Don't Come Around Here No More

So, it occurred to me today, and not for the first time either, that there are a great number of service people out there who would totally enjoy their jobs that much more if only the damn customer would stop getting in the way.  Let me describe the scene that triggered this thought for the bajillionth time.

I was in Loehmanns, with hair on my head, looking through the sale rack.  The hair's relevance will become clear in a minute.  See, I was about to arrive somewhere early, and I am "on time chick," so I can never get there even a minute early, and must find a way to eat up that minute.  I am pretty sure that is why Loehmanns was created by God, in his infinite wisdom and unwillingness to pay full retail.  Also, it is important to note that my father-in-law was "2 hours early man" and if you arrived only on time to meet him, you may as well have shown up the next day. And despite having been on time, you would come home later to find 20 short, loud messages inquiring, not politely and not in English, just exactly where you were - messages that he left in a span of no more than 3 minutes, before you arrived to meet him right on time. He had mad phone dialing and message leaving skillz, y'all. 

So I was looking through a sale rack and there were salespeople moving the contents of my sales rack to another.  As a salesperson walked by with a stack of hangered clothing, one of the hangers ensnared itself in my hair. It hurt like a bitch, and not a fun bitch either, and I gasped.  But if you heard the sigh the salesperson let out, you would have realized that the true victim here was not me, but him.  I mean, how much easier would this task be if I did not waste his valuable time while I plucked what remained of my hair from the hangers? If I was not an obstacle he had to walk around to get the next batch of clothes? If I did not have the gall to select an item from the rack, look at it and then put it back?

I began to ponder the customer-less store and the many benefits it would offer the employee.  Let's see - you would never have to refold things! That would be a huge time saver right there.  And no more stupid questions about where the hosiery department has moved to.  I mean, the freaking department moved days ago - why can't these customers keep up?!  And you know how sometimes you want to just chat with the cashier at the next register, but some ass of a customer insists that you take money in exchange for an item - that's a thing of the past too.  Now you can have that conversation about your latest piercing entirely without interruption.  

If the customer-less store works out, by all means let's move on to the holy grail - the customer-less restaurant.  Ugh, the way those customers want you to come back and take their order, when maybe you have some lipstick you need to reapply.  And can you believe how they signal with their hand in the air that they need the check? It's almost as if they did not understand that your entirely avoiding eye contact with them was a signal that you did not want to be disturbed.  They can be so obtuse.  And then there is that weird obsession they have with getting what they ordered.  Much easier if the customer stays home and you hang out and in the kitchen, chatting with the cook.

In all fairness, I must disclose that I was a salesperson and a waitress for years.  And not once did these thoughts ever cross my mind.