Far From The Madding Tools

I think even the most jaded observer of this irregular column will confess that I am nothing if not a sensitive and sympathetic chronicler of the infinite variety of human tools who walk through the door of the store where, a couple of nights a week, I engage in an elaborate charade of employment. I don't blame tools for being tools: I don't ascribe to them genetic defects, neither do I suggest their parents shared a degree of relationship closer than that which you'd typically find in, say, Arkansas or far north Queensland. No, I am conscientious and kind: tools are just tools, and I deal with them in a responsible and grown-up manner.

Until now, that is. I, dear reader, have had a gut full. And it's not just because I'm writing this at the end of a long and tiring day that has left me exhausted and cranky. On the contrary, I wake up exhausted and cranky, so that's no excuse. Neither have I lost my instincts toward the charitable and decided to become a born-again bastard; there are plenty of people out there who will suggest that I have been doing that my whole life long.

No, the plain old simple truth is that I'm fed up and I've had enough. The tools have worn me down; my patience is at an end, kaput, done, gone. I'm as mad as hell, and I've decided that attack is the best form of defence; so I'm going to name and shame. Well, I'm going to describe and shame, if you want to know the complete truth. I'm going to tell you all about the kinds of tools who walk into the store, and who blight my shifts with their ineffable toolishness.

So if you find yourself recognising yourself in the following descriptions, I have only one thing to say: shame on you! Well, okay, two things: shame on you; and sod off. I don't want to see your tool-benighted faces any more. I've only got nine or so months to go before I get out of having to do this job, and I'd like to pass it with an absolute minimum of frustration, annoyance, and general f*ing about caused by your toolish selves. And by absolute minimum, I mean none at all. So pay close attention to what follows; you may be in it. And if you are, you'd better stay far, far away from me!

No IDers

Naturally, being responsible corporate citizens, the multinational corporation by whom I am ultimately employed abides by Australian law and declines to sell cigarettes and smoking-related products to persons under the age of 18. Indeed, its sales staff are required to ask for ID when they have reason to believe the putative purchaser may be under the legal age. And so it comes as no surprise that Yours Truly has his fair share of annoyingly baby-faced adults from whom he must ask ID because they look under age; that, and the obvious under agers who are just trying it on because they think that wearing a shirt with a company logo embroidered in it automatically makes you a moron.

It is from both categories that the No IDers spring, and it's difficult to decide which of the two are more pathetic. From the legally-aged but disgustingly youthful brigade you often get protestations that they are over-age, and besides, they've always bought cigarettes here and they've never been asked for ID before. They might be right on both accounts; but the thing is, once ID has been asked for, it must be produced before the sale can proceed. Yes, sir, it might be bullshit, but it's the law. Yes, madam, I know you may be old enough to have children, but around here the age at which people start having kiddies is also somewhat below the legal age of consent. And anyhoo, you might have previously purchased your daily dose of throat cancer from this store, but you haven't purchased it from me. And I'm the one asking: so cough up or step off.

The under agers usually try to bluff their way out of the situation - yes, mate, I am for f*ing real - and then try and get one of their mates who happens to be above age to use their ID. Except that, once it is explained to aforesaid mate that since he/she is the one producing the ID, he/she is the one who'll have to pay for the cigarettes (and once again, yes mate, I am for f*ing real), they baulk at the near king's ransom it costs to indulge the nicotine habit these days and tell their under age mate to take a hike. Which usually results in a mouthful of deleted expletives heading my way from the frustrated law breaker; but hey, what the hell do I care?

But the thing that elevates (or should that be relegates?) No IDers from annoying inconveniences to outright tools is the little ritual they then perform in yet another attempt to get the cigarettes without having to show proof of age. Having been busted with no ID, they proceed to go out to their cars, where they make an unconvincing attempt to look as though they're going through their glove box, looking under the seats, and generally investigating every nook and cranny in search of the missing ID. How unconvincing is this display, you wonder? Put it this way: my attempts to look as though I give a toss about customer service are more convincing!

Anyhoo, having wasted another five minutes, the No IDer then returns to the store and explains that they must have left their ID at home. In other words, they expect me to say: Oh, that changes everything! Of course you can have some cigarettes! Except, of course, that I don't, much to their dismay and puzzlement. But here's the interesting point: having confessed that they don't have ID with which to buy cigarettes, the No IDer then confesses to being in possession of, and driving, a motor vehicle while not having their driver's licence on their person! And yes, folks, you're not mistaken: driving a car while without a driver's licence is illegal. These people are such tools they're willing to confess to one illegality in order to try and co-opt me into perpetrating another.

Excuse me, but I don't believe my name changed to Cletus, nor did I suddenly take to wearing blue overalls and a straw hat, or develop a liking for pork belly and Biblical literalism. Ergo, I'm not a moron, you moron! But, try as I may to dissuade the No IDer from their particular brand of Tom Toolery, they continue to try it on in the vain hope of feeding their nicotine addiction. The only question that remains is: did they take up smoking because they were born congenital tools to begin with; or did smoking, insidiously and by degrees, turn them into idiocy's equivalent of the Bride of Chuckie?

PIN Heads

The next category of tool to plague my life is the PIN Head. These are the people who step up to the counter, usually during a rush period, and, try as they might, can either not remember the PIN number to their cash/credit card, or who repeatedly get it wrong. The end result is a queue that started out long but grows to proportions so large passers-by join it because they think its the line to get into Sexpo, a surprise discount give-away, or both.

It used to be that I had some sympathy for PIN Heads. Afterall, who among us in this digital age of swipe cards, security access, and internet banking isn't plagued by an ever-expanding list of PIN numbers, personal ID codes, and passwords? Afterall, security experts tell us to never use the same PIN number or identification code twice, don't they? But what they don't tell us is how we're supposed to avoid the inevitable embolism that results from trying to keep track of all the numbers, letters, and combinations of same we're required to use in order to prevent ourselves from being ripped of or mistaken for someone we're not. Because we can't, not unless we write them all down - and we're not allowed to do that either, are we????

So, anyhoo, I used to sympathise. But not anymore! Because the thing I've noticed about the PIN Heads is that it's the same people every time! Whether it's the little old lady who isn't functioning properly because she hasn't had her recommended daily dose of G&T, or the party-too-hard twenty-something for whom life outside a rave, five cans of Red Bull, and a blister-pack of little yellow tabs resembles a permanent exercise in somnambulism, the PIN Head can be relied upon to turn up at the most inconvenient moment possible and turn what had been a typically mundane and mind-numbing shift into living hell.

Because, of course, the PIN will strike out twice and then come to the dilemma of trying to decide whether or not to risk a third attempt at getting their PIN number right (and potentially voiding their card) or else go to the ATM and get some cash with which to pay for their purchases. Except, of course, the ATM neds a PIN number in order to dispense the bucks, doesn't it? So that means the PIN Head will just dither in an ever-increasing welter of anxiety, not knowing what to do. Meanwhile, the other customers start getting impatient as the mood in the store deteriorates from bored indifference to hostile aggravation.

Oooooh, you can just feel the love. And you all know at whom it's directed, don't you? WRONG! Not at the PIN Head, but at Yours Truly. As if I had any say in the fact that our customers belong to various sub-species of tool! Believe me, I wish I could restrict our clientele to the members of MENSA. But I don't have that kind of power. I wonder who does...

Wrong Numbers

This particular tool used to be relatively rare, but has now grown to plague proportions. Indeed, so ubiquitous have they become that I'm thinking of calling in the exterminators to deal with the problem. Yes, I am aware that having this variety of tool eradicated will qualify - just - as mass murder; but I'm sure that, given the inestimable benefits to humanity to be derived from their elimination, any trial of Yours Truly would result in triumphant acquittal.

The variety of tool known as Wrong Numbers are characterised by a propensity to confuse the dollar amount on the bowser with the litres readout whenever they put fuel in their car. I know, I know: of course it's absolutely reasonable for anyone to confuse the spinning numbers next to the large "$" sign with the spinning numbers next to the large "litres" sign. I mean, what, afterall, is there to tell you that one indicates the amount of money you're spending, while the other details the amount of fuel you've pumped into the tank? It's not as if there's a large "$" sign for one and a large "lites" sign for the other! Oh, wait, yes, there is...

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr! It's bad enough when this happens once on a shift, because invariably the tool, having confused the cost indicator for the fuel indicator, has also completely ignored the fact that we're now in the 21st century and that a $20 purchase will not result in 33.24 litres of petrol. And so into the shop they blithely waltz, only to discover their error and the fact that they don't have enough money and that - surprise! surprise! - they've left their bloody credit card at home. Which means they then have to fill out a whole lot of paperwork giving their details, offering proof of identity (another occasion on which the No IDer makes an appearance), and committing to making repayment within 24 hours (in default of which they get a nasty phone call from the wallopers). Yours Truly then has to record the whole thing as a drive off, and fill in sundry other bits and pieces in order to assure my employer that I haven't actually recorded a false entry and bunked off with the cash myself.

So, as you can see, it's an administrative nightmare. But when it happens not once, or twice, but three times on the same shift (a shift, incidentally, made all the more wonderful by system failures and the usual procession of dweebs and delinquents who make my life the existential joyfest that it is) you'll appreciate the desperate need I experience to strangle the crap out of the next person who even speaks to me. And this need is made all the more urgent by the fact that the Wrong Numbers tool invariably argues with you, insisting instead that they were looking at the right indicator and that my computer screen must be wrong. Even when I walk them out to the bowser and show them that I'm not making a mistake (achieved by pointing out to them the "$" and "litres" signs and explaining the difference) some of them still insist that they were not mistaken and that the "computer" must have somehow "changed" the amounts!

And that, Your Honour, is when I went berserk and ripped their tonsils out through their nostrils...

Be Seeing You

In many respects, the Be Seeing You tool is the worst one of all, because you don't even get an inkling that you're in their presence until it's far too late. And that's because this variety of tool doesn't expose themself until after they've swiped their card in the reader and try to enter their PIN number. No, I know what you're thinking; but it's not No IDer syndrome again. These tools know their PIN numbers all too well - they just can't see the keypad in order to enter the wretched thing!

No kidding, this is the tool who drives to the store, fills up with petrol, and then can't enter their PIN number because they've left their glasses at home! Yes, let me say that again: these tools have driven their car without being able to see further than the distance between their face and the card reader which is right there in front of them on the counter! Which part of this proposition is the more frightening, I wonder: the fact that these tools get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle to begin with, already a dangerous thing in itself; or that they do so thinking that it's okay to drive said vehicle while possessing less visual capacity than Mr Magoo!

I jest not, ladies and gentlemen, watching these tools as they myopically fumble with the card reader and ask if they've pushed a 9 or entered their account type is more terrifying than the prospect of spending eternity locked in a room with Eddie Maguire, Kyle Sandilands, and Pauline Hanson while endless repeats of Buffy the Tool Slayer play in the background. Because you just know these visually challenged morons are going to repeat this behaviour over and over again. No, it's not just occasional forgetfulness or a "senior's moment" - they're judgementally deficient, permanently!

I'm just waiting for the day when a car comes sailing through the front door and, before I can think: shit! I'm being ram-raided and try and call the cops, some tool sticks his head out the drivers side window and asks if this is the car wash entrance. One certainly wonders what, in their befuddled state, they think traffic lights are: pretty, twinkly lights in the sky, maybe? I tell you, it gives me the shudders...

So there are, another run down of the weird and wonderful world of tools who walk into a convenience store on a regular basis. And it doesn't end there. But that's a rant for another day...

Talk to you soon,

BB

Thought for the Day: Hell is other people. (Jean-Paul Sartre)