Sunday, November 22, 2009

Retail Rant Revisited - Episode Four - Five Yard Penalty For Too Much Information!

I'm a nice person. (Mostly) And a friendly person. (Usually) I work face to face with the public daily, so I keep my snarkiness in check and plaster on a smile so wide my face hurts most days. I make small talk. I help customers. I'm very good at my job.

But would someone please tell me why there are people out there who have this urge to share more than is really necessary during these typically brief encounters?

For example - When asking me for help in finding a photo frame - I expect the occasional story about grandkids, or family life. That's a given. But I've had people go on and on, their mouths running like leaky faucets about divorces, surgeries, affairs, diseases, deaths-there seems to be no end.

Do I really need to hear about your knee surgery and actually see your scar to help you find a frame?

Do I need you to spend fifteen minutes telling me about your neighbor's affair and subsequent divorce to direct you to the silk flowers?

Do I have to know what happened the past six months of your life in order to recommend a good craft paint for wood?

I REALLY think not.

Have we become a society so devoid of emotional contact with others that we have to find a captive audience and pour out the intimate details of our lives to strangers that we've known all of thirty seconds?

WHAT is up with that?

Just the other day, my coworker helped a man fit a poster into a frame. At the end of the transaction, the man decides to share that rainy days make him horny. I hardly think that's appropriate conversation.

A simple "thank you for helping me" would suffice nicely, don't you think?

But again, maybe it's just me.

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