Make the world go away

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Sometimes it’s hard to keep your lips zipped shut when working in the world of product demos.  I wonder how some of the people where I work have been there ten years.  The customers really pull so much crap that you’d love to reach out and bop them on the head, but all we can do is smile and offer them samples.

All of us are abused by the “shoppers” on a daily basis and no one seems to think anything of it except all of us doing the demos.  It’s the normal life of the demo person to let customers abuse us and say outlandish things all day.  I’ve only been there a year and a half and I already have plenty of stories for a book. 

Sometimes I wish things were different and we had people to back us up, but they say the customer is always right.  The only time that goes out the window is if another customer is taking on a fellow customer.

Not only do we have to cook and prepare samples to hand out, we have to clean up all the spills and messes left by the customers during the day.  We don’t want a mishap to come along so everything stops until we sweep or wipe up a spill, change gloves and resume our duties behind our food cart.

I’m always amazed at how oblivious the customers are if they spill something.  They simply walk away and leave it, or step on it.  I know half of them know they dropped something.  Do they expect us to clean up after them?  What do their houses look like?  Do they leave things there that they drop on the floor?

And sometimes this is deliberate as was the case the other week when one of my coworkers was doing a demo for popcorn, which we all call “drop corn.”  Once that cup is picked up half of it immediately falls on the floor.  It’s stepped on, rolled over with shopping carts and kicked down the isle while we’re trying to sweep it up.  One gentleman deliberately spilled his entire sample cup on the floor in front of the demo person.  I guess he wasn’t a gentleman after all.

Not long ago, another gal was cooking shrimp and an older man took the entire sample tray and ran down the isle when she put it out for the crowd waiting.  We’ve had people come up behind us and use our spatula to remove things off the grill because they were tired of waiting and wanted to eat.

People always make smart remarks daily.  A guy asked if a cheese stick was a suppository.  The demo person told him to let him know how it works out for him.  That was great thinking.  Usually I’m not that fast with a comeback, but maybe someday I will be if I stay at this job much longer.

Most of the time when the day is over I’m driving home thinking make the world go away if we have to wait on anymore stupid and inconsiderate people.  There are always exceptions to this, thank goodness, but they’re few and far between.