Lost - One Goat

I try not to be a negative person, really I do. It's more than just being negative or having an attitude problem of some sort; it has do with an increase in intolerable behavior and my growing intolerance of those displaying that behavior (which is code for "people really annoy me").

For some reason, here in Port Hawkesbury, there are a few persisting customer service issues -- big ones. As someone who goes to several of the same stores, sometimes several times a day, these ongoing issues are quickly coming to a head.

An important skill required of any successful employee in the service industry, is communication. That's why I am so baffled that Cashier Mary (which is what I'll call her) has been able to maintain her job. I'm sure she's a lovely woman in a social setting, but when it comes to her job, she seems to be incapable of a spoken word. In as many times as I've been to her cash, she has never once uttered a single syllable, in my direction or anyone else's.

Normally, someone taking your money at a store like that will, at the very least, say hello, tell you how much your order has come to, let you know how much your change is, and tell you to have a nice day. Mary doesn't smile, doesn't talk, doesn't even acknowledge there's a person standing in front of her, let alone acknowledge you've just made a financial transaction.

The most annoying part about the Mary situation is the complete ignorance on her part and the part of her employers. I consider her silence to be rude, as do others I've heard complain. Someone who is timid should at least be polite in a work environment that requires customer interaction, and someone who isn't capable of that should not, I suggest, be working at one of the busiest stores in town. It really gets my goat.

Second on my hit list this week are the storefront smokers. You know who I mean; you're rushing around town, trying to get home to start supper, two kids in the back of your rig (who might just start eating each other is you don't hurry up). You pull up to a business, and an employee is outside smoking a cigarette. This in itself wouldn't be a huge problem, if there were someone else in the store to serve customers. But, when I'm standing at the cash with my milk in one hand, car keys and a twenty in the other, tapping my foot impatiently and glaring like a madwoman at the little punk outside trying to steal one last drag off his Number 7 - that's when it becomes a problem. Have your smoke when there's no one around, not with people waiting inside for service. Those guys get my goat, too.

I'm on a roll.

A year after my first rant on this next subject, I can actually narrow the field and be even more specific this time around. People who are just naturally bad drivers can at least be forgiven to a certain extent; it's the intentionally bad drivers who bring out my road rage.

To give one example, there's a cab driver in town who is seemingly determined to make the roads unsafe. This guy has cut me off three times in the past month, and not in a subtle, oops-it-was-a-mistake kind of way. He'll see the traffic coming right toward him and jut out at the last second, sending every driver close to him into panic mode, with brakes slamming, horns tooting, and fingers flying - all to shave, what? Maybe two seconds off his arrival time? He's a bad driver by choice, which is worse than being a bad driver by accident, not to mention completely ridiculous. You know who you are, pal. And you got my goat, too.

Finally, there's something I need clarified: with violence and crime all over the province, known drug dealers making a fortune, and unsolved murders galore, why do police agencies consider illegal cigarettes to be enemy number one? A large seizure might look impressive to some, but it seems to me that resources might be better spent on catching murderers and stuff like that. I'm not defending those who break the law in any capacity, but crying, broken-hearted families and cops smiling over a table full of illegal smokes are too often seen on the same nightly newscast. I'm not losing much sleep over the government's lost profits, call me crazy.

My goat has officially left the building. It must be a full moon or something.