Long Time Gone Now

I love the Dixie Chicks. This isn't a new revelation. More a sporatic affirmation that there are people out there who kick ass in any number of professions. Also an affirmation that there are people out there who desire to live their lives according to them--and hopefully don't harass nice customer service people who are just doing their jobs. I don't know this last bit for sure, but since it was really only Natalie Maines' comment at Shepard's Bush that got them in the news, I don't think of them as rude people at all, especially to normal, every day people who aren't screwing up royaling on more fronts then just foreign policy.

Where is this coming from? I find myself asking. I'm not typically a cynical, jaded person who loathes meeting new people, friendly faces, on a daily basis. Why the rising stress level even working less than 40 hours a week? It could be any number of crazy (and truly often times amazing) things happening in my life, but like Carrie Bradshaw, I like to inspect the most apparent situation at hand, ask myself silly questions, want to throw little tantrums and blame outside sources for my decline in happiness: I now work full-time in one location of a frozen yogurt franchise in West LA and I think I hate my job. "Hate" may be a strong word, but "dislike" just isn't poetic enough.

What do I hate about it exactly? Well, to say it was cutting fruit, cleaning dishing, mixing frozen yogurt batches, or my manager might be along the right lines, but it would just be lazy: who really wants to like or do any of those things for 35+ hours of their every week. No, it's the customers I hate.

Truly, I probably set myself up for this. As I prepared for leaving my unpaid internship at Nest and my hostess position at Louise's in return for more hours, same money, and less gas in my car, I thought, well, maybe serving frozen yogurt will be a noble (temporary) position. I mean, after all, I'll be sculpting dessert for the masses, and who doesn't love dessert. What dessert doesn't bring a smile to people's faces, joy in their hearts, and contentment in their stomachs.

Wrong. I really should get used to this.

Disillusionment is normal at my age, thematic really if you read/see/hear/disgest anything produced from my age bracket (cough cough) so again, not that original. But, still, I rage.

The number of people who walk in excited for froyo, have joy on their faces when they order, and actually enjoy every bite of their frozen treat are rare--and usually, they don't tip.

And instead of getting to replay fun interactions with customers in my head as I cut strawberries, or even feel like I'm a productive employee, I find myself stewing over the old white dude who was so smug when he asked if the owners were Korean that I wish I had the gall to ask if his department was run by old white men who were jerky enough to hire an asshole like him. The mother and daughter who waltzed in, tried a flavor, really wanted chocolate and practically had already walked out the door by the time I responded to their "Is there an ice cream place nearby?" The men who think they can order me around just because I'm a server or hit on me cause I'm pretty and trapped behind a counter. Or the women with gigantic rocks on their fingers who somehow just piss me off by existing--jealously, maybe, I acknowledge that, but really I wouldn't trade my life for theirs any day.

So now I understand just a little bit better all those movies and TV shows about customer service employees. I still don't want to associate myself with them, but for this blogpost, I join them in solidarity: it just might get to that point where someone asks just one more time "Is this like PinkBerry?" and just get back-handed from across the counter.

I'm over-qualified, nostaglic for my keyboard, and welcoming myself back to blogging world with a proper rant, after a long time gone now. I think it'll be better.