Some think that respect needs to be earned. I think everyone deserves courtesy, but I wouldn’t blame someone for blanking for a second when confronted by MAGA-level idiocy/sociopathy/greed.
Comment on Is the "Gen z stare" a real thing?
FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 15 hours agoThe thing is, even if you do ask a dumb question they should treat you with respect, right? And not make you feel bad about it, unless it’s perhaps offensive.
Jack@lemmy.ca 3 hours ago
scarabic@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Yes. They work in the store and know all the things. Others do not. It’s literally not their job to know. It may seem dumb when someone doesn’t know something you have learned 100x over. You may even convince yourself that any normal person should figure some thing out easily. But everyone isn’t working in that store thinking about this stuff for 8 hours at a time and we are all busy living our lives. I don’t believe in being a dick to someone because you think their question is dumb. Frankly we are all smart at some things and dumb at others and the rule should be to have some grace with one another about it.
The water cups may indeed be right there dude but excuse the fuck out of me for not spotting them - I just walked into this restaurant and there are a million things to look at in here.
EveryMuffinIsNowEncrypted@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 hours ago
As someone who works in retail, the thing that pisses me off frankly isn’t so much the stupid questions (though yes those are annoying af), it’s the fact that most of the time customers don’t even attempt to figure it out before asking. A question pops into their head and they immediately ask someone. Maybe they should try to use that brain inside of their head before bothering a severely underpaid & overworked retail worker who can barely afford food on the table before asking such an inane question.
scarabic@lemmy.world 21 minutes ago
Again. You think someone should be able to figure it out with the tiniest effort. But it really may not be so obvious to someone who doesn’t know what you know.
You are not alone here - all people struggle to truly visualize the mind of another person who doesn’t know what they themselves know. Sure you know whatever it is 1000 times over. But the customer does not, and they may have a totally different 1000 things in their mind.
People don’t want to take a guess when they can just ask. If you are in an area where customers can address you, you are there to help them. Why should they stop and guess to spare you effort? It is unreasonable to get pissed off by this.
CentipedeFarrier@piefed.social 5 hours ago
Stupid questions don’t bother me as much when I can be assured they who are asking them at least made an attempt to figure it out on their own first.
You know, I kinda low-key hate this. I get why it’s your thing because I’ve also worked various retail and service/hospitality jobs, but still. I usually go out of my way to avoid having to talk to employees, but sometimes I don’t have the time, or my pain flares up and I lack mental energy to do that. In especially the latter case, which is getting more frequent, I just ask someone rather than spending 45 minutes looking with pain-glazed eyes that pass right over what I’m looking for. Same thing if I go to huge places I don’t normally go to. It’s absolutely, no question, a gigantic waste of my time to even try to figure it out rather than just ask someone who works there to look up where it is and point for me, 3 minutes tops. They don’t know where it is either, what hope do I have to guess right?
This is one of those “you don’t really know what someone is dealing with/has experience with” things. And it sucks on both ends, but at least from my experience in those roles, it helps to remember that retailers of all types have a nasty habit of changing store layouts periodically with the specific goal of making regular/frequent customers wander around looking for things they used to be able to find, just so they can briefly make more money on impulse purchases. They’ve even done studies to see how often people are willing to tolerate these layout changes so they can maximize it further. Maybe retailers shouldn’t keep forcing customers to use their whole brain (remapping, which will take multiple trips at full brain power. The effort also fatigues a person, which reduces willpower to resist impulse buys) for what should be a minimal-brain activity (routine habits exist to decrease mental load), and you wouldn’t have people who don’t want to further engage their brain just to find the pie crusts that used to be right here, damnit.
I can feel the overwhelm set in whenever I walk into a store to discover a changed layout, sometimes months after it happened. Half the time I just leave because I’m not prepared for that much effort, and I have the luxury to do so because I’m the only one impacted. If I had kids to feed or something the entire equation shifts dramatically, and I’d be in there, zombied, asking annoying questions.
scarabic@lemmy.world 15 minutes ago
Exactly. You are not in your element so even things that seem obvious might not be. It’s very easy to be wrong. And if you do the wrong thing, people will get made at you because “you could have just asked.” Do they really want customers in there all acting on their best guesses? I think that is a fool’s wish. I also don’t get the expectation that I will prioritize sparing the staff a small effort like speaking some info. I’m not taking a shit on the floor and making them clean it up. I’m asking a question. They’re literally paid to help. This is the job. It’s work. This is why they call it working.
Entertainmeonly@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 hours ago
Remember when you’re mother told you, “if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all”? Well gen z is the kids raise on that behavior. They don’t insult but they don’t give fake small talk to cover it. Maybe I’m projecting but i feel the gen z stare is the evolution of that mindset.
FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
That’s a pretty profound theory. To the YouTube video-essay factory with you