Retail, re tale, re tell

I'm working in a store. During Christmas. I feel this gives me perspective on the human race, how they are feeling, what they are thinking, and what the general mood is out there. After surviving the pre-Christmas shop, I can say that overall I am pleasantly surprised. I expected the masses to be raging, for people to pass their frustration on me--the lowly worker bee. For the most part, this didn't happen. Many people passed along their "happy holidays" and "merry Christmases" and "thank you for helping me because I can't help myself-ises." Of course, there were those who couldn't help themselves. They were complainy, wouldn't be satisfied if I had delivered the products to their home in my bikini, and could have done with a good old-fashioned throttle (ah, how I daydream!). 

Which brings me to the next surprise of the season. How short-tempered I've become. Oh how short. tempered. I've. become. Seriously. I'm so easily bothered by how stupid people can be. And how quick they are to treat me like I'm stupid. I cried one day, as one lady impolitely asked me to hurry up and just tell her what the total was, and as she took her dear time writing her check, I just looked over the line of people and realized none of them knew me. How much I like to read. How many instruments I can play. What a delightful sense of humor I have. And the tears came for minutes after that. The customers after her pretended not to notice that I was having difficulty controlling my emotions. No one asked if I was okay. No one told me to take a moment for myself. And ever since that day, I make less of an effort to make the customer care about me. I roll my eyes at them as they struggle to remember the name of the book they drove all the way across town to pick up. I walk away from them before they have a chance to ask another question or (heaven forbid) thank me. I interrupt them when they take too long to say what I already know what they are going to say. One day, a man was in a hurry and decided to take it out on me. I proceeded to move as slowly as possible. What little power I have over the consumer, I have decided to abuse.

This is not me. I don't like it. Yet, I am unable to stop the behavior. Sure, some days are better than others, and I'm able to pull lame jokes out of thin air for the entertainment of my customer, or I'm able to smile through some small abuse. But others are so bad I can feel the hatred seeping out my pores (and I despise anything seeping out my pores). I think the solution is to quit. To stay in bed all day (or for as long as I want), and to never work in customer service again. Problem solved.