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Chip Brown.

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Smile!

I have often said, if that stupid alarm at Walmart ever goes off on me, there'll be trouble. You know the alarm I'm talking about. The alarm at the door that says nothing when Johnny Sixpack shoplifts a bag of Cheetos but screams bloody murder when some old woman tries to take her cat litter out the door.

All too often that alarm goes off and I look, just like everyone else, to see who the shoplifter is. Unfortunately, it's never a shoplifter, it's always some working guy picking up something his wife told him to get. You see him coming back in with his package, sort of red faced and after they search his bags and frisk him they don't even apologize.

Let me tell you if that thing ever goes off (it almost did the other day) I don't know what I'll do. But there's two things I can promise you. First I won't have a stupid smile on my face when I walk bank in, and second my reaction will be something to see.

I lie, I cheat at Monopoly and poker, but I am not a shoplifter. And they better have someone bigger than that 90 year old woman who stands at the door to accuse me of such a crime. That's what their doing every time that stupid alarm goes off on someone. I know it says, "You have activated the Walmart Security..blah blah blah." But it might just as well say, "Hey, everyone look, this guy's trying to steal something.

But I'll also add this. I'll go home or they'll call the police, but they won't go through my bags. Ain't no ninety year old woman going to go through my boxer shorts.

Whatever happened to the days when everyone smiled and thanked you for shopping with them? I've had girls at fast food restaurants say "Thank you have a nice day," and somehow make it sound like "Eat poop and die."

I'm certain there is an employee whipping machine in the back of Walmart. All the employees walk around with big frowns like they've been beaten. I heard two the other day discussing work benefits at K-Mart.

But is it so hard for them to at least smile from time to time? It's not like smiling adds any work to your day, it doesn't make your teeth sweat.

I try to smile every day, no matter how many imbeciles I encounter. When someone angers me, I just think to myself, "My, but you're quite dumb aren't you." Sometimes I screw up and say this out loud. Either way, it still makes me smile.

But I assume smiling can be a risky business. I understand an employee of the Safeway Food Chain filed suit against the store for making her smile. She said customers sometimes mistook her smile for flirting leading to unwanted advances. Sort of sounds to me like the people that shop at Safeway don't get out much.

People have just lost that touch of human behavior called being nice. Look at the singles ads in the Sunday paper. Back in the 80's there were ads that said, "Looking for a mature man, interested in a Christian relationship." Today we find ads of women looking for men soon to be paroled. I'm telling you, this is because nobody smiles any more.

But businesses tell their employees to say this or that at checkout time. This is to give us consumers the impression that this sixteen year old wonder of modern education really cares if we have a nice day. "Thank you, have a nice day!" That's the only line they have to learn, it's hardly Macbeth is it? But it's above the sort of employee one can pick up for minimum wage. I had a young lady at K-Mart the other day ask me if I'd like to supersize my order. As I was buying boxer shorts, I didn't know whether to be offended or flattered. I think this was when I thought, "You're quite dumb aren't you?" Only I didn't think it, I said it out loud.

I used to work for this guy who wanted me to ask customers what they're looking for and then take them to it. Not simply point across the store and say, it's probably in aisle seven and if it's not, we don't carry it. Along the way he wanted me to suggest other products that might go with what they're looking for. For example, if someone came up to me, I would ask them, "Can I help you find something?" They would reply in the affirmative.

They would inform me of what they're looking for such as, "I'm looking for a cheap motel." I would, by this employeers rules, be expected to take this person to a cheap motel and along the way suggest they also purchase a can of Raid. Isn't hard to see why I didn't keep this job is it?

But if I ran a big store like Walmart, I'd do things differently. All of my employees would wear electrified feather underwear. It'd be voice activated so that if anyone spoke to them the feathers would start twitching and tickle my employee.

It probably wouldn't do you any good to ask them where anything is, as they'd just start laughing so hard they'd wet themselves. But then again, it does no good to ask anyway. At least my employees would be fun to watch.

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