The Ugly People

The new job is going well. I now work for one of the super-centers (grocery store with almost anything else you could ask for) that I used to work in. I was a merchandiser who traveled to several different locations previously. So it's really weird (but good) seeing my boss every single day compared to the few times a year I'm used to. It's weird being able to get to work in only a few minutes each day compared to the long commute I used to have. It's really weird having actual co-workers. I honestly haven't had co-workers for the past 12+ years.

I'm used to working in the store. I'm used to helping out customers. I actually really like helping out customers. I hate shopping (I am SUCH a tomboy (and do not like spending money)) and I love the idea that I'm making our customer's shopping experience that much easier and possibly more enjoyable. I love taking people to that elusive item they can't seem to find (most things are elusive in a giant super-center). Even the grouchy ones do not bother me all that much. I'm used to them. I don't like shopping either. I get it.

The change that I'm really struggling with is watching the way certain co-workers treat me and the customers on a daily basis. Previously I'd see a few store employees throughout each store once a week. Four times a month I'd interact with a handful of store employees.

I don't have an actual department. I work for the team that resets the store. You know, when they switch the spring toys over to the summer toys, when they change the towel set to the new towels, and when the back to school area becomes the Halloween area that then becomes the Christmas area, and so on and so forth never ending, that's my team. I don't work in sporting good's and issue fishing licences. I don't work in the electronic's area and get expensive video games out of the locked cases. I don't run a cash register or stock groceries. I do not have a designated department (except for the reset team).

All day long customer's ask for help and I happily help them when I can and then I call the department team member when I can't. I'm finding that several department team members just don't care or they're even mean (to me... hopefully not to customers). When I call a department to ask for something for a customer and the person answers, "I don't know," and then hangs up on me, or they say, "I'm busy, you figure it out," (in a really mean snotty tone) I'm first flabbergasted, then pretty mad, and then hurt. I've been finding myself for the last few months getting hurt by the way co-workers treat me and others. I work in a really big store so there are a lot of co-workers and certainly not all of them are mean but I'm shocked at how many of them are. It's been an adjustment I haven't been handling super well.

I realized when I quite my last job that the adjustment of having co-workers for the first time in over a decade would be really strange but It's strange and hard and kind of emotionally draining. Between people not saying hi when you do, making weird scowls when they have to wait for your large load in the hallway, whispering who knows what when you're around the corner, no one talking to each other in the break room, and flat out being rude and mean when you're trying to get their assistance I was starting to think the overall human race is even more unbearable then I'd already thought. I'm not a huge fan of people in general and this new experience is not helping that situation.

Someone was really mean the other day. It led to me crying on the way home from work and having a really bad evening. It led to a customer being really confused and not finding what she wanted (I don't think we had it). But the next day I realized something. I realized that all these rotten people are really miserable. I refuse to continue to take their rudeness personally. I have been. I have been hurt, angered, and wounded when co-workers have been mean but you know what, I don't think they're being mean to me. I think they're just mean. I think for whatever reason, they hate their job, or they're very unhappy at home, or they're going through something they can't handle and they're miserable. They don't want to help customers. They don't want to be nice to others. They don't even realize (probably for the most part) how big of a jerk they're being. I've always realized that there is a lot of grouchiness in this world, really rude and obnoxious people; over the past decade I've worked in over 22 stores and come in contact with thousands of people (not counting customers). But I don't think I've ever attributed it to them just being really truly unhappy.

I'm sure there will be the exception but from now on I'm not going to let them hurt me. I'm not going to let them make me unhappy too. I'm just going to sigh and feel sorry for them. Life is too short. There is a lot of hardship, a lot of mess, a lot of yuck that each of us have to walk through but letting the yuck turn you into a yucky person isn't the way to go. That's just sad and I'm not going to allow it to rub off on me. I chose to continue to see lovely in the midst of all the mess because there is always going to be ugly in the world but that doesn't mean we all have to be ugly too.

Life is beautiful!

That's the same sunflower from the last post, the one that broke two times before blooming.