My Name Is Jennifer Aikman - This is Me and These Are My Goals
I am a 28 year old in Vancouver, BC. Canada. I work at a wholesale club, you know - - - rhymes with shmostco - - - as a service assistant. I hate my job. I mean, I really hate my job. My hate is a dear thing, I roll around in it and I rely on it to get me through the day. I am quitting my job as of the second week of August as I have been accepted into a professional writing program. I will find something else to hate. Or maybe, I'll morph into one of those sunny college types. But then, I am not an athlete. Only athletes are sunny in college, presumably because they are too glutted with supplements to appreciate a good bout of angst. It's just totally up in the air.
My goals are simple. Remove myself from abject poverty. Get my driver's license. Graduate. Get a job with weekends off. I especially want the weekend off thing. I want to go to a busy shop, dressed in casual wear and buy things. I have always envied the weekend people. Yes, as I ring through their weekend impulse purchases, I imagine them contracting some organ ravishing disease, but I want to be them. I want to be an important person. You know, the type of person that is sorely missed at a swanky party. Oh yeah, I want to be an expert on something. I want to know everything there is to know about some topic. I want to be the one person you would call if you need the nitty gritty on such and such. I want the captions "expert" displayed below my earnest face on the History Channel or on Montel. I want to achieve all these goals through writing, somehow.
There you have it. What I have chosen to reveal to you. I have tried to be honest, but in the trying I think I may have sacrificed sincerity. I mean am I trying to sound so real and salty, that I am completely pathetic? Probably. Am I just a sad assimilation of every neat-o book or hip magazine article I've ever read? Yep. Oh well whatcha gonna do? I mean, it's even clichéd to wonder if you are a cliché.
This is Me, These are My Issues
.....by Jennifer Aikman
As Canadians we've built a global persona based on our seemingly impenetrable niceness. To the rest of the world, Canada is the dorky cousin that America brings along on a blind date. Canada always says thank you when you buy her a drink and she rolls her eyes with you when America starts bragging about herself. She s not as much of a hottie as her glamazon cousin from the south, but the world s glad she came along. Besides, Canada is actually kind of cute when she takes her glasses off. Score one for the nice girl. We excel at being polite, right? Well, I want to know what s going on. I am enraged, really I am. I am so fed up that I am doing what any civilized woman should do; gripe about it. I may get whiny, I may even get self- righteous and I will most definitely get worked up, but I promise you I will not become discourteous. You see, the wellspring of my fury is the disgusting lack of courtesy shown towards me on a daily basis. It is blatant and getting more and more difficult to stomach.
I encounter rudeness on a daily basis. I m not talking about elbows on the table kind of rudeness, I mean malicious disregard for humanity kind of rudeness. This seems to be most sorely felt in the service sector. My workplace is a crowd-puller for the thoughtless and inconsiderate. I work as a service assistant at a wholesale warehouse. You know the place where you buy a membership and purchase massive quantities of things you don't really need. I rotate shifts as a cashier and the girl who packs your groceries. Day in and day out I bear the brunt of the shopper s anger and frustration. I see all kinds and I have begun to categorize and rate the levels of loutishness.
The worst is the Silent Shopper. This person is not typically aggressive, but I find them the most offensive. A typical transaction with the silent shopper begins with my smiley greeting being returned with a stony stare and a nod towards the membership and debit cards lying on top of their groceries. They place the cards on the conveyor belt to minimize communication with me and to send me a message; I do not exist, I am an extension of my cash register and I had better well shut up and keep things moving. The silent shopper is suspicious of conversation, convinced I am going to try to sell them something or rip them off somehow. I find this extremely humiliating. I hate having to spend three minutes in dead silence as this person makes heroic efforts to avoid eye contact. I suck it up and put on a pleasant face, getting down to business. I announce the total of the bill, take the payment shoved at me and hand back the change. As I hand over the receipt I thank the silent shopper and wish them a nice day. I am disgusted at the wistfulness in my voice. Why do I care if this jerk says his pleases and thank yous? I know I don't care if she has a nice day, but I cannot help myself. Maybe I ve won this one over with my non-confrontational approach. He or she does not respond except to blindly grope for their change and bill and quickly walk away. Although this all takes place within three to three and a half minutes I am upset. This will happen probably 50 or 60 times before my shift is through. You do the math.
Next up is the Express Laner. The Express Laner or the Expresser is always shocked and outraged that we do not have an express lane so that he or she can purchase a loaf of bread or that vital package of muffins without having to languish in the long queues. They begin verbalizing their displeasure in line up, loudly, partly to elicit support from other Expressers and partly to be sure I hear them. There are always at least 2 or 3 Expressers in a line, so soon there is a little mob of vigilantes working each other into lather. I am always surprised at the foolhardiness of these people. Do they really expect us to pander to their $10 purchases while a café owner spending $3000 waits and watches as they trundle out of the store jamming hotdogs into their greedy Express faces? Well of course that s what they expect. They didn't drive their SUV over all the way from North Van to stand in an East Vancouver line up. As the Expresser works his way towards me he becomes bolder and by the time I am ready to ring his order through he has an eager audience expecting him to give me what for. I greet he or she and wait for it to go down. Have you ever thought of getting an express lane in here? I take a breath as if I am preparing to answer though I know I won t get the chance, because this is ridiculous. I can't believe I have to stand in line for 10 minutes for a pack of batteries that I could buy in 2 minutes anywhere else! and furthermore and so on. In my early days I wasted much time trying to coax the Expresser to reason until I figured out that the Expresser does not really want me to come up with a satisfactory explanation. That would ruin everything. When I attempt to answer their query, the Expresser almost invariably has to take a cell phone call. This punctuates how very busy they are and I get the wave to never mind and tender off the transaction. At times I have to admit it wouldn't be such a bad idea to have a special queue designed especially for these leather clad and frost`n tipped Express Laners. It s considered wise to always know where one s enemies lurk. Although the next faction up can at times be confused with Expressers, they have certainly earned their own moniker. My coworkers and I refer to them simply as the North Vanners. These are the trophy wives and small business owners/stay-at-home-moms from the north shore of Vancouver. They tear into the parking lot in their off road monster vehicles sporting dye-jobs coaxed into Jennifer Aniston's cut from four years ago. Some North Vanners come equipped with rosy-cheeked children that look as though Baby Gap vomited on them. These women are so accustomed to special treatment; from their husbands, their hairstylists, and the kid s teachers they are incapable of behaving as a common consumer. They power walk to the front of the line and tap their french manicures impatiently while I try to remain calm enough to attend to the person that is at the head of the line. They interrupt with some complex question that a cashier would have no way of knowing such as, Will that George Foreman grill cut at least 98% of the fat in a steak and still taste like the full fat version? Not having an answer, I direct them to a supervisor. This is not acceptable, these women were not voted most likely to marry well for nothing.
They are tenacious and are not about to be brushed off by the likes of me. Can't you get him for me, I am in a rush I have to pick my kids up from private school in 15 minutes and it s on the Northshore! Why don t you have someone on the floor to help me, I mean what am I paying you $50 a year for anyway? I try to appeal to her business savvy. I natter on about overhead and passing the savings on to the member through lower priced product as opposed to paying staff to man the floor. I trail off and look up and into the woman's mascara rimmed eyes. To tell you the truth I am scared of these women and I always have to struggle to maintain my composure around them. She smells fear; I see her pupils dilate with predatory glee. I am not one of her kind; there is simply no need for further conversation. She spots a supervisor with long bottle-blonde hair and an indoor tan and without so much as a sniff in my direction, she spins away and is stomping towards her. They are smiling and giggling in seconds glancing my way and dissolving into gales of tinny laughter. Obviously they came to an understanding because I see my N.Vanner walking past me flanked by the supervisor and a flirtatious male manager. The three of them head off into the warehouse chatting conspiratorially, speaking a language I will never understand.
I think perhaps I should close this discussion right about now. I fear I am in danger of breaking my promise to refrain from impoliteness. I am surprised how venomous I am becoming as I share my thoughts. I am resorting to personal attacks and that, I suppose, if you want to split hairs, could be considered a form of rudeness. I haven't even touched upon my experiences outside of the workplace and I won't delve into my opinions on personal space. I could go on and on and run the risk of generalizing even more than I already have. I know many readers will think that I am no more than a hypersensitive 20-something, miserable in my dead end job. They may see me as one of those sullen have-nots lashing out at the have-lots just to escape my self-indulgent malaise, and I would be hard pressed to refute that assessment.
In my defence, I truly believe that Canadians are getting ruder and that it is my responsibility to reach out. As we become more and more Americanized our manners seem to be suffering. It is with the best of intentions that I lift the heavy rock and expose all the squirming specimens thriving in the clammy shade of discourtesy. If only one person reads this and sees beyond my theatrics, perhaps they will be reminded to exercise the mild manners we are renowned for. This person might just say, I m fine, thanks, to the next guy selling them a lottery ticket. Maybe, just maybe, the next time you, dear reader, are standing in a line up and you feel the urge to berate those around you, you will remember this gem of Canadiana I am going to leave you with. As a nation we will only take so much. In 1814, when the Yanks became too boorish to bear, we burned down the White House. If you re not with us you're against us. Choose your side wisely.
Each wants and deserves the help of the other.
Do it! It won't cost a dime! You'll be glad you helped!
