally get the slip signed (I dropped the pen) and handed back to the cashier (who is already processing payment for the second customer), I get another "have a nice day, ma'am."

Store 2: I decide that even though I have a fistful of coupons and a mimimal amount of patience, I'll go through the self-check.

The teen in charge of manning the self-check is off doing something else and as soon as I scan my loyalty card, the self-check throws up the "Please wait for an attendant" screen.

I walk over to the cashier station to see if there's some button I can press myself to assist my transaction (as the teen hadn't locked her register).

This hurries the teen back to her station. She asks what my problem is, and I explain (politely): YOU. I also politely explain that I have a lot of coupons, so I need her to pay attention to my order.

She immediately starts paging for someone to relieve her because she needs a break.

A flurry of activity and three teens later, I scan my first coupon and get the "System Processing" screen, which I've been through enough to know that it's a flag for the cashier to make sure you put your coupon in the bin before advancing you to allow the next coupon to be scanned.

I turn around to find a different teen at the cashier station - TEXTING!

Through clenched teeth, I ask her to follow her screen prompt so I can continue scanning coupons. I also hold up my fistful of coupons and state, "I have a lot, so stay with me."

Yeah.

That never works.

At each coupon, I have to scan and stare. I get the feeling that she's a little annoyed with me - and the feeling is mutual.

The Difference? Taxpayer dollars. The first store I went to was the liquor store where my tax dollars have gone toward customer service training.

I guess to the guy's credit, he wasn't texting while he was checking out my purchases. (I guess, honestly, to the guy's credit - he must have been having a bad day because usually he is very professional and sends me off with a "Cheers, love").

My Christmas Gift

I took my brother to a hockey game over the weekend.

On the way back from the game, we were chatting about the "road trip" (flight & vacation) that we'll be taking together next year.

"I get cranky if I'm tired or hungry," he announced. "Since you do, too, we should get along fine on the trip."

Wow.

In that little snippet of conversation, my brother gave me the gift of normalcy.

I've just come off of a very difficult holiday season where my faults were harped on as exclusive signs of my craziness.

The irony is that trying to stay up beyond late and to sit through waves of hypoglycemic nausea to not snack when no one else is snacking DOES drive me crazy.

So to hear someone who is so perfectly normal say, in a very offhand way, "Hey, these are my faults, too". . .God. I came home and cried. Because I am (90%) normal. I may be (100%) difficult to live with, but it has very little do to with my personal brand of crazy.

Full Day

I started out the day at work. I put in 4 hours to try to keep me sane during the rest of the week.

Then I worked on a grant application for the non-profit I'm volunteering for.

The most enjoyable part of my day? A Skype conversation with my godkids.

My girl cousin asked me if I had a boooooooooyfriend. She's five and I guess boyfriends are a source of fascination for her.

She showed me her booooooooooyfriend - her stuffed bear.

So I showed her my boooooooooooyfriend - a sock monkey ornament from my Christmas tree. I entertained the kids for fifteen minutes making it move and dance.

I ended up buying them each a sock monkey ornament that they can play with and hang on the tree.

At the end of my performance (as Sock Monkey and his brother, Sock Monkey #2), the 5-year-old asked, "Do you have a real boooooooooooooooyfriend?"

ARRGGHH!

I sang songs, recited poems and performed the ending to The Wizard of Oz using sock monkeys. . .and she's still on the boyfriend thing?

I explained that I do not have a real boyfriend and looked to my aunt for reaction.

My aunt is a traditionalist. Her kids have been told for as long as I can remember that they'll find someone special, get married someday and have kids.

I think I've written about this before - how I'm not quite sure how I get explained as someone who is middle-aged with no boooooooooooooyfriend, since there certainly isn't a Disney movie about me. (On Skype, the explanation from my aunt was "Someday, Madame will meet someone special enough to be her boyfriend. But she hasn't met that person yet.")

I guess maybe I shouldn't be so cynical. Maybe life would end up that way. But if I were talking to the 5-year-old by myself, I would probably just say that sometimes people don't have boyfriends or girlfriends - and that's ok. As long as you have friends and family, you're not doing too bad for yourself.

I get nervous that she might grow up thinking that the only way to live is to have a boyfriend/husband and that she may deny herself opportunities so she can have a man.

Bits of Random

GRRR!
At my sister's baby shower, I stuck a note in her card that once she had the baby, I'd take her out for sushi, which she had been craving throughout her pregnancy.

I got a thank you note from her saying that she would like to go out sooner rather than later.

When I called up to make plans with her, I found out that her husband and the baby had been invited by her.

I realized that Biblically they are "cleaved into one flesh," but I since still see two bodies walking around, I'm not sure where my sister got the idea that this was Family Sushi Night.

I explained that the invite was just for her. The idea was to give her a break from taking care of the baby and give the baby some daddy-and-me time. She replied that her husband and the baby were coming anyway, whether or not I treated them to sushi.

Awkward all around.

It is just a HUGE pet peeve when people cannot do things without their significant other! Especially when this is a dinner invitation, similar to their wedding, where it was a HUGE deal to invite singles as a "Plus One" because "then we'd have to pay for all those extra meals."

Whew!
I had my annual review at work and wasn't fired. I was a little worried. My assessment was fair and I was acknowledged for the improvements I've made through the year.

D'oh!
As part of my book club, in December we apparently just have dinner and do an earring exchange.

Can I tell you how much it sucks to buy jewelry for people?

(Not to mention the fact that I can't wear earrings, so someone will be spending $20 - $30 on me for something I can't even USE)

I spent our last book club meeting taking note of the style of earring that the ladies preferred. Then I went on Etsy to try to find something cute, handmade, and cheap (as I also wasn't planning on being part of the earring exchange and don't have this in my Christmas present budget). I saw these earrings in the style that the women seemed to be wearing - $5 and free shipping.

Materials were listed as "metal and beads." Looking at the picture of the item (a gold hoop with a dangle strung with a few beads), I thought the hoop looked a little tarnished/cheap. However, I liked the concept of the earrings and hoped that they were just photographed poorly. I should have convo-ed to be sure, but. . .there was no time!

Turns out - the hoop was plastic. I pulled the earrings out of their bag and gold flakes came off in my hand. The beads are strung on two differently sized wires (for symmetrical earrings!).

In short, I got what I paid for.

AND, since I waited about a week for the item to be shipped and have 1 week until the exchange, I'm now stuck just finding something at the mall.

Now I can rest (I hope)

I put up two Christmas trees (my big-un and my little-un).

I'm waiting to feel less stressed so I can FALL ASLEEP ALREADY!

Of course, in the self-perpetuating cycle, I'm nervous that I won't fall asleep and that's keeping me awake.

I was hoping that the Christmas tree lights would relax me. . .or at least the fact that I am done with one holiday chore!

But. . .

Phase two is to have a glass of wine. Alcohol usually puts me to sleep. :-/

Cyber Monday

Well.

I have spent the last two years lamenting that I have a really sorry sweater collection. As in - I have sweaters that should be thrown away, but I couldn't do that without ones to replace them.

And now I do.

I spent a lot of money on clothes today. However, when I remember how much I can replace (either by throwing out or *shhh* donating because it doesn't fit me anymore), I realize that I needed to replace almost my entire sweater collection. And most of my turtlenecks.

Now I have to wait for everything to be shipped to me :-( Either way, I'll probably start cleaning out my sweaters this weekend.

In Other News
I am dealing with insomnia now, for reasons unknown.

The worst part is that I know I'm really tired. I don't have energy to drag my Christmas tree down and do something productive. On my way home from work, I sang that ABC song to myself while signing the alphabet. Yet I feel really buzzy.

I'm not looking forward to the crash on this.

Misjudged That One

My Horoscope
Talked about how I would find romance with some guy from far away.

In real life - what that meant was one of my Facebook friends from NYC felt compelled to share that he had an erotic dream about me last night.

Ew.

On the plus, at least he didn't go into details.

Book Club
The book I read included a character who ended up suffering from an eating disorder.

It made me uncomfortable. . .perhaps hit a bit too close to home to my own story.

At any rate, I wasn't going to bring up any of my history during book club, but when one of the attendees shared that she would have aborted one of her own children had she known of his health problems early enough, I thought that providing perspective on the ED side of things wouldn't be any more of a bombshell.

Um. Yeah.

A couple of the women started talking about the cost of mental health care. I shared how the cost depended on one's insurance. When I got the "who gives you the right to talk" look, I explained that I had actually attended an in-patient treatment facility for eating disorders and, while it was pricy, the insurance my family had picked up the majority of the cost. Regardless of insurance, most girls were able to afford about 2 weeks (before insurance dropped treatment).

Yet somehow I ended up being Debbie Downer on the whole book club (not the abortion lady!). I guess I miscalculated the fact that the women all know each other's stories and the abortion bombshell probably wasn't as much a bombshell to them as me explaining that I'd been in a similar situation as a rather flat character in the book. It probably also didn't help matters that the one woman was convinced that the ED character HAD to have borderline personality disorder and, through my own life experience, I could see very easily how the girl could have just been stuck with too much responsibility and had a nervous breakdown. While I initially thought of the character as contrived, thinking about my own situation, I also had a rather rapid deterioration.

Although, I guess hypothetical abortion to real-life mental illness. . .(although, sadly for some, without the borderline personality disorder) I guess the lesson here is - just stick to the story.