I hate to keep beating a dead horse, returning to the same well, dancing on the same lap harping on it, but I cannot understand my coworkers.
Yes, they speak English for the most part but its the context that confuses me. We are not only never on the same page, we're in entirely different books.
To whit: Yesterday I was asked to train a new worker in the vast intricacies of fairy floss cart. I gave him the physical basics..... ask the customer what they'd like, get the fairy floss, serve the fairy floss... we didn't even touch on the whole confusing cash register business.
The abysmally low high points of our time together:
1. He refused to tell me the proper pronounciation of his name (it was a very ethnic variant that I'd never seen before) yet would snap at me "That ain't it!" when I'd miss the target.
2. Whenever this particular sweet young newbie from another stand would wander by, he would disappear in that direction for at least a quarter of an hour.
3. He gave away fairy floss to any teenage girl who batted her lashes at him before I told him it was coming out of his check.
4. When I mentioned, as he stood in a pile of sugar sprinklings that nearly buried his sneakers, that when it gets that bad we sweep it up, as he'd seen me do several times previous, he replied, with open scorn, "Men don't sweep. That's women's work."
5. He had only three questions:
a: When did he get a raise?
b: When did he get to leave?
c: When could he "control" the cash register?
Yes, I can hear some of you.... he's just behaving like a typical teenager at a measly part-time job. And no, I didn't take his head off at the sweeping comment. I doubt if I had that he'd have missed it, as unused as it was.
But this is the stupidity of it all: as far as he knew, because he was never told differently, I was his manager, not another coworker.
I kind of doubt I'll be seeing Mr. Unpronouncable again anytime soon. The real manager asked me later for a precis of our time together. And I'm just too old to lie.
For those of you who think I'm just randomly bitching in these rants... okay, yeah, you got me. But it's not only bitchery. It's real and true amazement at the complete generational discrepancies. I feel like an anthropologist washed up on some exotic shore.... Teenybopper Isle.
And it's a scary place.
Let me take a wild guess. The new fairy floss guy (what the hell is fairy floss?) is not named "Smith", "Robertson", "Sorenson", or even "Andropov".
I suspect that he wouldn't tell you his name because a mere female mortal could not possibly comprehend such lofty ideas.
I don't understand. I worked behind a register in high school and I was nice and polite and worked hard. I paid my way for two school trips to Europe out of it. My parents have the hardest time staffing their store with kids who want to work at all. You'd think a guy who's totaled his new car by falling asleep at the wheel (he's lucky not to be dead), would be dying to work extra shifts... No way. Lazy fuckers. I think turning 30 means getting old and realize that teenagers really are as dumb as they look. I'm less than 10 years older than some of these guys. They don't want to work at *their* parents' stores, so they work at mine, and do a crappy job. 'Tuck in your shirt!' 'Don't lose your name tag anymore! Or I will WRITE IT ONTO THE FRONT!' 'Do you know what scrubbing the sink is? Make sure it's C-L-E-A-N.' 'Is it too much to ask you guys to fill the soda racks before the lunchtime rush comes in? I'd like there to be sodas for customers to buy.'
Posted by: mapgirl at May 17, 2004 12:05 PMTeenagers are young and stupid. You accept it. You move on.
Hell, these days, You post an amusing entry detailing your encounter.
Back in my day we used to wave canes at the youngins and call them 'young whippersnappers' we didn't have this fandangled inter-thingy. The youth of today just don't know how easy they have it.
Posted by: xade at May 17, 2004 06:56 PMLeeAnn, you forgot the perk of spending the day with underachieving teenagers--the expansion of your vocabulary!!!! The next time the GM1 asks what you want to do of an evening, you murmur "Dude, let's just chill at the crib..."
Posted by: Susie at May 17, 2004 11:14 PMWasn't the latest Survivor held on Teenybopper Isle?
Posted by: Simon at May 18, 2004 01:48 AMWhen I worked in the Pediatrics clinic, we had a day for "Young Parents" and there were all sorts of ridiculous names that they'd put on these babies. I had to call out the patient's name, so that was the baby; once I came across the name "Chrisse", and I pronounced it "Krissy". The teenage mother wouldn't come up with the kid, until I "pronounced the name right", but she wouldn't tell me how to say it!!!!! The grandmother finally told me it was pronounced "Sher-eese". I wondered later if they celebrated "Sher-ismas" in December.
Posted by: Scooterdeb at May 18, 2004 01:28 PMI am just looking for the answer to the What is fairy floss? question, as well. Oh, and how many pimples did this kid have?
Posted by: Tiger at May 20, 2004 06:51 PMI think fairy floss is cotton candy. That's the best I can come up with.
Posted by: T at May 31, 2004 06:49 AM