money down and phone's aringin'

i love your "just a note" part. sooo true!

COOL! I think I'm gonna like you friend!!!
gimme some more peeves!!!

but that does suck when they are on the phone, some businesses have put up signs where they get no service if they are on the phone, try that!

i know how you feel. i have customers come into my office and toss their cc down on the desk never stopping their "important" conversation on the cell phone. maybe next time i should start typing or filing and ignore them until they are ready to talk to me.

I was actually wondering about bhrebear Walter but realized after my post that it could be taken to mean you too.

That's commendable, I guess. I don't think I could hold back in every instance.

Funny thing is that I just got back from TGIF's with my son and my parents and my son pointed up at the giant photo on the wall by our booth and asked "Dad, what's that?" I didn't know what he was talking about at first. I asked him what he meant. He asked more insistently this time, pointing "What's that?!" That's when I saw the cockroach crawling up the photo. It was within reach so I simply got it with my napkin and I had to tell the waitstaff person. Well, the manager came around even before we received the check and said he understood there was a problem. No one wanted to mention the other problem but I told him about both (and my mother quickly chimed in that it wasn't the waitress's fault) but there wasn't just a cockroach, the waitress had also tilted my father's plate when setting it down which caused him to spring into action with both hands to keep his ribs from sliding into his lap. Good reflexes for an 82 year old! I know I was impressed. But he went "Oooh!" and made some other sound of surprise and/or pain, I couldn't tell which. I thought the ribs were hot and burning him. Food can be very hot when first brought to the table and older folks burn much more easily. Thankfully, he was OK. Anyway, I didn't even get into that part of it, any of the details really, and the manager gave us four tickets for free appetizers. I just hope they take care of the cockroach problem before I go back. It isn't that kind of place where you might expect roaches. It's not in a downtown city area, in the 'burbs, pretty new and always clean. Anyway, at least they were nice as can be and handled it well. I know it must be nearly to totally impossible to keep those places bug free with all that food. And waitresses aren't perfect either. I still had to say something. I was polite about it and they responded accordingly I thought.

that's what I said too!

I blame this on the insane "customer is always right" BS.

Thanks Walter. My mother did suggest they let their exterminator know about it.

Here's another one that was interesting. I was in the customer service line at Walmart a couple of days ago to make a return. There were two registers working for a change but one was all hung up, stalled on something. Right before my turn came to go to step up to the open register a woman behind me asked something of the clerk. I didn't hear what she said. She was black, he was white, I'm white and the woman behind this black woman appeared to be hispanic. I don't know if any of that is relevant, it was NOT important to me but you decide. So the woman behind me asks her question and the clerk ignores me to give her a form for wiring money to Africa. She asks him another question and now the clerk is punching in things on his touch screen monitor for her. I'm looking, waiting, thinking I'm here in line, I'm up for being helped, and he's taking care of the woman behind me. I rustled my receipt, cleared my throat, coughed a bit louder this next time to get his attention. I even waived my hand in a gesture as if to say "Hello, I'm here now and should be getting served, NOT the woman behind me". Finally, I had had enough and I said to him "Excuse me sir. I'm a little confused. I'm the next person in line and I don't understand why I'm not being treated as the next person in line." The hispanic woman two people back blurted out "That was right!" and the clerk turned his screen to refresh or whatever and took care of my return without a word. He never apologized. The woman behind me butting in line as she was said nothing apologetic or anything at all about it either. I thanked the clerk as politely as I could when he finished with my return. I was not overly loud as to be sarcastic or anything. He said nothing to my "Thank you very much sir. Have a nice day." He just said nothing.

What do you make of that? It was surreal to me. Apparently, this sort of thing is acceptable to these two others, the clerk and the woman butting in line so obviously, because neither one even said one single word of apology. At least that woman behind her said "That was right!" and loudly. I looked at her and winked with a smile. It let me know that the whole world hasn't gone insane, only about Half of it.

sawomri, I thought about it but the young punk at the counter was probably the manager himself. It isn't worth my time. I had better things to do.

And Walter, I really wasn't sure what I was seeing, if it was some sort of "reverse" racism or not. It sure would be harder to prove, always is, when it's a white male giving preferential treatment to a minority instead of to me, also a white male. Besides, you have to prove "damages". My "damages" amounted to feeling slighted and perhaps all of a minute of my time being wasted. The attorney's, on the other hand, wouldn't take the case without a retainer for several hours of their time (against Walmart, probably more like several hundreds of hours) at between $170-$500/hour ($170 being the absolute lowest for an attorney in this area and $500 is probably low for the high end for lawyers who'd be willing to take on a giant corporation like Walmart). So it doesn't exactly seem worth it. Now if this happened on a regular basis, and I worked for a union who'd take up the suit on my behalf, and on the behalf of others, if it were a pattern that could be proven, then hell yeah I'd go for it and would encourage anyone else in that situation to do the same.

TGIX; Sounds like you just came across a case of double rude and ignorant. Having grown up with a white mom and a black dad and being a person of color I've seen more than my share of discrimination and racism.People will sometimes appear to be racist ignorant when in fact they are just regular ignorant.
I walk up to the deli and 3 white people come after I do. The person behind the counter will come out and without seeing who got there first automatically offer to wait on the white people first. I was at the Shell station at GA ave at the beltway and an older white guy walked in and ask the clerk how to get to Calverton Holiday Inn. I gave him directions and another older white guy said "that's bullshit". The lost guy just turned his back on me and seemed relieved and certain that he was about to get the correct directions. Long story short he wanted to go to Calverton, 5 minutes away. His new found buddy sent him to Crofton, about an hour away.
These people in both cases were not racist. They were probably raised or otherwise conditioned to see people of color as less important or less intelligent. Regular ignorant.