Oh dear god...

[conuly]

I guess the thought police had to step in and make sure every thing was PC and sympathy. sad world we live in, it really is. someone can act like a lunatic and i am supposed to be nice to them. *gag*

Yes, you really are supposed to be nice to them. Yes, really. Yes, even if they "act like a lunatic". Yes, even if you think they have an actual disorder like OCD. No, I'm not kidding. No, I'm really not. Nope. You're supposed to be people. Period.

Comments

[push-the-limits.livejournal.com]

When I'm scanning someone's groceries and they act irrational, I get on the defensive, regardless of what I think they may or may not have. As a matter of fact, I don't think anything of that at all, I just will not put up with someone being rude, for whatever reason. If someone is rude to me, I don't assume they're OCD, I assume they're on crack.

Even if the woman is OCD (which we don't even know for sure), OCD does not equal rudeness.

I'm not buying that as an excuse. The woman was rude to the cashier. She could have
A. Asked the cashier if she could get new ones
B. Asked the cashier if they had someone to get her new ones
C. Let her scan the items, then ask if she could get replacements, rather than snapping at her. The woman did snap at the cashier before the cashier had even said anything.

Now...prove to me the woman has OCD, and that OCD causes one to be rude beyond their own control, and I'll show a little sympathy. You're all acting as if you know for sure she has it. I've seen customers pull shit like that just to be rude.

Like I said...standing in one spot for 8 hours dealing with every kind of person imaginable is not easy. How many of you have done it? And for how many years?

[ladytalon.livejournal.com]

Well, I've worked retail, standing on my feet behind a counter for 8 hours, so perhaps that qualifies me to post a response.

I don't know whether the woman in question had OCD or not, though from the story it certainly sounds as though she does. But that's irrelevant, and already skewed, since it was a story, not something I observed myself.

If she honestly thought, while it was happening, that the woman was obsessive-compulsive, and she still tried to tell the customer that she was acting irrationally and that it was all fine, then I believe she behaved badly. To attempt to make someone with OCD act against their impulses is not something a grocery store clerk should be doing.

OCD doesn't make one rude beyond their control, necessarily; it can come off as rudeness unintentionally, however. If something gets triggered, they can feel helpless to act against it, and that can seem very rude to others--even if the person coming across as rude is secretly despairing that they have to do it.

Having said that, I agree with you that it's not an excuse to act rudely. It's a reason, but not an excuse. However, neither is standing on your feet for 8 hours a day an excuse for being rude.

[conuly]

I don't know if this woman had OCD or not. Neither does the cashier. However, the cashier believes that the customer had OCD and proceeds to say incredibly ignorant things such as "she shouldn't be able to go out without being seriously drugged or institutionalized" and "I shouldn't have to be polite to people whom I suspect of having serious mental problems".

I read the account in the journal. It doesn't sound like the woman snapped at the cashier. As near as I can tell, the exchange went like this: Cashier is working. Somehow, the items fall. The woman stares at them. Cashier points out that there's nothing wrong. UP UNTIL THIS POINT, I DO NOT THINK THE CASHIER DID ANYTHING WRONG OR OFFENSIVE. The woman starts talking to herself about how she'll have to go elsewhere to buy those items now. The cashier, at this point, should have realized that the customer was behaving irrationally and dropped it. I can guarantee you that telling people when they are behaving irrationally never works. Instead, the cashier makes a point of telling her that the items are fine, and then gets upset when, predictably, the woman doesn't calm down.

So far, nobody has been rude.

Then the cashier posts in customers_suck about it (we're still good, okay) and closes with an ignorant and offensive statement. We're not still good. In the comments, the cashier continues to make seriously offensive statements, and calls basic politeness and manners "thought police pcness".

[conuly]

Sorry, correction. The woman did snap at the cashier - but only after the cashier had kept at telling her that she should buy the items she clearly didn't want, several times.

What was the point?