One Stray Pea

One of these I’ve blogged about before, and the other one just goes hand in hand with it, so since I’m already like 14 days behind I’m giving you a 2 for the price of 1 deal. Savor it.

I can’t stand it when my groceries are bagged improperly. Sadly, it might be the one thing I’m truly passionate about in this life. I mean, I arrange my groceries on the belt the way that I want them bagged. All those drool babies need to do is follow my pre-made template! However this seems to be an effort in futility, because I always end up standing in the parking lot, in the rain, removing Kaboom! bathroom cleaner from the same bag with grapes. I also end up shaking my fist at the building. A few weeks ago I got stuck with some kid who wanted to ask me 20 questions about my life. So after about the third questions I said, “I’m also really anal retentive about how you bag my groceries, just in case you wanted to know.” Mr. 16 year old Smarty Pants says, “I didn’t.” Now, while I should’ve been taken aback by such boldness I was rather impressed. Sometimes I like when I get what I deserve. THEN halfway through my order he says, “Am I doing a good job? I’d hate for you to have to crap your pants.” Awesome. Kudos to that kid for the feisty banter. Side-note: he did indeed have more than the required 3 brain cells to bag groceries, because I didn’t have to shake my fist at the building.

Your side item of hate is that along with improperly bagging my groceries, I can’t stand paying for poor service. I married this guy who seems to believe “kill ‘em with kindness” and takes it too far. He will indeed tip bad waitresses, he’s the last to speak up because he’d rather pay people and just be done with it. Not I, because I’m so tough. I do not believe in tipping a waitress who brings me the wrong food, then brings me the right food but not prepared right, THEN brings it to me correct but cold. Why am I sending my order back 3 times? I’m the only one in the restaurant!

I was dubbed “The Tip Nazi” by my best friend after a horrible night at Max & Erma’s. It went something like this:
Me: “So what should I leave her? Like a penny?”
Her: “You are the tip nazi!”
It’s true. I am the tip nazi. Tips are earned, and should not be expected. All I ask is that you bring me the proper meal and keep my drink filled. This isn’t a difficult task. It’s not even that much more difficult than bagging groceries, you just have to concentrate on more than one person at a time. My problem arises because I’m the Queen of getting bad service. Karma perhaps? If you’re in a restaurant with me and you hear food hit the floor, it’s mine. If you see a manager at a table, that’s me too. If you hear someone saying, “I need to see a manager because I’m not paying for this. All we ordered was soup and salad and it took you and HOUR to get that. You don’t have to cook it, just dish it out. And it took an HOUR.” That’s me too.

I feel that I am allowed to be so particular because I spent seven years of my life working in a big box retail establishment. I bagged groceries, and I bagged well. I know this because my mom would let me bag her groceries and she is not above telling her own child that they don’t do a good job at a menial task. Then I stocked shelves and I always tried to look for things in the back for people. Granted, I was rude to some people but only after they stuck a coupon in my face and demanded that I find them said item. Or, when they insisted that they bought a box of vitamins at my store even though the package they had was written entirely in Japanese, except for the side where it said “Made in Japan.” OR that guy who yelled in my face, subsequently spitting on me, about dental floss for about 3 minutes and finally goes, “Do you even work here?!” (I was wearing a uniform and a name tag) and I said, “Nope” and walked away.

In general I noticed if I made an attempt to be helpful people were ok with that, I just ask that people make an attempt. Waiting an hour for soup and household poisons in with my grapes is just lazy.

Filed under: Hate on March 10th, 2007