Monday, December 31, 2007

Where have all the nice people gone?

I have come across so many not-so-nice borderline evil people in the last three weeks alone that I'm just not sure there are any nice people left in the GTA. Here are just some of the things that have happened:

1. I saw an elderly woman with a cane accidentally hit a huge box out of another woman's hands. It was clearly an accident however, the elderly woman did NOT apologize, did not help pickup the parcel and did not even seem to care that she had done it.

2. A line up in a grocery store led to another register being opened. The cashier says "can I help the next person in line please." Another elderly woman at the back of the queue barges forward. It was my fiance that said "excuse me, but we were here first and you were not NEXT in line." After some arguing my fiance proves his point and the next woman in line (who was before my fiance) was served.

3. Yet another elderly woman, this one looked more like a troll in leopard skin clothing, comes barging down the wrong way with her shopping cart hitting everyone in her path. My fiance is hit and shakes his head "what is it with the elderly? Once they've hit a certain age they forget their manners."

4. The pizza delivery guy. Now he's not elderly, but he certainly is old enough to know his manners, I could care less what country he's from, these are standard P's and Q's. He comes to our door with 3 minutes to spare before our food is free. He hands my fiance the pizza and the bill. My fiance says "we ordered pop as well, it's on the receipt but I don't see it here." Now I have already taken the pizza into the kitchen so the pizza delivery guy does not believe that we haven't received our pop. He accuses my fiance of lying when I say "actually we only have pizza here, no pop." Pizza guy then says "oh it must be in my car" and turns around to go get it. In the mean time I sign the bill including tip. I start to rip the receipt in half, one copy for him, one copy for myself. However, the rip is not going quite right and it's tearing into his copy. He knocks on the door and without an apology he hands me my drinks.... As it turns out my fiance wasn't lying but hey now, no need to acknowledge that. So I hand him the bill that I've signed explaining that I am unable to rip it in half and if he could... Before I finish my sentence he says very rudely "where is my pen?" So I pass him his pen and continue with my sentence about how I would like my half of the receipt. Again I don't get to finish my sentence because he's turned around and walked away. Completely gone. "I'm still talking here... that's OK, I didn't want my receipt anyways, but next time, should we order from you again I will not be tipping you anything... and I might even keep your damn pen."

5. The TTC subway ticket ripper. It's Christmas Eve, and unfortunately I'm on my way to work. I just got off the streetcar which I was riding for about 40 minutes. I decide to get off at the subway station and take the train only one stop as it's freezing cold outside and I'm already not feeling well. By taking the subway I can stay indoors all the way to work. So I go to show my transfer to the subway ticket guy and I notice it's not the right transfer. This transfer is from the day before. I apologize and keep looking through all of my pockets and purse. I'm pulling out all sorts of transfers but not the one I need. It must have fallen out of my pocket on the streetcar. It's obvious I ride the TTC all the time and am a paying customer. I just cannot find the transfer from today. I say to the guy "it must have fallen out of my pocket, but I've just gotten off the 501 and am only going one stop on the subway, do you think you can let me go?" He says "only if you pay a fare." I said "I paid my fare to the TTC streetcar driver, I've lost my transfer, but as you can see from all of these other transfers, I am not one to scam the TTC." He starts to get belligerent with me and says "Look either show me the transfer from this morning or pay another fare!" I'm fully shocked, I would like to reiterate my point here so when I stop coughing I say "you expect me to pay again even though I'm only going one stop?" He just taps the glass... Now I'm super pissed, who does that? On Christmas eve of all days! I couldn't control my temper "F@$K YOU!!!" I say, as I walk outside in the cold, to that next stop. It's not very far, but on principle I'm pissed, I'm cold, and now I'm crying too.

This is just one of MANY evil TTC staff stories, I seriously think "being an asshole" is a requirement for employment.

6. The Home Depot Cashier. This is by far the worst story and I'm just not sure I'll be able to do it justice. My fiance, at this point I should tell you his name, Danny and I are doing some Christmas shopping. We know what we have to get, we've been given specific instructions. We printed the details from The Home Depot website. We need a tool box and a tool organizer. We find them with ease and proceed to the checkout. For some strange reason there is only one person working the cash but hey, Danny and I are very patient and understanding. There is only one woman in front of us who is paying in what appears to be pennies. The Home Depot cashier, who will now be known only as Evil Bitch, says to us "how are you paying?" even though the woman in front of us is still counting her pennies. We say "credit card." Evil Bitch says "good, because I don't have any change and I'm closing as soon as the next cashier comes" while looking at her watch. The woman in front of us who was obviously forced to pay with all her pennies, finally leaves and we are next. Evil Bitch tries to scan the tool organizer but finds there is no bar code or price tag. She looks at us like this is our fault and proceeds to help the next person in line explaining the "exact cash or plastic only" rule. She also calls the department for a bar code of some kind. Danny explains that we have a print out from their website that gives an in-store SKU number. Evil Bitch continues to push us aside and help the next person in line, rushing everyone out the door. She says to us "that won't help, I need a SKU" and dials the number for the department again. Danny tries again to say that we have the SKU but she just ignores us and moves to the third customer behind us now. Danny waits for the right moment and says "according to the flyer here we have the SKU." Evil Bitch yells (and I'm not exaggerating) "LOOK I JUST NEED TO CONFIRM WITH THE DEPARTMENT SO RELAX!" Danny says "OK I was just trying to help, the least you could do is be polite."
Well you can only imagine what Evil Bitch has to say about this. She goes off on one of her rants saying that we are the ones being pushy as she's tried to explain to us several times about how it works here at the Home Depot.
Danny says "you know what, it's just not worth it. You can have this, we'll go elsewhere." This whole time I've been good and quiet, Danny can handle his own. We walk out of the store. Let me say this again... We are no longer in the store. Evil Bitch is still yelling! Can you believe that? We've already left, we no longer care to purchase anything and she is still going off on one of her rants saying something about how she was just trying to help us. This is when I say "No you weren't trying to help, you were trying to finish your shift." Believe me, I held back, I did want to tell her just where to go. But Danny and I just continued walking away, laughing at the current situation.

Now to top things off, Danny and I have decided we really do need those items, it's too close to Christmas and we have to get these things. So we went back making sure that Evil Bitch was not there. There was a new cashier and our items were still sitting on the counter. There was absolutely no line up. We tell the new lady that we'd like to purchase the two items behind the counter and she gladly gets them for us. She starts to ring them in when low and behold, there is still no bar code. Danny takes out his paper and says "I printed these off your website, I believe it has a SKU." New Lady looks at the paper and says "yes you are right." She punches the SKU in and hey now, surprise surprise, it works! Too bad Evil Bitch didn't giver-a-go...

Again I ask, where have all the nice people gone? If you're out there, please give me a ring... I'm starting to lose my faith.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Too long!

I haven't written a blog in what seems like ages!

I've just been so busy. Work is overkill, they assign me so much more work per day and I'm not even sure why, so no time for blogging anymore... Maybe that's why? Maybe they are on to my time management skills where I allot so much time to Blogging and things.

So here is the update...

I had the last week of November off and had planned on catching up on all school work and making my wedding invitations. Sadly, I came down with and awful cold and spent the majority of the week locked in the bedroom with a box of tissue.
I did get ahead on schoolwork because I was able to read, but I only did half of the wedding invites so that's a drag. I still have a couple of months to get those all finished though, so no pressure yet...

I also had a birthday recently, which most people know :) That was awesome, I went out with work buddies and then on my actual birthday, my fiancé took me out to dinner where he surprised me with my parents and a couple of friends ... very nice


Now we're almost all ready for Christmas, just a few last minute things to get and we're good to go! Now we can sit down with a bowl of popcorn, a glass of eggnog, and watch those silly but classic holiday movies!