Monday, October 22, 2012

Dear "Grown Ups'

If you are reading this, and you are over the age of thirty years old, prepare to be insulted- or stop reading.



Ready?

Guess what? You are NOT entitled to be assholes! I'm terribly sorry if some of you find this offensive, but with ten years of service industry work under my belt at this point in time, I have a very strong conviction that this insight needs to be shared with you.

There seems to be this misunderstanding that adolescents are incapable of making their own decisions, or behaving in a polite fashion, or participating in society. I would really appreciate it if all you bigoted "adults" would throw this notion to the wind and actually look at the people around you. In the last three years, I can count on one hand the amount of times I have been disrespected, or had issues with people between the ages of 12 and 25. In the last three days, I have been treated like garbage, been disrespected and told that I am incapable of making accurate decisions, doing my job and bettering society by more middle aged women than I care to remember. One of them, was so rude I had to lock myself in a freezer at work for almost ten minutes to keep me from telling them where to go and how to get there.

For those of you who think that teens are incapable of speaking their mind, accessing their emotions productively or curtailing their behaviour, I would dare you to look around the churches, schools and community centres. Who is there doing the majority of the "heavy" work? What makes how they are participating worth less than the 50 year olds contribution? Is it the fact that the fourteen year old hasn't had fourty years of out dated education and experience in a society that is adapting and changing on a seasonal  (let alone annual) basis? Or is it because they ask you to fill out a form for them at the end of the day.

I have found in my experience as a baby sitter, nursury worker, volunteer, and most importantly as a service worker, that the older you get, the more entitled you seem to feel you are to be indignant, rude. abusive, and intolerant. It's time somebody finally disciplined you and told you YOU'RE GROUNDED and if you haven't anything nice to say, shut your mouth and stay at home. Cause guess what? When I get a rude kid in at work and I speak to them in a reasonable tone and tell them to knock it off they usually will and if they don't, they face the consequences of having to deal with a manager or their parents, depending on the circumstance. Typically all I have to do is speak to a teenager or child once in a respectful tone that doesn't treat them like an imbecile and trusts their judgement and for some reason I usually get a positive result. Yet.... treating a fifty year old as a reasonable adult with a respectful tone and trusting that they will have learned to be polite gets the exact opposite reaction.

I love my job. I love providing service and help to people whether it is at Subway, at the Theater where I worked before, I loved baby sitting, volunteering with different organizations. I know everyone will have a bad day at some point, but your mindset is within your control and you are NOT ENTITLED to take your bad day out on those you encounter in society. Until you learn to be polite, mind your manners, use your please and thank yous, avoid spreading gossip, or being an asshole in general, do the world a favor and lock yourself in your room because you are not contributing the general welfare of society. You are hindering it. You don't know if that clerk you just yelled at is working a 12 hour shift on her birthday because two people called off. You know that cashier you just screamed at because they don't accept a coupon you printed off an email with no barcode on it has no personal ability to fix it, and just because you have grey hair does not necessarily mean you are over 65 so be gracious about it- after all, isn't wisdom supposed to come with age? Pick your stupid battles wisely.

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