The other day I was at the MSFT store ( it happens ) and I buying a phone ( see here why this actually was a good idea ).
The salesgirl ( assuming that is still the politically correct term or are we doing “economic stimulus facilitator “ now , who can tell ) was your usual bubbly, fake smile till it hurts , completely technically illiterate person( we’ll just call her Tiffany/Amber or T&A it makes things easier ) but it was’nt that bad, I knew what I wanted and there was very little um scope for her to screw anything up
Regardless T&A somehow managed to get something wrong and next thing I knew she was like “Can you wait for about five minutes,they’re getting the phone out from back”
So we waited chatted and as is often the case ( without sounding like an ass ) I had her laughing out loud ( not the emoticon the real thing) in pretty quick order
The phone arrived and it turned out getting ATT to do the right thing in terms of a discount was somewhat beyond T&A’s training . So naturally Bob or Dick or Jim or some such dude “the one somewhat technically aware fellow” ( oh so that's what Technical fellow at MSFT means eh !) was summoned with batted eyelash and heaving bosom .
Next thing I know the MSFT technical fellow was battling furiously with the ATT website ( it was like watching gladiator with better lighting and even better music ) while me and T&A were still making giggleworthy small talk
At this point enter the white pasty MSFT uber geek from stage right . He walks up to us and well in about a minute establishes himself as a total asshole which really was quite impressive.
During the whole time he would like say something to t&a then look away stare at his phone etc and then he finally bought something . At this point we moved into the truly “can you actually behave like this in public” scenario
The girl asked him a series of questions (annoying ones to be sure like “Do you have an email address with us “ ) to which this guy replies in the most rude way possible without being actually rude BUT the whole fucking time the guy is like glued to his phone and typing away furiously .
Does not even look at her once; like not even close and his answers get shorter and curter till it feels like he is exclusively talking in acronyms only .
I’m watching the whole thing ( while making encouraging noises to the technical fellow) and the girl is getting redder and redder and more upset by the second while the guy either through sheer cluelessness or pure deutschbaggery continues to treat her like a very boring piece of furniture that should be in a garage sale soon
The idiot leaves. My TF wins the battle with ATT does some sort of victory lap and leaves to fetch my phone
The girl and I are looking at each other and she is clearly so fucking pissed that she is close to tears, undoubtedly she wants to say so much but this is her job I am a total stranger and you know whatever!
I commiserate with her “They can’t be all that bad yeah”
Note to self : always be prepared that people will answer a rhetorical question
She gives me like a half smile and goes “Most are”
“I’m a person you know! just look at me when you talk to me how hard can that be”
and she ranted for a while, boy did she rant, and it was not angry it was just fucking sad !
I got the phone and left
Like everyone else I am absolutely certain I have been guilty of prioritizing my phone screen over the person I talk to . I’ve tried very hard to be mindful of this since then ( almost definitely like every other resolution to be a better person in my life it won’t last )and have caught myself twice doing this twice since, once at the gym ( well I was there for the Jacuzzi) with the person checking me in and once at the bank while depositing a cheque ( in my defense in both cases someone was wrong about something on Face book and it was clearly critical that I respond instantly )
I am not even going to count how people behave around people they know, with their phones. Its just baffling how insanely rude most of us are about this and how we just accept it . How is that damn screen more important than a real human being trying to interact with you . I am not trying to be all holier than thou here I am as guilty of this (more so probably )as everyone , but if you step back and think about it , it is pretty amazing and not exactly in a good way
Like everything else on this blog there is almost no point to be made here, but I did get to see how someone, who deals with people, who just don't even bother to hide the fact that they ( people) don’t care about said person existing or not ( or at least behave like it ) everyday actually feels about it . WAS NOT PRETTY !
er although if you are reading this on your phone please don’t stop :-)
<insert joke here to end on happy note>
