09-10-2016, 01:20 PM
(09-10-2016, 01:22 AM)taramarie Wrote:(09-10-2016, 01:11 AM)gabrielle Wrote:(09-07-2016, 09:05 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Having worked in retail soon after graduating from college (d@mned undiagnosed Asperger's!), I can tell you that retail sales clerks are among the laziest, stupidest, materialistic, and hollowest people that you will ever meet in the workplace. Those who don't fit that pattern simply took the job in desperation and believe that it is easier to get a job elsewhere if one can work nights and weekends (employers find such people hard to find and will accommodate that) and interview for jobs by day. Some go into the work saying things like "I don't want to be a mere office clerk or assembly-line worker"... and three months later they are happy that they got a job as an office clerk or an assembly-line worker. Turnover is high enough that someone can often get into a low-level managerial job (with similar pay and more responsibility) within a year. But being a 'manager trainee' means little on a curriculum vitae. People who have any intellectual substance or work ethic don't stay on that job for long. "Office clerk" has more promise for someone with a college degree.
Id you wonder why the traditional department store has practically disappeared in America (Kohl's, one of the biggest chains in America, has gone to a grocery-style checkout, which may be good for thwarting shoplifting) ... it's because American shoppers have caught on. If you want good advice on merchandise at Wal*Mart, then ask a fellow customer.
I work retail. I work for a mid-size company that buys and sells books, games, music, movies, toys, comics and collectibles. I am in charge of the book section, and we have a fairly large one in our store, thousands of titles. I have a bachelor's degree in history. It's not a prestigious or high paying job, but I like what I do. I don't want an office job, sitting at a desk all day long, getting fatter and more unhealthy, doing boring repetitive work and seeing only the same few faces every day (whom I may or may not even like). I sure as hell wouldn't want to be an assembly line worker. I love books, love to see new titles and interesting things people bring in to sell. I get to move around all day, shifting and shelving merchandise and keeping relatively fit, and occasionally do creative stuff like build and arrange my own displays. A lot of families come into my store, and it's fun to help kids find the books and toys they want and show them books I liked as a kid. I suppose I am not a terribly ambitious person, but I don't think I am "lazy, stupid, materialistic, and hollow." And I like the majority of people I work with, thanks in large part due to shared interests related to the merchandise we sell. Only a small minority over the years have proven to be dishonest.
The irony of you writing that ignorant passage immediately following a criticism of Galen's prejudice against vegans. "What people say about the rest of humanity as a whole says what that person is himself."
Sorry everyone, had to get that off my chest. Carry on with your Trump vs Clinton, red/blue divide conversation.
Btw i understand you getting it off your chest. It was totally called for. Hopefully it will educate a certain someone.
I was talking about the traditional department store, and I know of what I speak. The pay is near-minimum wage, so one can just imagine the quality that one finds among their employees. In a recession they might get someone with an 'unmarketable' college degree... who of course hates the job. Bookstores and (when they existed) record stores attracted a different sort of person. People can love the written word and the musical phase as I do, and that humanizes them.
I do spend time in bookstores, and I enjoy books. But bookstores seem to be a dying business.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.