What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

One thing that makes working the returns desk at Target relatively palatable is that we have a very loose returns policy. Do you have a receipt or form of payment I can trace this purchase to? No? How about a driver's license? Is this resellable (presuming it is not already visibly so)? Okay, here's your refund. Wham, bam, thank you for choosing Target. No long-winded explainations are necessary. You can go now. Thank you.

The first frame was just my astonishment that people actually return crap from the Dollar Spot. I may be shameless enough to bust out the Moonwalk at random in the grocery aisle, but even I have my limits.

Working in customer service naturally privileges me to examine an expansive cross-section of humanity. In stark contrast to those who suffer from diarrhea of the mouth, I get to witness a
healthy sampling of a subspecies I have yet to be able to completely comprehend or define. They somewhat resemble a side branch of the Darwin scale which spun off somewhere around the Cro Magnon. To dismiss them as merely quiet or antisocial is to ignore the subtext of their deeply disturbing absence of evolutionary hallmarks. Sometimes I am amazed to even see that they have opposable thumbs. Although they sporadically display the ability to formulate complete sentences, they tend to primarily grunt and flail their way through the bulk of their transaction. I contend that these life forms are the reason that Denny's has pictures on their menu; so they can merely point and grunt at what they would like to order. In fact, last time I ate at Denny's, I saw just such an occurrence transpire. A presumably upper-middle class lady literally pointed to the Moons Over Mi-Ham-i and mumbled as the means of placing her order. To be fair, though, she was too engaged in an inappropriately loud conversation into her Bluetooth to be bothered to address her lowly server with any level of civility.

I concede that the notion that this guest was laden with feces and ate her refund was more a matter of general impression than hard fact, but the rest of the elements are pretty much verbatim. The scary part was that this person worked at a hospital, and as such, her astute perception and keen responsiveness may well mark the difference of life or death to someone.

Inside voices, folks!

Team Member X