Old enough to be this old?

[Caster]

I know I complain a lot about people. If everyone worked with the public, there'd be a lot more of ya'll griping too. Last time it was about people touching you all the time. Now, people won't leave.

Is it unreasonable to want to run a business where you provide a fast, accurate and quality service at a VERY reasonable rate, and after you've provided that fast friendly service, expect the customer to LEAVE! ??? Dang vagrants! I don't mind talkin' now. Get me started and I can talk for hours but these people, they stand around and talk about nothing. Any of you guys whose been out to my place can say, I'll chew your ear off, but if I'm talking to you and you aren't paying attention, or trying to leave, I'm going to let you. THese people??? I've had them follow me to the latrine. "No thanks, I got two hands on this and I don't need any help."

THis ain't my place so I can't do anything about it. I understand fraternizing with people you are akin to. I DO NOT understand the need to just BE somewhere. People come over here an NEVER BUY ANYTHING. They just sit and talk to the owner for hours and he never lets them down, but ohh he commences to cussin' when they leave. I just say HEY! why don't you tell them!!!!??? "Cuz I ain't a ###hole like you!" he says.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

My wife votes yes. I am an old bastard trapped in a middle aged body. Personally, I'm not convinced this isn't purgatory and I am having my temper and patience tried before being released to my final destination. ..............losing my mind I'm telling ya! THe public/sheeple are friggin NUTZ!

[gjohnsoniv]

You are not a people person. I have worked in sales and retail the past five years and there are always people like that. Sometimes it's just best to have a "project" in the back that needs to be taken care of.

[Caster]

You are not a people person. I have worked in sales and retail the past five years and there are always people like that. Sometimes it's just best to have a "project" in the back that needs to be taken care of.

HA! I do, it's called saying "thank you, have a nice day" and walking off.

[gjohnsoniv]

Yeah there is a guy that comes in that would talk to you all day if you don't just walk off. Nice guy, but he will talk foreveeeerrrr....

[Jonnin]

I cannot connect these things to age. Just sounds like you, and myself, are just somewhat introverted or downright antisocial. I do not mind talking on my job because its usually my boss and he wants to pay me to goof off, I am happy to oblige. But when some idiot calls me to ask me 20000 questions in hindu or whatever language it is, that makes me into mr. grouch in a hurry. However i am happy to chat on a forum all day. It just depends on the topic I guess, if I am bored, I want it and the person to go away, and online, I can control that. In person, its draining.

I do not feel old. Everything still "works" and nothing really hurts often, just if I over-do it and that happened as a teenager too, anyone can stress their body. But now and again I have horrible realizations. Things like WWII vets .... kids that are born this year will probably never talk to one, for the most part. Things like being mailed about a 20 year HS reunion, it *can't* have been that long ago! Things like "you must have been born in 1991 to drink" startle me now and then. Basically I still feel like a teenager so these occasional reminders are unwelcome, I would rather not think about it for another 20 if that is OK....

[Raoul]

I'm a grouch old b@$t@rd.

But I am charming.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Hi Caster

It is situation dependent. I like to talk about what is interesting and don't like to talk about what is dull. Some people are not people persons. I generally prefer the company of machines and dogs, but don't mind an occasional person when in the mood.

I wasn't a people person as a kid and at the time perceived it as a fault. One reason I studied psychology, and became skilled enough that when I work at it, can perfectly masquerade as a normal people person. But masquerading as a people person is not much fun and it is too much work. Finally quit bothering to be a people person except rare times I get in the mood.

Some folks are so fond of human company that they get lonely even eating lunch alone or spending more than a few minutes alone. Its not their fault. Just the other end of the scale.

If the pest customers of which you speak are older-- Most folks are in the middle of the bell curve and tend to get lonely unless they meet another human once in awhile. When they get old and retire, they don't have enough money to do much of anything and so they often stay at home a lot. When I was doing social work some of the clients were little old people who spent most of their time at home. Often the middle-class neighborhood where they built their house was now a slum and slightly dangerous to go outside. All the person's friends and relatives had died off. So they might not talk to anybody for days, and getting to talk to the clerk at the grocery store or post office might be the high point of the week and they look forward to it. Might as well be living in solitary confinement. I'd go visit those folks and they were overjoyed to have somebody to talk to. I couldn't talk to em more than an hour without getting in trouble, especially when most often they didn't have anything wrong. But they enjoyed a visit by a total stranger so much that it was hard to break off and leave after an hour because they wanted to talk more, have somebody around.

So some of the geezers that just hang around talking-- You might be the high point of their week in social interaction. If I were in your place I'd cut em some slack even though it wouldn't please me either to have to talk about nothing.

[media=]

[/media]

In Isaac Asimov's Foundation series of SF books there was a planet Solaria-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaria

You can read the article if curious but basically Solaria had been colonized by few people and many robots, with one person per large robotic estate. They didn't mind talking to each other via videophone but were too people-phobic to be in the same room, or even within 100 miles of another human. The only time they would get close to another human was for reproduction, and human interaction was barely tolerable even for that purpose. Sounds kinda like the internet to me. I'd much rather talk to somebody on the internet than in person, but am on the hermit end of the bell curve. Solaria sounds like a pretty good place to live.

[jtmaze]

I have been in retail for years and do understand your frustration. The thing I have found that gets rid of the ones you know are just there for the company is to make them listen to you. Just turn the conversation to something that you are well versed in and make them listen to you for about 1.5-2 minutes and they will be running out the door. Most people just want someone to listen to them.

JTM

Sent from my iPhone

[gjohnsoniv]

One of the few times in which I have enjoyed talking to a customer for a length of time was yesterday and the day before. One gentlemen was an elderly fellow who sat down at the table in my "office" and I was planning on walking off but we began talking. He turned out to be an avid gun and knife collector, and was wonderfully fun to talk to. We ended up talking until his wife was done shopping and had to drag him out. The other one was a bomber pilot from Vietnam, my boss and I ended up talking with him for the better part of several hours while his wife shopped. Both wonderful fellows.

[R_Bert]

Hand them a broom.

[Garufa]

Caster, do you run a gun store?

[Caster]

Caster, do you run a gun store?

You'd think so, right?

[NRA]

tomorrow I will be 48 and no I am not a old Bastar*! I refuse to be.

[Caster]

tomorrow I will be 48 and no I am not a old Bastar*! I refuse to be.

If everyone was like you, I wouldn't be either! You're alright, it's the rest of gumby populace thats the problem.

[Guest Old goat]

Please see the name, add Grouchy

[Ebow1]

Yeah, I gotta say if I'm the owner and people are coming around not buying anything, not doing anything, just hanging around and not leaving, I'm telling them to leave and I'm putting up a no loitering sign. I am by no means a people person, but when I was at Blockbuster there were a few people who would hang out and talk about the movies with us that were pretty cool. I certainly didn't mind that as I worked at a slow store and it was nice to make the time go by faster. I don't like it when people just hang around without any conversing, it makes me think they're up to no good, and I don't want to preoccupy myself with anything because I'm keeping an eye on them. A lot of parents used to leave their kids in our store as some form of free babysitting while they went to the grocery store next to us. That definitely bugged me as nothing destroys the organization of a movie store faster than an unsupervised kid. We had one 9 year old who was alright. We had to wait 5 weeks before we could rent the video games for free but he had one of those gamepass things where he would just rent X amount of games a month for a monthly fee. He would always talk to us about which games were worth renting and which ones weren't, so I did him a favor and convinced his mom that Dead Space was a completely acceptable game for a 9 year old.

[DWARREN123]

GOD is great, Beer is good and People are crazy!

[Superman]

The guy I work for is just like what you describe. He just wont shutup and a lot of it is just flat out lies. I'm trying to work and he just goes on and on or I'm trying to leave and he follows me out to my truck. Today he was talking about his old mustang and how he was offered 10 grand for it in 1979 and then the owner of the Ford dealer offered him any car on the lot for it in 1980. It is a 1966 convertible 6cyl.

Edited August 22, 2012 by Superman

[Mike.357]

I am an old bastard, ( my parents were married though). Anyone around here for a while will not question me being a grouch at times.

Now being back in retail alcohol I get lots of practice. To be a proper bastard it takes cunning, practice and a silver tongue.

Fortunately there is little time for dilly dallying around our checkout. Tthere is always someone standing in line.

I am pushing old age, but i am not too feeble minded yet. What gets me going is people who cannot comprehend how to slide their credit/debit card through the card reader. I mean how freaking hard is it to slide it stripe down, with the stripe over the flashing blue arrows? How does someone live to be in their 70's or beyond and have no basic comprehension skills?

I try to save the silver tongue for talking to all the good looking woman I interact with daily . But I have no patience for people who are wasting my time. And the next person who tells me " So what do you think of Trader Joe's?", or tells me all about Two Buck Chuck like I fell off the turnip truck yesterday is gonna get bitch slapped.

Yeah I am an old bastard just like you Caster.

Edited August 22, 2012 by Mike.357

[Guest Wildogre]

Actually I do not know if Castor is a b@3ta4d or not.

I am old enough to have helped vote Jimmy Carter out of office.

I have also been accused of not being the most polite person in the world, if you get on my bad side. Something that has not really happened in few weeks.